Industry side depots?

[GWR88]

Evening all,

After moving my layouts area to Chicago, i've been building up a fenced off  industrial background and a few warehouses in the foreground. I was going to have a trackside transfer building but after looking through photos of CNW depots around their network, i was wondering if it was feasible to have a largeish (brick built) depot building in the middle of industrial Chicago between the 1940s and 1990s on a shortline (Big time frame i know!). I model an imaginary shortline that is partly owned by the union pacific and the Chicago northwestern has trackage rights over.

Thanks in advance

Lloyd

[dave1905]

It would certainly be imaginary since in the days when the CNW was around and they would have had a freight house (before 1960), the UP didn't go to Chicago.  It only went as far as Omaha, NE, two states away from Chicago.  After the 1960's "freight houses" as railroad owned and operated entities pretty much died off, their function was replaced by truck and piggyback.  By the time the UP did get to Chicago (after the MP merger) freight houses were dead.

 

In Chcago, NOT having a brick or metal building would be unusual due to fire codes.

[GWR88]

Thanks dave,

I am going to operate the layout primarily in chicago but im trying to make it so the location is interchangeable. What would you recommend to go on the layout instead of a freight house?

Thanks once again

Lloyd