But seriously, folks. Make sure you have enough capacity in the break down tracks for the coal and grain cars... and cement cars... recall that there was a good size cement terminal at Port Covington as well. Even in the mid 60s there was an enormous amount of export grain and coal traffic, so you'll need room, potentially, for 60 to 80 cars (figuring 20 car trains, 3 major unloading facilities, and room to move them around a bit)
For open car loads/empties, you should have a storage box to put "loads" in. I file the sides of the plastic load down a bit so it fits loosely but level in the car, then I glue a small steel washer to the underside of it. An Earth Magnet wand, such as the lighting wand from a Rapido Easy Peasy does the job nicely. They also speed up the loading process out at the mine.
As for the odds and ends stuff, maybe run a "branch" out to the workshop area where you can build a storage yard over the workbench. I understand the need to have someplace to store oddballs and the desire to not have to futz with them when you do run them, but taking valuable potential staging space within the layout footprint seems like a waste of space.
Lee
