Many thanks to all of you for your thoughtful comments, close reading of the plans, and insights offered. To be sure, if I hadn't mentioned it earlier, I'm indebted to many on this forum for the education you've provided over the past two years.
My apologies as well for my delayed response. I had been leaning into this project over the winter, but my wife and I are expecting baby #3, literally any hour now, this project has been temporarily "sidetracked." I do anticipate that building it later this summer will be an opportunity to involve my 6 and 3 year-olds in various capacities.
To the questions/comments above:
Carl: You're absolutely right. In the iteration I'd shared, I clearly failed to migrate the adequate rise/run sequence into the curves, as on an earlier version I was able to achieve the grade changes with no more than a 3.5% slope and I avoided any rise in the passenger station /yard on the lower level. I've also been working on an arrangement in which the lower level isn't nearly as concealed by upper level track.
Dan: I've found RailmodlerPro to be incredibly fluid to use. In full disclosure, I'm a recovering architect, but for the detail, I just created the shapes (rectangles) for the wall's and similarly for the furnace unit and water-heater. I leave them on locked layers so as to avoid any interference when drafting the track plans. I've found it useful as otherwise, I tend to be overly optimistic with potential clearances between things (and I'm not getting any smaller!)
Finally, as the build may be a few months out, I've been trying to get more facile with SCARM due to its 3-D rendering and simulation capabilities. I'll say that its definitely a step backwards in terms of intuitive use, but it does have some great features and i'm excited to simulate the trains on the layout to satisfying my interests ahead of any chance to build.
Thanks again to all, and more soon (once I get my SCARM version ready to share).
Scott
