The location I've chosen for my layout, North Franklin St. & West Chicago Avenue is real, but the interchange yard I'm building is a fictitious "what if"? The name Burnham Yard is an allusion to the Chicago architect Daniel Burnham who planned the rebuilding of Chicago.
The design of my interchange yard is inspired by this photograph (taken from the Chicago L Org site, used here for reference only, all rights belonging to the owners).
So hopefully what you can see from in these shots should give you an idea of what I'm aspiring to achieve. And here's is a Google map image of the area I've chosen to set Burnham yard in.
And here is a diagram of the layout proportioned to the map for comparison. The straw yellow colour represents the baseboards, the rectangular orange box is an intrusion into the room, while the buildings are represented by khaki brown shapes. The white areas with squares are twelve inch gridlines (slightly revised plan that simplifies the elevated section).
The four roads crossing the tracks on the layout are from left to right, West Institute Place, West Chestnut St., West Locust St, and West Walton St. (formerly known as West Whiting St., when this changed I don't know).
