I always admire those exhibition layouts where the scenery seems to spill over the front of the layout, getting rid of the need to provide a front fascia. This technique seems to blend the front of a layout into a room as well as the back of a layout can be blended into a backscene. I am trying this approach for the front of "Shelf Island", starting with the quayside and slipway at Keiy Pabyr. These structures are a bit of a milestone because they are the first models I have glued down apart from the track:

 

To recap from earlier this year (see baseboard), the front edge of the baseboard frame here is a length of aluminium angle. You can see the front L girder behind this angle in this photo:

 

I left a space for a watercourse at the far left of the layout but this seemed to add clutter so I trimmed away this end of the baseboard frame so the harbour water can extend round the corner:

 

I also trimmed away the ends of two cross members to make the space for the quayside wall and the harbour water, and added some strips of wood and foam board to hold the wall:

 

The base of the water is a sheet of mounting board, this sits on top of the top edge of the alloy angle and extends about 15 mm in front of it to hide it. I added a sheet of 3 mm foam board to hold the mounting board above the bus bars.

 

The board for the water slides into the gap below the quayside wall. The board is held in here with some tiny magnets so I can slide it out and fit a new one if it gets damaged:

 

The slipway begins where the quayside access road crosses the railway. I built the model working downwards, starting with fixing the edge of the road surface against the railway. Then I added a structure of foam board underneath before I fixed on the front wall:

 

I shall imagine the road access to the quayside is by way of a causeway at the bottom of the slipway, exposed at low tide:

 

At the moment I am keen to make shapes I like. For example the shape of where the slipway blends into the quayside roadway dominates this end of the front of the layout: