http://imgur.com/a/3DK6O
Just a bit of explanation. Yes I used a mod for Flying and to make the minecarts controllable with WASD so that I wouldn't have to spend two hours building a booster.
The highway ends at a special mine which is hard to take pictures of, using a funnel of water as an entrance/exit its almost impervious to enemies.
The red stone torches on the highway are powered by a light switch just under the castle. When you trigger it, they slowly turn on progressively from the castle to the mine at the end. If you get into a minecart and go fast enough, you can actually accelerate past it and watch it.
Total build time was about 8 hours for everything, including mining the minerals.