"Magoun pier" The beginings of my layout

[railandsail]

Greg,  hope you don't mind my bumping your subject thread up again? I almost feel really guilty posting my insignificant work on your subject thread.

I was really constrained in size that I could put a Walthers Pier Terminal on my new layout under construction, but here is my effort.

It has been suggested by several folks that I get rid of at least one of those big structures in my port facilities area on the outer portion of my peninsula,...perhaps the car float or the pier terminal building. I thought about it all Christmas long, and wasn't able to come up with any satisfying imagine in my mind. I decided to get some of the wall pieces of that pier terminal kit out of its box, then tape it together to see what the full size building might look like. WOW, I discovered that I had made my original paper footprint image too small. That bldg is 16” long,...not 12”. Now I'm really in trouble,...or not?
 
For a short period of time I considered leaving that pier terminal bldg off the layout. But once set in place it just looked so inviting as a waterfront item, and one that said Baltimore waterfront (Fells Point) to me. Plus its extra length looked that much more inviting. It could handle two box cars at a time

 

It was big enough inside that I could well imagine that box cars could be pulled in there, then partially loaded/unloaded by forklifts separating out goods to be stored temporarily in the terminal warehouse vs those that were being carfloated out to some other waterfront destination. (might even be able to leave the roof off of that kit to display such activity?)

 
Now its time to give Dave's suggestion some more thought. Perhaps I need to modify my carfloat structure so that it only gets full size recognition during operating sessions,..make some sort of extension such as his? At first I thought about putting the 'phantom/removable carfloat' suspended off the entire tip of the peninsula. But that would mean my dock slip for that watercraft would NOT be on peninsula acreage, and thus no need for my dockside crane. I needed some portion of that carfloat (and its slip space) on the peninsula,...thus the 'carfloat half'. The other half would be brought out and set upon an removable extension to the tip of the peninsula.
 
And with the car float in position.  It protrudes out into the doorway.... The car float is only there while its being worked, once per session.  Its unloaded, loaded and then it sails.
I have a fold down "river" that is only up when the car float is docked (about 20minutes of a 3 hr session.)
Dave
 

 

 
Now that I have that removable extension piece, why couldn't it support several other watercraft that might make use of that dock slip on occasions,....like a small freighter to be loaded by the dockside crane, or ......

 
......another tug boat taking a break.

 

 
I had to make a modification to those double tracks I originally had come all the back and under the dockside crane, but even that worked out well. I now have a runaround on those tracks for the working switchers.

BTW, here is an overall shot of the peninsula on my layout.