Mark, a very nice writeup and pictures, thanks for posting this.
I also modified some turnouts by reversing the rails as shown here to get some yard tracks on 2.5" centers. Between every pair of close tracks I left a larger gap so I could put the remote uncouplers on all the sidings. Just a caution, using a 2'5" center to center spacing on mainline tracks with 20" radius curves will limit what engines and cars can be run without hitting each other on the curves.
