I'm thinking a logging railroad dumping logs in the river.

I think that sort of thing would have been common in Washington and Oregon in days gone by where the logs would be dumped into a river, lashed together and floated downstream to the mill.

HO traction cars can loop back easily within 30"

And one or two little steeple cabs can do a heck of a lot of industrial switching and take short cars round similar radii.  PE had several coastal an mountain scenic inclines and ports. The Sacramento Northern had a train ferry actually in the route.  And the various car types often pop up inexpensively now on EBay.

Carstens had a "Traction Handbook" which has several interesting layouts about that size and shape. 

Just a thought . . . . .

That's a nice though but I've

That's a nice though but I've just never really been into the traction scene.

I Second the Logging Idea

I think a small port on the west coast, with a logging railroad negotiating a number of switchbacks as it climbs up the hillside would work very well in the space you described.

The port area could have a sawmill and maybe even a lumber schooner to ship out the forest products.

George

Do you know of Lance Mindhiem?

Noah I'm not sure if you are familiar with Lance Mindheim's books  http://lancemindheim.com/bookstore.htm.  He has books of plans and how to plan in spaces like yours.   They are designed for HO and generally with 18" 24" radius curves.  With your era you could go even tighter or leave it as is.

I have the whole series and can recommend them.  I like the thought process how Lance shows you how we got to his idea rather than just presents them for you to take at face value. These are well worth your time for ideas you can you use or cheery pick parts to incorporate in your own design.   You can tweak them for your era, local and industry base as needed

I hope this helps.  I look forward to seeing the progress.

Steve

Tough to get both

That's going to be tough to get both the mine and the harbor into an L with 10 feet on each side.  A lot of it depends on how involved you want the switching to become and how many cars you want on a train.  If you are into really short trains, an engine and four or five 24 ft ore cars its easier.  That makes each train about 2 ft long, allow a foot for a switch, that makes a switchback about 12-14 ft long.  You will want  a number of switchbacks so the harbor and mine end up on opposite legs.  That makes about 3" of rise per switchback max, or a max of about 8-9" between the harbor and mine.

Assume the layout is one long bench about 20 ft long.  Divide its diagonally into two areas.  The front left I will call the port and the back right the mine.  The actual mine or port scene is only about half to 3/4 the depth of the bench.  Put a mine scene on a flat level in the mine area, it can be 6-8 ft long, so can be fairly complex, but long and narrow.  The track runs more or less level to the left end (elev 9"), then switches back down tho the right end, with a 3 ft level spot on the right end (elev 6"), then switches back down to the left end with a 3 ft level spot on the left end (elev 3").  There is another switch back to the right end (elev 0"). The line then shoves back into the port which is a scene about 6-8 ft long in the front half to 3/4 of the left end.

Just a thought.

Not too concerned about train

Not too concerned about train length. As far as short trains I mean.  As far as the harbor, I don't really have anything very elaborate in mind. Just a small area of "water" with a very small ore dock type structure. Something like MC Fujiwara did on his  N scale Mt. Coffin layout. The rest of the harbor could be considered "off layout"  Same thing with the mine....maybe one nicely detailed structure nestled behind a ridge with the suggestion that the whole complex goes beyond that and is much bigger. A couple of hidden spurs to deposit empties and pull loads out of maybe. Would also like to include something that might require a boxcar or two of some type of freight to add a little variety. Just thinking out loud here. It's possible for me to maybe extend the width of  one corner of the layout enough to work in an 15 or 18 radius "turnback" curve.

The room I'm in is 10x13 feet. It's a spare bedroom but it also has my computer/office desk in it as well as a work table. I could get rid of the work table I guess and just set up a card table when needed to build stuff. I was trying to use my existing benchwork/valance structure but if it required ripping it out and starting over, then so be it. I'm just not much of a track planning guy. Unfortunately I don't have the finances to pay for a design either.

I used to work in HO but I've been in N scale so many years now that it's hard to visualize space requirements for HO now. N is easy in this room.

