CSX Cincinnati Industrial in HO

[CincinnatiKid]

My wife and I recently moved to a new home and she's graciously granted me access to half of the garage for a new layout. I have decided to go back to HO scale but the size restrictions of the garage means I'll have to keep the layout somewhat small. I have roughly 8x15 ft to work with and still allow room to park a car and store other crap in the other half of the garage. Here's the first iteration of the design. I'm hoping to add staging/yard on the far left in the future but for right now I am fine with a loop and some industries. Track in Atlas Code 83 and all turnouts are No. 6. Any input would be appreciated.

[Philip H]

Welcome aboard! This looks like a simple and achievable layout - Do you have a prototype you are working from?

Tangentially this is my current favorite modern era garage HO layout - maybe you will find some of his ideas useful:

[packers#1]

Oooo, an industrial layout set in Cincy! I spent a summer up there and the place I was interning was within a business park served by a CSX spur up at the top of I276; I can’t remember the name of the town but it was the same exit as Tri County mall. Where I interned didn’t have rail service, although the building it was in at one time did. However, there was a storopack film packaging place that got covered hoppers and a Univar place that looks like it was a big transloading terminal for chemicals. I mostly played disc golf and hit up the breweries there, but I’m looking forward to seeing what you do to bring in that unique Cincy flavor!

[CincinnatiKid]

I've radically altered my track plan and I'll post a schematic later but in the meantime, I had a question about construction materials.
I'm planning on building a simple frame out of 1x3s and using pink foam as my surface. The layout will be in my garage and it gets kinda humid in the summers here in Southwest Ohio. What are the chances of my benchwork warping?

[Philip H]

Dimensional lumber can warp - plywood less so. Painting it on every face with a couple coats of quality paint should help.

[Jesse6669]

Oooo, an industrial layout set in Cincy! I spent a summer up there and the place I was interning was within a business park served by a CSX spur up at the top of I276; I can’t remember the name of the town but it was the same exit as Tri County mall.

Fairfield?  You're thinking I275.  Tropicana's 3PL used to get reefers up there (not sure if they still do) of FCOJ and package it up for consumers, and CSX has an auto unloading facility there as well.

[Jesse6669]

Sounds interesting!  Lots of possibilities, proto or freelance.  Let me know if you need pics of anything (if you aren't local to begin with) since I live here.  - Jesse 

[packers#1]

Fairfield?  You're thinking I275.  Tropicana's 3PL used to get reefers up there (not sure if they still do) of FCOJ and package it up for consumers, and CSX has an auto unloading facility there as well.

A little over from Fairfield; the address was West Chester but it’s between the two. And yes I meant 275.

[POVC]

A little over from Fairfield; the address was West Chester but it’s between the two. And yes I meant 275.

Area you're talking about is a combination of Springdale (Hamilton County) and West Chester (Butler County); Cresentville Road is the dividing line between the two.  Tropicana distribution facility is still there on the West Chester side, along with the CSX Autorack facility.  There's a large industrial park on the Springdale side, with an 84 Lumber and what used to be the Avon Cosmetics Plant alongside I-275.  Main line is the old double tracked B&O mainline, now used for northbound running by CSX and NS, southbound trains use the former N&W line a little further east.

I grew up in that area, from K through 10th grade I lived in the Heritage Hill subdivision on the other side of GE Park from the mainline.  Used to get stopped for trains all the time at the 747 grade crossing until they changed it to an underpass.

Tim