The Eastborough Industrial
The track plan:
The layout represents the end of a freelanced industrial track - one of those tracks that branches off the main and winds a couple miles or so serving a few industries that seem to be more common than you might at first think. I've selected the industries to give me a mix of car types, car flows, and switching. The industries are all cribbed from real prototype industries in eastern Massachusetts, with varying degrees of modeler's license.
Why Eastborough? Eastborough is not a real town in Massachusetts, but it could be. There is a cluster of -borough's that includes Marlborough, Northborough, Westborough, and Southborough, but no Eastborough. So, the name Eastborough sounds plausible and for those familiar with the area makes you think of where it's imagined to be - somewhere near where routes 495 and 95 cross. The CSX mainline (formerly Boston & Albany) runs through Westborough, and the Fitchburg branch runs through Southborough, Marlborough, and Northborough. The Grafton & Upton shortline is nearby.
I haven't really decided for sure what railroad will do the switching. A plausible case could be made for CSX, perhaps the Grafton & Upton, or a fictional shortline.
Operation
At the start of a session, a train is made up in staging with the engine on the front end, ready to pull the train onto the layout. Train length can be anywhere from just a couple cars to a couple dozen cars, although somewhere around a dozen will probably be typical. The runaround that should be mostly adequate, but which will require a couple runaround moves to deal with the largest sessions. There are no tricks or switching puzzles, just some decent sized industries with a variety of needs.
The Industries
Trans Plastics
The biggest industry in terms of car count is Trans Plastics, lifted straight off my N scale Palmer Industrial Park plan, which was in turn lifted pretty much straight from the prototype Palmer Industrial Park. The prototype industry went out of business over 10 years ago unfortunately - smaller plastic transload operations seem to have difficulty. But I like the big plastic pellet hoppers and the car flow pattern and switching that creates so I'm modeling it anyway. Normally the industry will be mostly full, but like the prototype will only receive and release 1-4 cars a week. Cars are emptied apparently randomly since they get emptied by demand for what grade of plastic they contain. Spots are stuffed in wherever they fit, placement is not important.
National Lumber
National Lumber is cribbed from National Lumber on "The Chocolate" - an industrial park spur in Mansfield, MA. I like the large warehouse with the track only along half of it, and the two door spots on the warehouse, and the fact that the centerbeam unloading area is past the warehouse. I "improved" on reality to have 3 centerbeam spots instead of just one. There will be times when centerbeams are cycled through at a good clip, and times when there's no center beams and only a single boxcar at the warehouse. Cars will almost always be unloaded before the next switch, so there will rarely be respots.
Tighe
There are a three rail served Tighe warehouses in eastern Massachusetts - Mansfield, Winchester, and Woburn. I plan on cribbing the building appearance from the Mansfield warehouse, which has 9 doors spaced on 77 foot centers. I'll keep the spacing and general appearance, but trim it to 8 spots. There are rain diverters on the roof, which makes it easy to measure the spacing on a satellite photo, and which will make it easy to line the boxcar doors up with the warehouse doors on the model. This warehouse will take more switching moves per car to get the job done than the other industries. Each car will be billed to a specific door spot. Not all cars will be unloaded by the next session, so there will be some re-spots.
Broco Oil
Broco oil is inspired by the prototype Broco Oil in Haverhill MA which just started receiving biodiesel heating oil about a year ago and has been ramping up considerably, adding track, a trackmobile, new storage tanks, etc. My representation of it will need to make do with a single shorter track, but it's long enough to give a good feel of an active business. Since they only receive only B99.9 biodiesel tank cars are simply unloaded sequentially. The empties will always be at one end of the track, the respots (if any) at the other. Broco Oil will be easy to switch, but should allow for moving nice long cuts of tank cars in the process. Biodiesel tank cars are hazardous, with a 1202 placard, so there will be placement considerations getting ready to run back to staging.