That's a LITTLE tight...

Irish,

I think that is going to be difficult to accomplish.  If you are open to a little larger, Stein had a lot of great small to medium industrial/switching layouts.  Here is the link to his site:  http://home.online.no/~steinjr/trains/modelling/.

At 4 1/2' x 18" the first three would be a great start and with som minor changes could easily be added to a larger layout in the future.

I hope this helps.

Smile,

Ryan

Agree, a little small

You are basically talking a space that is 2 RR cars X 4 RR cars (assuming 40' HO cars) that "I want the place to accept a variety of cars".  Rural or "big city"?

The further you go back in era, the small the RR cars get and the less trucks had an impact on goods transferring so smaller is more feasible.  Additionally, less than car loads where still a way of doing business in that time.  First thoughts are Freight house/ team track concept, or even transfer & storage facility but limits the variety of cars.  Feed and Fuel - coal, oil grain in & out, milk cars? maybe even some heavy equipment in or even a lumber load could be justified. An unspecified manufacturing building that could change tenants as time marches on could work, also allows you to expand on a larger layout - farm equipment manufacturing in the 20's closed during the 30's, war goods in the 40's and just about anything come the 50's

Steve

More of a diorama

I quite possibly described what I want poorly.  I'm looking to build a small non-operating scene that can reasonably display a variety of equipment, yet later be incorporated into a layout for operations.  In sort, a good place to display and photograph a variety of locomotives and rolling stock, and also be a good place to practice scenery-building.

I second the team track

A small station (or a freight house, even better) with a team track can accommodate literally anything.  Since a lot of wooden combination depots were built in the '20s and are still standing today, some even with a team track still in use, that gives you about the widest possible range of eras and equipment.  Plus, a depot looks good as a backdrop for passenger equipment, and makes a great setting for mini-scenes of all sorts.

I like the station/team track suggestion

I like the station and team track idea. If you are more rural branch line then you could even model pulp wood loading on the team track. A ramp at the end would also allow flat cars for unloading farm equipment. Produce would be loaded in either boxcars, ventilated boxcars or refrigerator cars. A flat car/boxcar could unload lumber. In a video of the Southern shot in the 50s it shows a furniture company truck and crew unloading a boxcar.

For photos you could even park a baggage/passenger combine as if the mixed train dropped it for loading/unloading and went on down the branch.

If you also put in portable conveyor you could unload hoppers of coal, rock or sand.

I think the team track concept works best because of the variety and also regardless of era the smaller space does not really lend to an industry that would logically be rail served.

Bill Michael

Industry to model

If it is just a background for industries, I suggest looking at some of Jon Grant's Sweet Home Chicago for inspiration.

  https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sweethome-Chicago/158552070867956

willie

1'x2' is perfect for a Mini Mo

If you build it to FreeMo standards, it will be easy to take to a FreeMo setup and run trains on it; at home it will be a nice size for display (especially if you place it within a "U" shaped backdrop with coved corners).

Scale?

Probably not the answer you're looking for, but have you considered N scale? 1x2 is small, but you can build a much more convincing scene with N scale in that space than you can HO.

small industry feeders

Researched some interesting rail around my home town on Google maps and Streetview.  Always amazed if you take the time to look close...what shows up.

Diorama

Reality is cruel.

A #4 switch and turnout is about 14-16 in long (if you make the industry track minimum clearance to the main and parallel).  Otherwise a switch would be about a foot from the points to the clearance point (if you make the industry track diverge at a #4 frog angle).

That gives you somewhere in the range of 8-12 inches of spur, about one car length unless you are doing ore cars or twin hoppers.

Plus it moves the "industry" to one half to one third the end of the module.  With a short space it makes even a team track tough to model   If you put in a loading dock that blocks off other options like coal unloading,  an end ramp will shorten the spur.

You might want to consider losing the switch.  You aren't operating it now so you have zero need of a switch really.  Just model a spur and main track, no switch.  That gives you more room in the middle for an industry.  

You are looking at an AWFULLY

You are looking at an AWFULLY small space for an HO layout - Just about the smallest OPERABLE layout in HO that I can think of is at  http://www.carendt.com/small-layout-scrapbook/page-93-january-2010/ ( one of mine and the second one down) at 32" x 8" - You MIGHT be able to squish a couple more inches out. It only allows you to use 2x 26' Taconite ore cars and a Bachmann MDT or a trackmobile (with converted front coupler) but if that is all the space you can spare.......

Further thought suggests another of mine in 33" x 6"  http://www.carendt.com/micro-layout-design-gallery/traversertransfer-table-lines/ fourth down - as I say - that is an awfully small space for a layout, and believe me - I've had a LOT of practice at making small space operable HO layouts!