Jumping in with both feet

So I started with the Polar Express set.  A nice basic set up with a steam locomotive, Lionel fasttrack, and an 80W transformer.  Before I got it set up I bought an MTH NY Central steam loco set on line from ebay.  It was part of a Sears catalog set that was incomplete.  The seller did not include the caboose and substituted one lesser car for another that must have gone missing along the way.  It did come with a loop of MTH track but that was incompatable with the Lionel track from the Polar Express.  After running both sets on the dining room floor for a few weeks, I decided I wanted to go big.  In my estimation, it was "really big".  But as I came to find out, really big is about 10x the size of my current "really big" layout.  Nevertheless, here is how it all evolved.