powered rails is what you want, with a red stone torch next to em, they give your cart a boost as you travel over them and if you place them the right distance from each other you can rather quickly make it up slopes from the bottom most point on to the map to where ever your home is. Typically, if I remember right, when going up an incline you want a powered rail every like... four rails to maintain top speed going up, going down doesn't matter much as that is easy. Unless **** changed then you will need to allow some space on a flat surface for turns, unless you have like a giant straight incline, I know i did the spiral incline down to bedrock as it was easier to manage and light