Erie Railroad Mahoning division HCD

[Baronjutter]

I'm usually all about cramming in as many buildings as possible but I think others sugestions for something a little smaller might be best.  Less view-blocking of your cool factories.  Something not too tall, like a shed/shack maybe with a scrap dealer, but have the building tapered and thin enough so that that's driveway access to the back of the lot as well.  A metal rusty metal shed with a fence and a bunch of scrap would look great there.  Something with a flat or low-slope roof to minimize it's height.

[Lemosteam]

How about a raw material dealer with a small office and garage for light equipment?  Multiple bays to put different types of stone or dirt or filler material.  Offers another place to unload gons into piles ready for an NZT D5 crawler with blade to push the materials into bins.  Could even use NZT PRR material canisters unloading with a small crane from a Traincat G22.

[OldEastRR]

So much brick buildings in the scene ... what about a wooden one, something from an earlier era, thus smaller version than a modern one would be?  Not rail served, though if used the railroad it might use the team track for its inbounds and/or outbounds. Decrepit, on it's third or fourth owner (complete with ghosted painted-over signs of various occupants), the kind of building sure to be torn down in the Go-Go 60s? Maybe even only half of it occupied, the other half a deserted ruin...
Come on, Chris, this is "down by the railroad tracks" ... gotta be SOME unsavory building there.

[wazzou]

I'm a sucker for a retro service station and that looks like a good place for one.

[wcfn100]

I'm thinking bar.


Jason

[Chris333]

Whatever goes there won't be rail served. And there will be a gas station right at the bottom of the hill from this corner. A bar might work. Wooden buildings are cool, but no photos posted yet for me to go off of.   

When I planned the track I figured this long slender area could be a garage to work on cars and then a fenced in area out back full of just. Then I remembered the cool roof sign next to the Warren station.

Ideas are cool, but I need visual 1948ish ideas.

[Baronjutter]

If you want a custom laser structure that looks like it was actually designed to fit that lot let me know,  I could do something cheap/free. A simple junky old wooden scrap dealer or repair shop would be no problem.

[GaryHinshaw]

Here is one from the Barringer Erie collection: the little wooden shed on the right.  Very austere, but the scene is pretty similar to yours.  Whatever you do, don't forget the 8-arm telegraph poles!

[Chris333]

Hey that last shed looks like a coal dealer    I'm trying to make a N scale Schultz garage right now. If it looks OK I can put a wood shed out back.

[Chris333]

Alright.

Built from DPM modular pieces. Way smaller than the last one. Room for a shed out back and a fenced in yard.

[OldEastRR]

Like the shed. Would it work with a flat or slanted not peaked roof? Maybe one side open, like it was a carriage shed from horse and buggy days, now converted to hold junk?
What I'm talking about here is the "visual history" perspective that promotes such layout things as water tower foundations and rails paved over in the pavement to show there was a previous version of the scene. Don't know if you subscribe to this philosophy, but that's the basis for the suggestions I've been giving. Just as any of your scene elements would speak of 1948 history if they were included on a modern layout, there could be elements in those scenes that are remnants of farther past. Stables, hay barns and carriage houses used during the horse era, simple wooden transfer sheds now too crude and small for use, even near the "new" depot an older, smaller one , buildings that have been re-purposed or sold to new owners . Almost any wooden building is a throwback, considering the disastrous fires that destroyed many towns and led to required use of brick and steel in  post-1900 buildings. It's great to create a scene that says "This is what 1948 stuff looked like" but we should remember the actual 1948 had remnants of scenes from 1932 and 1897 and more.
Before you all start yelling at me I'm not criticizing but just contributing a point of view. Odd elements sometimes make the whole scene more distinctive. 

[VonRyan]

I'd be a miracle if a derilict wood structure survived the war years.
People were carefully dismantling any disused wooden structures to use the timbers or just to sell on the black market. I know because my Grandmother's brother and father took down the carriage shed behind our house in either '42 or '43, partially to build a chicken coop with the wood.

-Cody F.

[Scottl]

Chris, I like the scale of those two buildings you mocked up.  That will be a nice scene to contrast with the larger buildings in the background.

[Philip H]

So given OldEast's perspective (which I happen to agree with) and the fact that your chosen era would likely still have post-war rebuilding going on,  why not leave the little brick building - which I like . . . FWIW - and add either some framing going on that suggests the shed (as a new addition) or some sort of foundation in the yard part suggesting the reuse of the site in some way.  Then you'd be raising the bar on COOL again . . .

[Baronjutter]

I really like the scale of this scene now, much better with the smaller buildings.  I also like how you got two distinct buildings out of that American Hardware building, it's a great kit.