The All Day & Night

[Tad]

The Ashley, Drew & Northern was a 41 mile shortline in southeastern Arkansas. The track was 100 meters from my house when I was growing up. My brother and I would always be out there to see "The Train." The daily would come by every day about supper time and come back through about 3:30 in the morning. That's why we called it "The All Day & Night." It ran every day but Sunday.

I retired from the Army a few months ago and now that I won't be moving all the time, I can build an AD&N layout like I always wanted to.

This is my track plan in N scale for the AD&N. The short side of the L is a 36" x 80" door. I actually have the benchwork done and the roadbed laid and am laying track on that part right now. The long side of the L is 2 ft x 12 ft. I'm going to go DCC with this layout, figuring out how to wire it and installing decoders in my small fleet will be my next great adventure, I'm sure.

Questions, comments, suggestions, & criticisms (constructive, please) are invited.


Dave D. has a nice AD&N site here:

http://eje.railfan.net/adn/index.html

Thanks,

 

[interurban]

Hi Tad and welcome to the Gauge.
Thanks for the link love the paint on 907 what an unusal green!
That`s qiute an empire you are building, it has a lot of running and shunting ability , well done.
Looking forward to pictures of your progress on the A D & N

 

[davidstrains]

nice looking plan Tad. and welcome to the best Model train Forum you can find. DCC wiring for your layout will be the least of your worries. It really is simple no matter how complicated you try to make it.

We are anticipating your progress photos.

 

[Tad]

Chris,

I really like the old green & yellow scheme myself. That is the way I remember them when I was little. The era I'm modeling is when they were repainting and and the GP10s were brand new from Paducah. What I am planning on is to take the three SW1200s and paint 178 in the green and yellow, 176 in the Bicentennial scheme, and 1205/174 in the new green & white scheme that the GP10s were delivered in. I think it would be neat to show each of the three schemes.

I haven't decided which schemes I'll paint the SW9 and the SW1500. I'll probably wait and see which I like best or maybe one of each. Now that I'm thinking of it, I'll probably do 1509/150, the SW1500, in green & yellow, that way I could have a consist of the green & yellow SWs if I wanted to step back a couple of years.

Thanks to both of you for the comments and the welcome.

Here are a couple of pics from when I had the track testlaid and was making a couple of modifications from my original plan for Phase I on the 36" x 80" door. I have since pulled up the track, laid roadbed, and am in process of relaying the track. It's slowgoing because I'm trying to be carefull and do a good job. I'll be glad when I get enough down to at least run a train again.

 

[interurban]

Good stuff Tad

Looking forward to the paint jobs. And the progress.
Keep up the slow work it`ll make it easier in the end

 

[Matthyro]

I wish to add my welcome too Tad. Thats going to be a nice looking layout and will be watching for photos as you progress.

 

[Tad]

Well, here is the current design of Phase I of the Ashley, Drew and Northern in N Scale. As you can see, it has changed some from the original design above. As I actually got track down and continued to research the AD&N, I saw things that needed fixing.

All track is laid and operational except for the AD&N shop tracks and Whitlow Junction. I plan on having them finished within a few weeks.

Buildings are in partial / mockup right now. I hope to get started on construction of Phase II soon. I have wound up taking much longer on this than I originally anticipated. ops:

I'm sure that as I start on Phase II some more will change on it as well. The overall concept remains the same, though.

 

[shamus]

Hi Tad, I find your plan quite good, but maybe just a little too much tracjwork in it. If you reduced the Chemical & Paper mill to just one track each, it would make switching more fun. (Just my thoughts)
Shamus

 

[billk]

Hey Tad - Looking at your plan, I noticed you have several wyes, some obvious and some not. DCC or not, I think these require special consideration wrt wiring. Also, the wye on the lower left of your last post - make sure the stub extends far enough to get whatever you're reversing past the switch.

 

[jon-monon]

Looks like US Army issue OD green to me, gee I wonder where you learned to like that

Congrats on serving your fine country for at least 20 years, and on surviving military life for as long. Welcome home, soldier. We have a good handfull of vets here, a few retired from the service. I got my 6 years in the Navy and ran as far away from water as I could get Probably would have stuck it out for 20 if it weren't for sea duty and the 9 month family seperation involved with that.

Back to the topic, I like your layout plans. Hope to see plenty of pictures along the way!

 

[Tad]

Paul,

I understand your point. The two tracks by the chemical plant are on either side of the soon to be built loading rack for tank cars.

The top track by the paper mill is the track where chemical tankers and hoppers are delivered to the mill.

The paper mill is actually representing six different mills. That is why I built multiple tracks for it. Two paper mills, tissue mill, bag mill, box mill, extrusion/foodboard mill (milk cartons & food boxes).

The plywood mill is representing three different mills. Plywood mill, particle board mill, stud mill. The two tracks going into the mill are for these. The one below and outside is a loading track for wood chip hoppers.

This is a very compressed version of the largest forest products complex in the world. It generated 26,000 carloads last year. I did build in a little extra capacity to try and represent how busy the switchers would be. The AD&N had switch crews working around the clock here.

I just got the layout to an operational stage where I can start testing out my operational scheme. I plan on doing that for a few months before I start any scenery type work. I may very well wind up changing or modifying a few things depending upon my experiences in operating the layout. I did simplify things from my first design. Further modifications may be in order. Time will tell.

Jon,

Thanks! I did just shy of 21 years. I retired as a First Sergeant, E-8. I did tanks for a living in the Army. The 31st of January was actually the one year anniversary of my retirement. I'm now a Probation & Parole Officer for the Idaho Dept of Correction.

I was very optimistic when I started this layout. It has taken much longer to get to this point than I thought it would. I've decided that trying to hurry doesn't payoff for me. I'm just glad I finally got it to a point that I can start operations and working on that side of things. That is a whole new learning curve.

Bill,

The wyes are there on purpose. They were a prototype feature that I wanted to have. The shop wye that you are referring to is long enough to turn a two locomotive lashup of my longest locomotives, which are GP-38s. I had to adjust things a little to get that kind of length for it. I had to build an extension to hold the wye.

Al Silverstein helped me figure out the wiring. I wound up wiring it with each turnout isolated. Each turnout and each section of track between turnouts is its' own block and they each have feeders running to the main buss. On the wyes, one leg is wired to be reversible.

Thanks for the feedback.

 

[Tad]

Phase I of my layout is my attempt at representing this:

This complex contains almost 22 miles of yards and industrial trackage.