OK! Could some better informed individual inform this old man "What the heck is Playa Desnuda?" I don't have much of an opportunity to get out in the public much anymore.
I thought it was something like that. But didn't feel good about asking the landlord. He's a Mexican implant.
Now for a more serious response: Since you model the Pacific Electric and it must then be in the LA area, a bridge would go over an empty creek or (LA) river. It would be empty because (and I grew up in LA) it rarely rains in sunny California. Most all of the creeks and rivers were dry year round except for the week or two that it would rain, and even then they would dry up very quickly. Eventually, those creeks and rivers became concrete channels where they are still dry most of the year and only serve as a dumping ground and a gallery for graffiti.
I agree with Jeff that, in keeping with the name, a dry (or naked) creek. Maybe some deciduous trees (nude with no leaves of course) and you could add an abandoned vehicle with no paint ( naked again....).
I grew up next to one of those "creeks" and it almost always had water in it, not much, but some...most of them in the 1950's were still wild, and I am planning on having a small stream about a scale 2 feet wide.
Maybe living further inland (Ontario), the 'creeks' had less water in them...maybe it was sprinkler runoff (back then: drought, whats that?)? Even now, Google maps show that creeks like Lytle creek (https://www.google.com/maps/@34.2257619,-117.4719626,15.21z?entry=ttu), Etiwanda Creek, Deer creek, and Day Canyon creek (https://www.google.com/maps/@34.1861143,-117.5216721,15z?entry=ttu), and San Antonio creek (https://www.google.com/maps/@34.1608839,-117.6792397,16z?entry=ttu) all 'end' as they leave the mountains (keeping in mind that Los Angeles is located in a desert). Even Arrowhead Springs ends as it leaves the mountains and is why the PE had to go to the springs and not just let the springs come to the PE (https://www.google.com/maps/@34.1783131,-117.2646764,14.08z?entry=ttu).
I was in Long Beach/Lakewood, about 6 miles from the coast, the creeks and rivers had a lot more water down there than in the San Gabriel Valley
I grew up in South Gate, where the Rio Hondo river meets the LA river. Small channel in the middle had some water year round, about 8 feet across and maybe 2 feet deep. We used to ride our bikes down the river to about Pacific Coast Hwy where it started to fill with tide water. From there we rode on the streets to get to the beach on a hot summer day. I included such a river on my first Ntrak module over 30 years ago
ok, here is a track plan that is meant for actual operation based on a railroad that I have been switching over the last year, and I am thinking that this is going to be the first 9 feet of the 12 foot wall....
Nscalestation: What I wouldn't give for one of those Z's on that autorack... Bremner: Are you sure you can't use another straight piece of track on the right side to give you more of a run-around?
lengthening the run-around wold do two things, eat up more real estate and make it easier to switch, running and building a 15 car train will require me to use the run-around and a siding.