I always wanted a ferry on the layout so after toying around with were to put it I finally committed to a location. The process of fitting it in wasn't to hard an exacto and a chisel did the job pulled up the cork under lay easily. Trimmed the track and test fitted the gantry bridge, Im not going to power the ferry which wont be an issue as the loco will use some idler flat cars to load the ferry.
I trimmed back the building in the rear to expand the wharf also had to remove some of the back drop building cut outs and after some paint I used balsa and bamboo squires to make the dock walls.
I used several coats of polyurethane to get the water effect, since I didnt have any old syringes laying about I found using a dripping brush technique and blowing the bubbles out using a straw helped get a nice even look, having some objects floating or look half submerged helps add depth as well as using a dark paint color base.
Touched up the paint on the building in the rear, also using some ground foam as ivy really helps cover up the old glue lines.
So now that I have cut off the road that used to lead off the right side of the layout I needed to incorporate a new route and I didnt want to have to add a road going across the all the tracks to the front of the layout. So this was the next best option opening up between two of the buildings and adding a new background cutout. I use old walther catalogs or ads from past model railroader magazines, its simple as finding the picture with the right perspective and cutting it out and gluing it to the backdrop.
