Wow! Thank you all so much for your advise and time! This is extremely helpful and appreciated. I will definitely take all this in and make some changes such as going with 3' versus 2' (I just hate wasting wood, but that is silly as I also build or help build wood boats and you would not believe that amount of wood that ends up on the floor as shavings etc).
And the track advise is just great. The pictures are fabulous and I am excited to see the incredibly well done layouts and the book via postings that includes construction of a turntable. That is intriguing.
So thank you thank you for all your help everyone! This is very exciting!