The idea that stopped me working

I'm sure you all want to see it.

So here you are. I hope you can make make sense of this rather loose sketch.

It is centered around a model of a grain elevator (plenty of those in Duluth). A locomotive would bring in a short cut of grain hoppers and leave them in one of the front roads. Then a small industrial loco would appear from between the silos and one by one take the hoppers and draw them along the road between the silos, disappearing offstage. Now here's the clever bit. By means of a sector plate backstage the loco and hopper reappear on the other side of the line of silos and the loco returns the hopper to where it came from. The industrial loco would then do the same with the other hoppers in the front road. The exits "off stage" on either side of the model have been disguised with large warehouses. I also sketched in some warehouses on the rear of the layout, perhaps there may even be room to add a siding there and a couple of places for freight cars to be spotted, along with the warehouses at front, which would vary the operation a bit from the usual switching around of hoppers.

I'd put a two or perhaps three road traverser at the right hand side as you see it to prepare trains to make a visit to the scene.

The next stage would be to throw a few pieces of track down to see if it would work rather than mess around with a computer program.