Modeling downtown Lewiston, Part 1: Design compression

My inspiration for modeling the Camas Prairie's Lewiston terminal started with the idea of the downtown Lewiston industrial area in a bedroom, an idea I have had for several years.  Ideas for this type of industrial district came from Jack Ozanich's Atlantic Great Eastern, South Dover city yard and a portion of Dan Holbrook's BN Missabe Divn at Connors Point.  Keith Jordan's Santa Fe "Patch" railroad is another source of inspiration considering the size of the layout relative to all the industries and dominating structures.

The first part of Camas Prairie or layout design element to use today's catch phrase, is the downtown Lewiston area.  A staging yard will be built below, so it seemed like the best place to start to ensure both pieces are at the necessary height.  I also figure it will provide me a section to work on, including laying track, adding structures and ultimately a place to begin operations while I work on the rest of layout.  

I'm not the type to build all the benchwork, lay all the track, do all the wiring, etc before ever turning a wheel.  This works for some, but I get way too distracted and will lose momentum if I try to build my layout this way.  I like to build models and having a place to run them, so I may very well finish a significant portion of this area before starting benchwork on the rest of the railroad.  

The downtown Lewiston area has several large structures that dominate the scene.  Looking at an old station map the depot and freight house dominate the foreground.  You'll also notice in the Bird's Eye View of Lewiston circa 1960, that the Erb Hardware cable warehouse, Home Lumber warehouse and Smith Frozen Foods dominate the scene.

Downtown Lewiston station map from the 1940's.  Neither the Home Lumber warehouse or the Erb Hardware cable warehouse are shown yet.  I estimated the footprint of the structures from some of the other building dimensions shown on the station map.

This 1960 view of downtown gives a great view of the size of the structures relative to the track structure.  The Smith and White Spurs run in the alley between White Fruit and Home Lumber.Smith Frozen Foods.  Also notice the number of cars at the freight house and the Mason Ehrman Warehouse.

I determined after looking at the size of these structures and scaling them based on their approximate locations on the station map that the benchwork would need to be over three feet wide!  The widely accepted rule of thumb for layout width is 2 1/2 feet as this about the furthest most can reach.  The Smith and White spurs are at the back, and I intend to include these spurs so some compression to make all of it fit in less than 2 1/2 feet.

Compression of the track structure is fairly straight forward, I figured on laying the trackage out approximately 50% the length of the real area, but the width doesn't scale like that.  If the structures are built to scale, they won't fit in a width that is usable.  They will also be too long for the shortened length.  However, the structures also can't be scaled down 50% or they look too small.

This stalled my planning for a bit while I considered how large the structures needed to be.  Since the structure size determines track lengths and centers, mock-ups of the structures became necessary before continuing. 

The unused Home Lumber warehouse and sales office.  5th street is in the foreground. 

View between Cable warehouse and Home Lumber from the 5th st street crossing.  There are three tracks and an access road between these structures. 

The east elevation of the Cable Warehouse.  I estimated its width at about 40' based on dimensions of the freight house.

Mock up of downtown area.  The length of the wall where this is located is 13',  so the buildings must be large enough to give the dominating presence seen in the prototype pictures, yet still fit the space allotted. 

This high level view shows the relationship of the structures, track and equipment.  I think it close, but the structures are still a little too large.  The surface shown is 2' wide, so there will be another 6" added to this scenes width when completed.  The plywood below is where the east staging will be.

Based on the station map and photos I took during my February field trip,  I estimate the Home Lumber warehouse to be approximately 90' wide, and the cable warehouse to be 45' wide.  I mocked up the buildings about 75% the size of the real structures, but I believe they are still a bit too large.  I will probably scale them down a bit more to fit the space.

This is new territory for me, as most of my previous layout ideas and plans have been of fairly rural railroad locations that don't have this many dominating sized structures.  One large grain elevator complex could be built much closer to scale if that is the only significant structure in the scene.  Designing an industrial scene with lots of large structures certainly requires more careful planning to give the scene the correct look and feel.