Creating Lake Independence

My track plan includes a bridge over a lake.  The bridge is part of the “interchange track” on the south (operator) side of the layout. The bridge goes right to the edge of the layout, hopefully evoking in the viewer’s mind that there is a lot more track “off stage.” Only a small corner of the lake over which the bridge passes can be seen, primarily due to space limitations (I wanted to use my layout space for as much track and as many other features as possible).

I already knew about where the lake would be, but my first task was to use a pencil to sketch out the exact dimensions of the lake, based on the dimensions and footing locations of the bridge:

Now, one of the issues I knew I would have, is that the piers for this bridge, made by Kato to snap easily into place, are 2″ high, which is the exact height of the foam substrate. This meant the entire substrate would have to be removed, and the lake “surface” would have to be placed under the substrate. I toyed with two means of doing this. One was to buy a second 2″ or 1″ strip of Foamular to put under the entire substrate, raising the whole thing up 1-2″. This was appealing but an expensive option to fix one tiny part of the layout. The less expensive option was to use some foam board I already had (I’d tried to use that as my original substrate and found it unsatisfying). I could glue this underneath the foam substrate. It would not cause any leveling issues, because it was at the edge of the table and (as I have shown elsewhere) the table serving as my “benchwork” leans a bit on the edges.  As a consequence of the table being out of plumb, I already had shims under the foam there anyway.