Mining and Logging suggestion from Northern Minnesota

The Mesabi iron range in northern Minnie had and still has a lot of open pit iron ore mines, and these included a huge number of switchbacks to get ore cars to the bottom of the pits for shovel loading.  Cars were delivered to Class 1 railroads like the Great Northern or Duluth, Missabe and Iron Range for hauling to Lake Superior ore dock shiploading.

Up to about 1930, the area had a lot of virgin yellow and white pine forests as well.  The local logging roads and even the DM&IR’s predecessors hauled logs from the woods or logging camps to nearby mills, and finished dimensional lumber from those mills to larger Class 1 railroads, sometimes even to some Lake Superior harbor towns.

The late Frank A. King wrote two great books on the DM&IR, and one on Northern Minnesota logging railroads, and all include details from your preferred era.

As others have pointed out, it may be difficult to go from mine/logging camp to lakeside on your allotted space.  Still, there are compact examples to pick from.  But, sorry, no mountains to speak of other than the lake basin around Lake Superior.

Milt

Expand your horizons

I'm sure the main business will be ore, but you need to expand your horizons to some other business or it will be deadly boring to operate.  How many times in a row will running 4 empties to the mine, bring 4 loads to the port, 4 empties up, 4 loads down, 4 empties up, 4 loads down take before your eyes glaze over.  You should think about passenger business (miners to the mine), food, and supplies.

Don't get so hung up on the whole HO to N thing.  Get a left and right hand switch in your favorite brand, photocopy them a bunch of times.  Get a roll of brown wrapping paper and cut a piece as long and wide as one of your legs.  Spread it out on the floor, cut out the switch templates, and start playing around on the floor moving switches around on the paper.  Get a couple cars (or pieces of paper cut out to the same size as cars and engines) and set them were the track would be to visualize how things fit.

Worst case scenario.  You are in N scale, a 10x10 HO layout would be about a 5' 6' x 5'6" layout in N.  If you were still in N, what could you put in that space?

The more vertical separation you want between the mine and the port, the more "wedding cake" it will look.

Alternative is to emphasize the either the port or the mine and represent the other by staging.

I certainly understand and

I certainly understand and agree with what you're saying. The comment I made about having something that requires boxcar freight is seeded in having more variety and avoiding boredom. The more I think about it the more I believe I'm just going to have to start over from scratch in this room. I may even abandon the multi level trackage and switchback options.  I'm lucky in that I have exclusive use of the room. I can arrange things anyway that I want.  The only "requirements" I have, and they're my own, is avoiding "island designs"and also duckunders and removable tracks across the door.  I really hate designs that have tracks across a door. Been looking at Byron Henderson's layout design site.  He has some really nice plans that could fit in here including a logger that could maybe be adapted. I have a lot to think about. I certainly appreciate everyone's comments. My usual internet haunt is an N scale site and it's kind of hard to do discussion of HO plans there.

Local Prototype

I'm planning to start designing a layout for my home office (read spare bedroom). While I'm hoping to wrap it around three walls, I know I can use two, so I have a similar space to yours. I'm also modeling in HO. 

My first thought was a switching layout of some type, but what? Then it hit me. The Coors Brewery is about 10 miles west of me in Golden, and I've seen the small yard they have down there as I drive by. I'm not a beer drinker, but I enjoy making and drinking mead (fermented honey). So I thought to myself, why not use the real brewery as the basis for the layout, but change it to a meadery instead? 

The Coors brewery has nearly four linear miles with tracks, a yard, and two large 4 - 6 track sidings. They also started producing porcelain for things like spark plugs, during prohibition. Modeling a single industry on the layout gives me a way to model a lot of switching opportunities in a realistic way, in the space that I have. I've used Google Maps to look at the track arrangement, and while mine won't be exact, I can certainly replicate parts of it.

You might look around your  area to see what you've got. You never know where inspiration might strike.

