...from whence all traffic originates and returns during our operating sessions. By word of explanation, "operating session" is indeed a formal exercise during which several regulars arrive for an afternoon's running, complete with switchlists, &c. Operations are perhaps compared in purpose to computer gaming in analogue form or wargaming on a different type of table.
This railroad is built as a series of dioramas. On this end you see the yard office over several classification tracks, an engine shed, power house, crewing office...
...and a better look at the engine terminal with fuel and watering racks, fuel tanks and water tower, a sanding column, and a different view of the business end of the engine shed with the crewing office on the other side of the track. The smaller tower on stilts is the control tower for the "trimmer" operation, where cars are pulled from the classification tracks and taken to the advancing tracks and made up into trains.
There are passenger trains we run in some of the scenarios, so you'll see stations and platforms along the way. In between the platforms are the advancing/receiving tracks where departing trains are made up and arriving trains are broken down to be sorted (classified).
Moving further, the station headhouse on street-level bridges the Advance/Receiving tracks and the caboose track. Behind them, also under the bridge, are the classification tracks handled by...
...the "bowl switcher", a loco assigned to sort cars in the classification yard. As we leave this diorama, the near track at the tunnel faces is the running track to the next scene, whilst the far one is the classification yard lead over which the bowl switcher pulls strings of cars and pushes them back into the various tracks in "the bowl", slang for the classification yard.