Placement of City Buildings

[Flagler]

What are your thoughts and practices.Do you face the front of your buildings towards the viewing edge or the back of your buildings.
I like to place the mainline behind the city buildings with buildings along along the viewing edge. I often see the tracks running along the front of buildings with a street between.

[Rossford Yard]

I have a spur near the lead of my yard where the backs of old buildings face the track, for switching and loading, etc.  A hidden track goes behind them, and they act as a view block. I guess you have to follow a prototype to look realistic.

I doubt most modelers would do as you have chosen, to put the tracks behind buildings.  After all, its what we come to and run the layout to see.  And, the track above, while they do exist in one over the other configurations, looks crowded.   Based on your photo, in a similar situation, I would bring the ground level track forward, and use some combo of kit bashed building fronts to cover the elevated track behind, which I might put right against the wall.  I think you would end up with the same amount of visible trackage in a more plausible setting.
 
I do understand the tracks between buildings fascination, but have done it only with spurs.  It was between warehouses on the old layout, and right up front where you could lean in to see it.  On my new layout, its only grain elevators, but I do like small trains between tall structures, and this fits the bill, although its kind of back in the corner.

I can't see if there are any opportunities/vantage points to see the trains between the buildings on your layout, with the main line running 90 deg. to the layout edge, but I would look for an arrangement to do so.  Lastly, you can look at some aerial photos of places like the West Bottoms in KC for some inspiration of mainlines running near buildings.   I think Monon had some mainline running through mid size cities in IN, too. 

[randgust]

Both, I'm lucky that what I'm modeling has both situations.

Santa Fe. Ave. in Flagstaff is the classic 'front street' where all the businesses faced the tracks and still do, with the city behind the railroad on the north side.   The buildings in the middle between the street and tracks are all railroad, and mostly open.

On Winslow, it's just the opposite.  The main drag is north of the town, and there are two blocks of buildings between that and the tracks.  So what faces the tracks is the backside of commercial and residential, and its anything but pretty.   I've compressed it and shortened it a lot.

I find both situations equally rewarding.  You can do the usual town thing with the fronts, but the backs - with fencing, dumpsters, fire escapes, etc., is just as much fun to model.

The situation you're building instantly reminded me of Cumberland, MD, with the proximity to the track and the mainline next to the city street.

[wm3798]

I think it really boils down to the locale you're modeling.  In most eastern cities, the town was there before the railroad, so you'd see the ROW threaded between and behind existing streets.  Out west, the towns are there BECAUSE of the railroad, so the ROW would more or less be the Main Street.

I like the feel of the cities back east, with all the bridges, underpasses and other infrastructure made necessary by other real estate having been there first.



This one's one of my favorites.


The arched entrance to this gin joint is actually a bridge pier.  See the steel bridge foot on the top.  It supported the WM line through Connellsville, PA, which was removed in the early 2000s.  It was a trestle that ran through town over top of existing real estate (it wasn't completed until 1912). 


The resulting station it shared with the P&LE had a tower, not to control traffic, but rather to let passengers climb down steps into the building from the elevated platforms...  The station still stands.



Much more intriguing than a dull old bunch of grade crossings on a flat street grid!

Lee

[OldEastRR]

I once saw a bar/arch setup like that in Springfield, MA. It was a huge old arched overpass made of cut stone, carried what I think used to be NH tracks south over a road. Built right into the abutment was a small tavern. It's probably still there, at least the arch.