Going a bit "deeper" into the concept, I recommend people building some models of buildings they know. If appropriate to the layout, of course. Most kit buildings have a generic look, even if they aren't (the exception I recall is Alexander Scale Models).
If you model a real one, it will be, well, real. In scale, of course.
Since you probably want something that would be near the tracks (you have LOTS of tracks), visiting the area around local railroad tracks would be rewarding. You may not have any "local railroad tracks". Then I suggest you do a day trip and visit the nearest not-local.
Take a camera, or one of those smart-phone thingys everyone but me has. Take some paper and pencil to take notes and sketches. When you find a promising building, take a good bit of time soaking it up. There's lots to see and lots to think about.
Alternately, if you're modeling something far away in time and/or space, collect LOTS of photos. I'm modeling Lyle, WA. Its' hundreds of miles away. So I've visited, of course. But the station is gone (taken out by a derailed grain train). So I've also collected a bunch of photos to study. I was especially happy to turn of two photos of the side away from the tracks. Try finding THOSE!
Some things are still there, though. Like the foundation of the pumphouse, which I measured.
Ed
As I was eyeing my layout last week I began to realize that there was a lot of stuff on there that I built, mainly from kits, but not that much original stuff that I could say was from scratch. My railroad is during a time when steam was really king, diesels were beginning to move in but there was still a good mix of both and that is why I like that time- 1940's and 1950's. I like the cars, buildings and the way life was since I grew up in the late forties and fifties when things were still a little gritty and not so clean as it is today.
In fact a lot of things were not as clean and architectually spit and polished as we see today throughout the surroundings. Take a look at telephone poles, some are still made the same, a stick of wood stuck in the ground with cross bars and wires attached. But somehow the ones today are too neat and don't have that unfinished look of the 40's and fifties. My wife had purchased a bag of bamboo skewers and they were sitting on the shelf, she never used them. I wasked her one day if I could have a few to make telphone poles, she laughed and said take all you want. I needed about 25 to cover the layout. I then told her I needed some cross ties so she bought me two containers of tooth picks that were perfect.
I used a Rix telephone pole to measure by and cut the bamboo poles to that length leaving the pointed end free to place the poles in the foam core base. I then cut the rounded tooth picks to the right length for the cross bars and used CA to attach the cross bars to the poles near the top.
I let the glue dry over night then I spray painted the finished poles with Minwax spray stain of Oak, they looked great. I then let the poles dry thoroughly over night then placed them on the layout following the track roadbed, spacing them at the right distance. Now, I could have spent time with tiny little beads to glue to the tops of the cross bars to look like insulators but I didn't; too tedious and my eye sight really doesn't notice. I had a roll of dark fishing line and decided to use that instead of buying something for the electrical/phone lines. With a dab of CA on four places on top of each cross bar I attached the finshing line, leaving a little sway in the line. It took some time but the CA dries fast, then I move on to the next pole.
As I stood back and viewed my work I have too admit the effort was worth it. My home made telephone poles look right at home, servicing the homes and buisnesses with power and phone service. I may add some other details later, but for now they look good to me and I made them, I didn't buy them.
Robert Sylvester
Newberry-Columbia Line, SC