Rice, Rice, Baby

Check out Iain Rice's "White Mountain logger" layout in Shelf Layouts for Model Railroads for some groovy ideas in a similar space.

I'd stay away from switchbacks unless you're modeling a specific prototype: they take up moocho space and become tedious.

Alexander Zelkin's Degulbeef & Cradding RR (Sn3) is also very inspiring for the type of layout you're discussing.

Worse comes to worse you can mate a  Gum Stump & Snowshoe on one leg with a harbor scene on the other.

Fan of Rice

Thanks MC, will have to check that out. I'm a big fan of Iain Rice although I've seen some criticism of his plans as not being practical.  I wouldn't pretend to know but they sure are a wonderful source for ideas. The more thought I put into this, the more I think my best plan is to just scrap my existing N scale bench work and rearrange the room in a way that best accommodates the new HO scale venture. Not wild about switchbacks , I was kind of thinking they were my only option but if i just go ahead a bite the bullet and start fresh, I have a whole plethora of options in a 13X10 space. I've already decided to nix my "worktable" for sure. It's become more of a piling place than a work surface anyway.  A fold away card table  or some type of workbench that will roll under the layout when not in use will "force" me to be a little more organized.

At this point I'm not even married to the idea of the Climax as my first HO loco. My only absolute "MUST" right now are DCC and onboard sound and that it be a steamer.  I used to be a modern era diesel guy but got infected with "steamers disease" over at the N site I hang out at...LOL

10x13

With 10x13 you can have a peninsula jut out from one corner with a shelf along each wall.  Take a 4x8 sheet of plywood, cut a two foot triangle off the corners of the sheet on one end.  Put them on the other end to form a six sided piece and stick a pointy end in the corner.  Then put a 12-18 inch wide shelf along each wall.  Put a harbor on one shelf and a mine on the other shelf, with a modified figure 8 or folded dogbone on the peninsula.  You now have a point to point, with no switchbacks, a nice little run in the middle, no duckunders.

I made a layout like that for my son once, only I also cut the sheet of plywood across the 4 ft dimension at a 22 1/2 degree angle, then flipped one end so the table came out of the corner then made a bend to run parallel to the wall.  Fit better in the room.

Interesting thought. A little

Interesting thought. A little hard to visualize but I think your talking about something like what I saw on the web here http://www.pacificcoastairlinerr.com/4x8/where the  peninsula juts out into the room diagonally. I don't know if I can afford to dominate quite that much of the room. It's my space to do as I please but I have to have room for other uses. I've been really looking hard at Byron Henderson's site where he shows what one can do in an 8X10 space that a 4X8 sheet normally takes up when you account for the aisleways. Two plans of great interest to me are a room sized logger he designed for a paying customer and his take on the Virginian 4x8 that is currently being featured in MR. Both are walk in "waterwings" plans.  The logger uses handlaid fast track #4 turnouts so would need adaptation to use ready made turnouts. The variation on the Virgininan use Peco C75. Up until today I didn't know there was such a thing as Peco C75 and my normal supplier of choice, MBKlein, doesn't even carry them! I was planning on using Atlas code 83 flex and either Atlas or Peco code 83 turnouts for whatever design I decide on.

What sort of obstructions are in the room?

How many doors or doorways are there?  Are there any closets that need to be accessed?  If there are no other obstructions in the room, you could design bench work to start on one side of the door and go all the way around the room to the other side of the door.  I think for a work bench, I would get a small desk and put casters on it.  If it had drawers on one side, they would provide a place to store modeling supplies and tools when the desk is rolled under the bench work.  A couple of clamp on style spot lights that could be clamped to the fascia of the layout would provide excellent lighting for the work space when the desk was in use, and could be unplugged and put in a drawer when the desk is not in use.  An office chair could be rolled under the desk when it is put away under the bench work and both would be out of the way for operation of the layout.

