David,

I'm pretty new to the hobby, so please take that into consideration. I looked at your plan, and it seems, well, just a bit ambitious to start. It can be overwhelming, a layout this size, as the tasks can appear insurmountable - especially as you're just starting out, and learning. Trust me on this one!

I'd maybe suggest instead designing a small core layout, that can be expanded instead. This would allow you to get things running quickly, and than expand it as your skills and experience improves. The point of a learning layout is to do just that - learn. While I've started off in much smaller size than you, being able to experiment, and run trains is vital to the process.  

I'm not saying don't do it, but if you start on the big layout, you may want to consider building this in phases. To me, its all about achievable goals. Say put a loop down first, just to get things moving, than go back and complete other areas. Having some trains run is an important factor to keeping your interest going.

Finally, my second piece of advice is to try and not hold it near and dear to your heart. Be willing and open minded to change the plan mid swing, or tear something out.  Because it will happen!

In the plan you have posted above, it looks like there will be some reach issues at the top of the yard and in the intermodal area, unless there is access from both sides.  If you do intend to access those areas from both sides, there might be some walkaround awkardness.

However...(and I apologize if this was already discussed on your deleted thread)

I know you said that operations would be a kinda-sorta-maybe-later thing, but given what I've read about George Selios' layout recently, you'll be better off to plan for those future operations up front.  You don't need to eat the whole elephant now, but it would be good to plan out your bites.

It sounds like you've already given some thought to some general operations.  I would formalize it by taking a step back from the CAD and drawing schematic on paper.  I'm a fellow SE Michigander and am familiar with the GTW/CN Holly Sub.  You've mentioned it above, so lets use it as inspriation.

Grab a pencil, and on a sheet of paper, draw  circles on either end of the sheet and label them "North Staging/Durand" and "South Staging/Detroit".  Then draw some circles between them to represent stations you want to consider modeling.  They could be, from north to south, "Pontiac Yard", "Pontiac Amtrak", "GM Pontiac Assembly", "Birmingham Amtrak", "Royal Oak Amtrak", "Moterm", etc. on down to your Detroit staging. You won't be able to model all of these stations in your space, of course, so you'll need to think about what things on that line appeal to you and be choosy.   Then connect the circles with two lines for your doubletrack main.

This is the start of your layout's schematic.  It shows what staging represents (Durand and Detroit) and how the trains will flow across the layout.  Through trains will go from staging to staging (Detroit to Durand), Amtrak will go from Detroit staging and terminate in Pontiac (and vice-versa), and locals will start in Pontiac Yard and work their way to Detroit staging (and vice versa). 

Then start adding some pencil-drawn detail to the circles you've drawn, like yard body tracks, industry spurs, double-track crossovers, etc.  It's not a track plan at this point, it's just a functional representation of what tracks should be present.   Once you have the functional trackage in, you can think about how that straight point-to-point line you drew can be twisted up to fit your space, or loop back on itself for a continuous running option.  This whole process will serve as a guide to what your eventual scale track plan and benchwork shape will end up looking like.

And if you start smaller with a mind to expand as Scarpia suggests, it would be good to know where in the layout the smaller section will fit, so you don't need to shoehorn it in somewhere awkward later.

Again, even though you just want to run trains now, thinking about and laying out the basics of the transportation system you want to operate on later would be a wise move, IMHO

You could build a layout using Dave Barrows dominoe method of construction to see what works and what doesn't.  As you get into operations, and see what works best and where the shortcomings are, you can easily move them around and modify them.  You may need to start out with a flat layout at first, but operating it will reveal how well the various industries and yards work.  Once you get an idea of what you want to do and how to do it, you can then rebuild parts of the layout to include hills and mountains or other topographical features.  Regardless of whether your layout is in the flat plains or in the mountains, all of your industrial sidings must be flat and level to keep rolling stock from moving when switched.

Well we have decided to start with just getting the benchwork up and getting just the mainline in and a small storage yard just to get the ball rolling. On top of this We each are working on building a few Free-Mo modules to test out I deas as far as Scenery. Once the bench work starts going up I will post pics and show our progress.