Interesting subject. I'm working on a harbor scene for our club layout which will include a car float, float bridge and gantry bridge. I am trying to replicate as close as possible the LIRR operation which was in Long Island City. It is now a park but the gantries are still there.
The "track plan" has gone through several iterations and will likely change again. Here is the current version.
I built the car float first starting with laying the track and then filling in between the rails so that only the rails were visible. I used 2 rail track since the track will not be powered.
here is the finished car float.
Although the track on the car float itself is not powered, I wanted to be able to push cars onto it. There was not enough room to go from one track to four on "land" so I decided to make the "float bridge" operational.
I took a Ross 4 way switch and cut it into 3 sections. The first section would be on land, the middle section on the float bridge and the last 3-4 inches where it had opened up to 4 tracks would be on the car float.
Lost momentum on this earlier in 2015 as other projects became a higher priority. I hope to get back to this early in 2016 starting with completing the float bridge and gantry. Still a work in progress.
