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Forgive the crude drawing, but here it is. I will be installing a reverse module on the rail that leads from the turnout near the circled short, up and around the top left side of the layout, making the second isolation at the turnout along the top edge. Nice long section for the reverse module to handle a long train with metal wheels.
Regarding the reverse loop mess above, I decided to make it even more complicated, and lost part of my sanity I'm sure in the process. But using strategically placed isolated sections of track in addition to a pair of Tam Valley dual frog juicers (set for auto reverse), I ended up adding a single slip crossing that allows me to either cross over the reverse track in question completely and rejoin the inner main line in the proper direction, or also divert into the reverse track and come back out the same track I came in on. Here's a quick video I made when I had first gotten the modified track work done and wiring figured out:
Here are a couple shots of the layout as it stands now, most track work is done, I abandoned the reverse loops in the dog leg in favor of a more scenic winding up and over instead. Plus I already had one reverse loop in the main section and could add one for the other direction pretty easily later if I want to in the same area. I need to decide what I want to do for sidings / industries in the main area and then lay those tracks out. Coming along well so far though, spent a couple days with my most fussy locomotive looking for and correcting any problem areas in the track work, running very well as of now
Funny you mention that, I just got 3 new locos in the mail last week and one wanted to derail anywhere the track was not absolutely perfect. I had to wedge up one track in three spots and now she runs like a top all the way around. Fortunately that only took about 30 minutes of prying and inserting toothpicks.
I think it took just as long to figure what the problem was.
Ironically the locomotive in question is a one year old Kato SD70ACe (the one sitting idle in the video, the SP Heritage). Like you said, anywhere the rails aren't perfect, the front axle on the front truck will walk over the rail. Drives me mad. The 40 year old 2-8-8-2? I could run that thing over a properly aligned parallel array of finishing nails and it would probably be ok lol
