Ok, I had some time over the holiday weekend to work on getting back to normal, so to speak.
Filled area for the crossover switches:
I filled the area underneath with a 3/16th thick foam board cut to match the existing hole. The original was 3/16" after I thought the original was 1/4". The foam board made the patch easy and I can still pin through it.. This also shows the inner loop back in place as well. The switches need to be tacked down yet, but I was waiting for the glue on the cork underlay to dry before continuing.
This shows a different look at the patch and switch area. You can see the added area on the left and the cork underlay with the T-pins still holding in place. From this angle the track isn't as centered as I wanted, but can still be tweaked. The cork area runs to the outer loop lift bridge.
These last 2 (one already seen in the Coffee Shop) are the track completed on the outer loop to the lift bridge. I thought I had taken more, but this is what I have currently. I still need to re-wire and test the system once the track is relayed.
By removing the rise, I can now create a car road to get to both the new area for part of the town and across to where some other facilities may be placed on the other side of the layout. I won't need a car bridge across the path as any vehicles other than the trains are static display, so roadway, walk gap, roadway would still be OK.