Raised on the Erie Lackawanna Mainline- Supt. of the Black River Transfer & Terminal R.R.
Humm, the Big Panhandle, haven't thought about that in awhile. Actually that was my second layout. I built it in a spare bedroom in my quarters in England. The bedroom was long and narrow but I still ended up shortening the yard by about three feet and taking off the closet doors to gain some room. I did modify the yard, using the plan from page 86 of Track planning for realistic operation.
Now that I get out the track plan, I noticed one of my yards is somewhat similiar to the Big Panhandle's, and I didn't even look at that plan when designing my current layout.
As for pictures. Those were pre digital days and while some surely exist, they might be a bit hard to dig up and psoting them would cause another problem.
As mentioned, you can change/modify these plans. They do make good starting points as they are "operationally sound", but the location of specific tracks can be modified.
Tilden
Nothing says you have to build the layouts exactly as presented in the book. They are mostly for ideas.
I don't understand how you could get the 5x10 portion into an 8x8 room unless you tear the wall out between them and make it a 16x8 room. Is that what you are talking about? Even at that I don't see how one could curve the yard into a "U" as there would only be 1 foot to do it and still have a center of a "U".