Good afternoon, I've decided to start over. If anyone is interested, take a look at the attached basement floor plan. Anything to the right of the dotted line is designated area for the layout. I'm trying to develop a track plan with the following parameters:

Era: 80's - early 2000's

85 Ft Commuter Cars and Modern 6 axle Engine Freight Trains

Double Track Mainline

Lower Level Staging

Min 30 - 32" Radius Curves

Min #6 Fast Tracks Turnouts

One of the things I have wanted to capture was the look of an old single sheath boxcar in work service near the end of it's service life.  Like this one:

To that end I have been mulling over possible techniques to capture this look.  I liked the chipping technique that I have seen used very effectively on aircraft and military models, and decided this would be my way to do this.  

Ops seems to be very appealing for many of us; they go from simple one to even more complicated.

I' m working on a schematic of operations with trains schedule for my future extention of my Maclau River RR

I love ops ( not too complicated and I'm not a rivet counter of the organisation of ops; I don't ask to go to far too)

Real railroad company have time to time some trouble when they operate train on their line

I have five yard switchers that I run for fun only, as they do not belong in a small branch line terminus.

https://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/31151?page=27

I'm looking for ideas to create a small shelf diorama to display my switchers on.

Something that would indicate it is obvious it is in a yard. Perhaps a yard office or a water column between tracks?