The Indiana Harbor Belt Lakefront Branch captures the heavy duty switching of the East Chicago and Hammond area, located from just north of Gibson Yard, through Michigan Avenue Yard to the lakefront steel mills.
 

Operations start from the Michigan Avenue Yard, which sorts cars from various transfer trains (from the IHB and others) to one of the layouts industrial districts, including East Chicago (which is loosely based on the track patterns of the famous N scale Kingsbury Branch by Bill Denton), East Chicago Transload, a cement plant and “snack tracks” (Food product companies) and the Steel Mills.  Oil and Grain loading facilities are just south of the yard and get direct trains for switching.
 

One operator will classify and make up the trains in the yard and switch adjacent industries, while the Steel Mill gets a dedicated switcher, and the other industries are run as turns.  A few through trains make appearances every session, such as auto rack trains heading for switching in Gibson Yard to the south.
 

Hard flooring, 4 foot aisles and layout height of 46” makes this a potential “roll around” layout for maximum comfort.