I want the community's opinion on this

Should I use these two bridges, which are bendorsey's Direct_Lift_Bridge_4, and is the only bridge on the entire route not using PBR textures, and Ben's Lower Drawbridge 1, which you wouldn't find in the southeastern United States, where this route is set, or replace the direct lift bridge with msgsapper's SAP_Low_Trestle_Spline_1T_PBR, which uses PBR textures, and the neighboring Lower Drawbridge 1 with a YARNish bridge, thereby making the stream non-navigable by boat, as the Atlantic Coast is only a quarter mile downstream. All the ground textures are PBR ground textures. Here's with the Direct lift bridge and drawbridge:



And here's with the bridges replaced:



So which one should I do? Should I make the waterway navigable or non-navigable?

If the river is not navigable, I would use the straight bridges.

Neither bridge looks appropriate for the spot in the first image. The road bridge you have in the first show is an urban type bridge. The kind you'd see associated with a downtown boulevard, and the same with the rail bridge.

For navigable water, try these two assets.

<kuid2:210518:3116:1> Scherzer Rolling Lift 17
<kuid:684729:21000> Lift Bridge Road 1G

I'm about the last person to advise but: If my sense of perspective is anywhere close, it looks like the river is only twice as wide as one of those trees. It would need be a rather small craft to navigate that particular spot. Does the river go to where any craft would need to get to?

JCitron said:

If the river is not navigable, I would use the straight bridges.

Neither bridge looks appropriate for the spot in the first image. The road bridge you have in the first show is an urban type bridge. The kind you'd see associated with a downtown boulevard, and the same with the rail bridge.

For navigable water, try these two assets.

<kuid2:210518:3116:1> Scherzer Rolling Lift 17
<kuid:684729:21000> Lift Bridge Road 1G

View attachment 2093 View attachment 2092

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I downloaded the two assets and they're a little bit too long. The stream is also 2 meters deep, or 6 1/2 feet deep:

For a navigable waterway, the river should be wider anyway. 2 meters is pretty narrow and more like a muddy creek. The rail drawbridge would work okay. They usually don't immediately go into the water at the edge of a cut as I did. Create a smooth grade down to the water's edge and see if that works better. The bridge pilings will then look better. You can try the same with the road bridge and see how that works. Your road may end up higher than the railroad while doing that so look into an embankment spline to put under the road.

Ben also made a whole bunch more smaller drawbridges which may work. There's also a scissor-type drawbridge on the DLS. I can't remember the asset name to be exact. I think Austin316hockey made it. (I may have his name mixed up, but it's something like that). The problem too will be the length of that bridge.

As John mentions, it sounds like this is not prototypical? I which case why not widen the river and make it more navigable? Then the lift bridges would fit nciely.

Forester1 said:

As John mentions, it sounds like this is not prototypical? I which case why not widen the river and make it more navigable? Then the lift bridges would fit nciely.

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It's semi-prototypical. the route is based off CSX's Brunswick Sub with the town names being all towns the prototype Brunswick Sub goes thru, otherwise it's entirely fictional. Here's a nearby stream that was already much wider than the stream in question. I've already put two swing bridges over it, one each for the railroad and the road, but also lowered the depth from -2 meters to -10 meters, with the water level at -1 meters.

Those look more like the Intracoastal Canal than navigable rivers. Pleasure boats and small tows only.

Good luck with the route, anyway. Looks entertaining.

:B~)

To me, I would think a bridge that rises up above the river in an arch would be more appropriate for that size waterway. Boat traffic would tend to be pleasure crafts or flat bottom fishing boats needing no more than maybe 10 or 12 feet of clearance. That close to the ocean it would be effected by the tides so a bit of swampy land on either shore would be correct which would also justify a longer bridge unless you built embankments on the sides of the river.

William

Always default to real-world examples - can't go wrong then.

RHKluckhohn said:

Those look more like the Intracoastal Canal than navigable rivers. Pleasure boats and small tows only.

Good luck with the route, anyway. Looks entertaining.

:B~)

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It's based off of natvander's Wadalbavale Line, <kuid2:61119:9092751:1>. I got permission from natvander to release my version of his route years ago, but I started over with a blank slate in TRS19. I used all the features included in TRS19, PBR ground textures, procedural turnouts, superelevation, except TurFX, because I used msgsapper's truly seasonal PBR ground textures, so the ground textures changes with the seasons. I've also made some rolling stock to go with the route that I plan on releasing with it.