Tabula Rasa - New AD&N Plan

I've been absent from Trainboard over the summer. I have been busy with traveling for work, training & outreach stuff.

I have also been trying to buy a new trainroom that comes with a 2500 sq foot house on a 1 acre lot for my wife. We made a deal that if I buy her the house and the only thing that I put in the garage is my truck, that I get the 5th bedroom for a study/music room and I get the complete 24'x32' finished and insulated shop that has a 16'x16' finished and insulated room built on to the back of the shop.

We are finishing up the deal and are supposed to close in November.

The actual inside dimensions of the shop's back room are 15'5" x 15'9". I basically have a blank slate to be able to plan and construct a new N scale AD&N railroad in the back room of the shop. I can pierce the wall into the shop to have staging and/or a helix inside the shop.

This is a rough drawing of my blank slate.



I'm thinking a walk-in two or three deck layout. I'll be posting some more stuff including givens and druthers.

 

Thanks, Box. Just waiting for all of the paperwork to go back and forth. Right now closing is scheduled for no later than 4 November. I am sure that it will be a little while before I can actually start working on the layout, but I do want to get started on planning.

 

My home road is still going to be the Ashley Drew & Northern Railway Company.

Other roads modeled will be the Missouri Pacific, the Rock Island, and the Arkansas & Louisiana Missouri.

I would like to build this layout using Tony Koester's idea of Layout Design Elements (LDE) where you take actual track plans and adapt/simplify them as necessary and then string them together to make the layout.

I intend to model the AD&N mainline, from Crossett northwards to Monticello, in as close to it's entirety as possible.

I have been thinking of this and admittedly I feel a little out of my depth in trying to figure this out. I started this topic to get ideas/help/discussion from others in designing this layout. I will be using XTrackCad.

The heart of the layout will be Crossett, Ark. and the Georgia Pacific Forest Products Complex there. This will be the initial LDE.

This drawing is a representation of Crossett as it was in late 1980 which is the era I am modeling.



If you look at the 90 degree crossing at the bottom right the eastward running leg is where the Missouri Pacific local came into to the Mopac interchange. Just to the of the crossing (not shown) is the interchange for the A&LM.

The North leg of the crossing is the Rock Island mainline. Also not shown is the Rock Island yard that was that was located just north of the crossing and to the east of the wye.

The south leg of the crossing went to an industrial area that was switched by the AD&N. Dunn's Ready-Mix was located there.

 

This is a map of the AD&N Mainline.

 

Another LDE. This is the northern end of the AD&N Mainline at Monticello, Ark.

The AD&N also interchanged with the Missouri Pacific here.

 

Without being too nosy, I'm curious as to why you have so much of the shop area off limits except for the possible staging/helix you mentioned. Of course you might have a large amount of shop equipment or other hobbies for it's use. Still, it seems you could easily avoid having to double deck by using a portion of your shop room.

Duane Goodman

 

I don't find it nosy, Duane. 'Cause it will be a shop. Tools, saws, Harley, and an Olympic weight setup, with power rack, platform and such.

And I figured if I made the trainroom off limits from every thing but my layout it would be easier to manage than the other way.

 

After everything is moved, settled, and figured out. I might take some more real estate from the shop.

I really don't have a problem with having multi-decks, though.

 

I can understand not wanting the layout in the shop. I have a tablesaw that makes a terrific amount of sawdust. It would wreak havoc with a layout, even with the dust collection system going.

I look forward to seeing how this progresses. I have, of course, an interest in logging and wood products modeling.

 

Ok, I kind of got side-tracked by having a pulmonary embolism and spending a few days in the hospital.

Pulmonary embolisms are not something that I recommend for recreational purposes, by the way. I'm against them. They kind of suck.

Back to planning and discussing.

I've been toying with the idea of putting the Crossett Mills on a peninsula.

I would like to keep the loops, since they are a prototype feature. The problem would be that they would be on a peninsula so you would not be able to follow all the way around the loop anyway. But the work could probably be split in a way that a switch crew worked each side of the peninsula.

I have been fooling around with a 1:160 in Xtrak CAD to try to get a good idea of how this mill setup actually works. In 1:160 it would fit into a 20'x20'. It would make a heck of an industrial switching layout all by itself.

The main switchers here will be LL SW's. I have been reworking them for pickup and DCC.

I am considering going all electrofrogs to reduce/eliminate stalling on frogs.

What do y'all think?

 

I know I said that I was going to use Xtrak CAD, but I haven't used it for quite a while and I guess I forgot how.

This is an initial swing taken at Monticello using Right Track.





I think that it would work very similarly to Monticello. Now the problem would be getting it to fit onto some benchwork. To do that it will probably have to be bent around or adjusted.

 

Thanks, Box. The line running to the right is the MoPac line to Dermott. This is the line that a MoPac local would enter and exit the layout on so that it could work the interchange. The line to the left runs to Warren and will not be modeled.

For those of you who have The Model Railroader's Guide to Junctions By Jeff Wilson, the 90 degree junction is the one in that book on page 82. The one with the gate, Stop sign, and mailbox.

 

I spent about an hour talking to Mr. Russell Tedder today. He was the president of the AD&N from 1976 to 1997. It was neat to be able to talk to him.

He answered some questions for me and offered to answer other questions as I needed. Mr. Tedder is quite a gentleman and very knowledgeable.

He is a model railroader and has a 15'x19' HO layout where he models the Live Oak, Perry & Gulf, the "Loping Gopher" He worked for the LOP&G as an agent and dispatcher prior to working for the AD&N.

 

I have been working on a design for Crossett. I am kind of basing it off of Terry Holley's design for an AD&N layout from the February 1981 Model Railroader. It is the same plan that is Plan # 90 in 101 More Trackplans.

I've already scrapped and revised it a couple of times. I'll be posting something up soon.

 

A first draft of a trackplan for the Georgia Pacific Mill complex at Crossett, Arkansas circa 1980.

Plan was drawn in Atlas RTS 8.0.

This is intended to be on a peninsula on the first level of a two level layout. It is the operational heart of the railroad.



Prototype Trackplan ~1980.