No obstructions much

My computer desk is the only thing that is in here beside the existing N scale benchwork and the work table. There is a closet door on one wall. I've got three walls to play with. I've pretty much narrowed it down to the two plans on Byron Henderson's site that I already mentioned. Wish I could pay him to custom design me something but I just don't have that kind of funds. I may have to rethink some of my givens and druthers as far as the harbor and ore mining. Even a coal hauler would be OK if there were some excuse for other varieties of traffic besides endless strings of coal hoppers. Would have to be a western coal hauler though, even though I live in Georgia, Appalachian themed railroads are extremely boring to me scenery wise. Covering a hill in Lichen or "puff ball" trees is not my idea of ideal scenery.

layout ideas

A river port could also provide you with your nautical needs as well as containing near by mountains. The layout I am planning at present will represent a small section of a much larger free lanced system. Looking at google earth and examining cities and towns along rivers could give you a very good selection of possibilities. Just one example would be the Monongahela river in the Pittsburgh, Pa area. In the early part of the 20th century the annual tonnage moved on the "mon" was greater than the tonnage across the Atlantic between the United States and Europe. It comprised passengers, steel, coal, ore and basically anything else you could think of. The opportunity is there for you to find a trans load point for raw materials as well as incorporating a great deal of switching. Also if you look to bridging the room opening with a single track that can be raised for entry and exit you could get some nice continuous running with out unduly compromising your access.

One way to do this would be to use drawer hardware and mount the track on the face of the drawer and have it open vertically instead of the normal horizontal fashion. One would simply walk through what would normally be the bottom of the drawer. 

A good starting point . . .

is the venerable Port Ogden & Northern track plan.

See: http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/3664

The upper track that dead ends above the yard could curve across the yard on a trestle and move to a logging camp or mine.

Always loved that layout

But, I've changed my mind about a lot of my "givens and druthers" and now my "theme" is up in the air. I just decided to rip out my N scale layout, benchwork and all and reconfigure the whole room. I decided I wanted  continuous run capability and I found a plan on Byron Henderson's layout planning website that fits my needs...http://www.layoutvision.com/id56.html

I'm in the process of building the benchwork for this design now.  As I said theme is up in the air.  As designed it's a variation of an Appalachian coal hauler and it may well end up being just that if I can reconcile my dislike for "puffball tree scenery"  Whatever it becomes, I think I've given up my idea for a port scene because I just don't have the room to do that and everything else that's more important to me.

An Applachian coal hauler doesn't need "puff balltrees."

Look at Jon Grant's Sweethome Alabama.

http://www.the-gauge.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=5411&hilit=Sweethome+Alabama

I know that he posted here at the MRH forum, but I couldn't get the search to turn up anything so I grabbed a link to another forum where I go that Jon posts to.  He models the Ozarks or the Smoky Mountains rather than Appalachia, but a lot of the scenery methods would work.  You just probably don't see Spanish moss or weeping willows in Appalachia, but coal hauling in Appalachia definitely does not mean "puff ball" trees unless that is what you want to model.  

Re: Russ

I agree.  Don't like poly fiber puff balls?  Don't use them.  There are other ways to model trees, and plenty of Appalachian layouts that use other methods.  You already mentioned Jon Grant, I'll suggest Mike Burgett's C&O - Appalachia without a puff ball in sight http://www.cliftonforgediv.com/photos.htm.  The OP has cited Koester's AM here and elsewhere, but his current NKP has moved on from the puff balls as well.

"Puffball tree scenery"

That's the term I used and I guess I shouldn't have because what I was meaning to point out my dislike for was the whole endless tree canopy look that permeates some Appalachian layouts whether done with puffball trees or whatever. To be fair, the examples in the links above plus some other examples folks have shown in my other thread look really nice, much better than what I've seen in the past. In fact examples like those are the main reason I'm still considering the theme.

 HO is a new adventure for me, everything is open. The only thing I've settled on so far is the track plan.

Michael

Willows

I don't know if they are native but you can definitely find willows in Appalachia. Willows along the creek bottom of a coal hauling railroad would be prototypical.