Montana Railfan:
I will do what i can to fix and re-work, andi guess we will see what comes out of it. Thank you for the advice and we will see what i can do.
For newcomers to model railroad design who have not had time to study and gain some basic design principles, it can be hard to see the issues. So if you keep trying to do a design without that investment, your results may not be what you want.
For your situation, an HO 4X8 is not what I would recommend. (Who am I kidding? I'd never recommend an HO 4X8). A big 4X8 slab is hard to move, so you'd be better off with sections, like the MILW "Beer Line" layout MR is featuring as a project series in the magazine now) But since you've already built the table, what else can you do?
Since you are interested in Linn Westcott's "Switchman's Nightmare" from 101 Track Plans, let's try laying that out in the 4X8 "sacred sheet" footprint. If you are willing to give up continuous-running, it fits pretty well, since there is a lot more square footage with which to work.
Anyone who is interested can read more about this layout here. That link includes a description of the layout design and bit about operations.
It looked like your layout used about 16-18 turnouts. The switching layout above uses only 12, but I think it could offer more operating fun and long-term interest, since it incorporates all the features of Westcott's "Switchman's Nightmare".
For portability, ease of future re-use in a different space, and more long-term useable radii, I think you'd be better off with a sectional apporach. But if you've built the 4X8 table and want to keep using it, something like this might be a decent alternative.
Byron
Model RR Blog