And just to add some color to this thread: I practiced doing water for the first time last night. This sample was done on a 6x6" piece of wood. I then built a small pier laser kit from eBay. It's too small for my layout's wharf, but it was good practice -first laser kit I'd ever done! Shot with iPhone 5.
Not to bump my own thread... but I thought I'd show you guys how I resolved my issue of now having enough land around my yard for an industry: If you remember from my old bench work (pictured below), I had the beginnings of the bay/inlet as a dropped down piece of wood with foam glued to it. That design was [obviously] never well thought out. Fortunately, I saved that piece of wood/foam from the inlet. I used that piece of wood/foam, since it had the perfect shape and height I needed, to add fill next to my yard. I simply cut out a small corner of it, and then cut some wedge pieces of foam to bridge the crevasse. I'll then use a bit of plaster cloth and spackle to fill the remaining gaps. Obviously, I still have some trimming/shaping left to do, but the bulk of the land is there to work with for a substantial little industry. Also, to create more room for an industry along the interchange (which I plan to add an additional spur off of), I swapped the 248mm straight piece with the RH turnout, on the outer main leading into the bridge. You can see the old outline of where the track used to sit -right on the edge of the foam. This setup works much better.
You know, if you cut back the foam along the track to make a wharf you could have a neat barge loader for something like coal/iron ore.....
You need to select some type of industry to place next to the yard that somehow ties the RR into being by the river. Boat building? You could build a ramp from the top to the river for lowering completed product down to a set of finger piers. Lumber comes in and boats go out. Brewery or distillery? Set of pipes leading down to water level. Ever watch an old film where they refer to “bourbon and branch water”? Ever wonder what the heck “Branch Water” is? Back in the day every distiller of whiskey sold bottles of water drawn from the same “Branch” of whatever river/stream they got their water from. This was supposed to allow diluting the pure whiskey without changing the taste as would happen if you used water from a different source. Anybody else have any ideas? Now with the inclusion of that big pink foam bulge into the path of the river’s flow you would, in nature, have a relatively calm patch of water directly down flow of it, directly under the first bridge section looking from the right. This would be a good place to put a small sport fishing camp and or a water rafting guide/rental shop. You could model a steep dirt/gravel road leading down to it
Semi obvious idea for an industry by the river, but you could go with a coal power plant. On your layout, coal was originally delivered by barge, and can still be, with the yard at some point being built/upgraded to handle unit trains and ash shipments.
Here's how the reclamation work next to the yard has turned out. I won't be using this building -it's more just to show how much space is available. I plan to do a lumber yard here. Near the front of the layout "downstream" from the bridge, I will have the wharf that [obviously] ties to industry to the river. I am building the Micro-Trains Cannery, and MT Large Pier kit. The slightly kit bashed Large Pier kit will have a small cafe, the Micro-Trains hotel, and a bait and tackle shop. I have already measured for the these three structures and they will fit on the pier. sd90ns- I think you have the idea, with this being a bit more of a light industrial and recreational type of area. As I've said, it's modern day & freelanced, but slightly based on where I've grown up, along the Northern California Coast and rivers. We don't have much coal/iron around here. I appreciate all of your input! and a couple more angles...
