This website is devoted to
the history of the Atlantic & Yadkin Railway,
and to a lesser extent how I and others have tried to recreate it in scale
models.
Explore the A&Y's History and Modeling Here.
Recent Updates:
I have updated the 953 page to include a photo when it operated in A&Y lettering after being purchased from the Southern in 1932.
I have updated the format to and added photos to the Granite quarry at Mt. Airy, Greensboro, Bonlee, Goldston, Gulf, Siler City and Liberty pages, added Employee Time Table (ETT), Maintenance of Way equipment, Ore Hill, Bear Creek, Julian and Staley pages and updated with more photos the King, Climax and Summerfield pages. I also moved the Ramseur branch station pages to be under the Climax page where the junction was located. I want the page navigation to mirror the railroad's navigation.
We had a house fire (October, 2015) since the last time I updated this site. I was very fortunate NOT to lose the A&Y correspondence files (destined for the SRHA archives as part of the Marvin Black collection). Unfortunately, I did lose some photos, letters, and other items in my collection and, ironically, I lost all my digitized data, except for backups I made to DVD or CD in 2008. For example, I received some rather nice, detailed images of Mount Airy's furniture factories from a now retired director of that town's Regional History Museum. Thankfully the Museum's current director was kind enough to send me replacements. I have spent a considerable amount of time just trying to restore and organize the information that remains. Because of my experience, I have a renewed interest in sharing what is left and anything new that is sent to me!.
On January 8, 2008, I created an email list on devoted to the history of the A&Y on Yahoo Groups. In 2008, I moved it to groups.io due to Yahoo service problems. I share railroad historical items on that list that are not specifically about the A&Y (so they don't go on this site), but that are of interest to the area, such as the Winston-Salem Division history when the A&Y was still independent of the Southern. I have a large collection of records from Conductor H.F. Snow when he ran the trains between Greensboro and Winston-Salem and beyond to North Wilkesboro. That is the kind of info I will share on the list as I can. So join if you're interested!
Click on the links to the left to view the images and other information I have collected to date. Please note, I am using thumbnails with links to larger images rather than full size images on the pages in response to those of you who asked that I cut down on image size when loading the pages.
I am always working on my collection of Atlantic & Yadkin Railway and related railroad photographs. I have acquired a number of photographs of A&Y locomotives, one caboose, and many of the extant stations. I have contemporary images of the towns and industries served by either the Cape Fear & Yadkin Valley, an affiliated narrow gauge logging line called the Mount Airy & Eastern, the A&Y, or the modern Yadkin Valley and Norfolk Southern. Some are post card images, some are photos scanned from books that are currently out of print or from donations to my research by other people, and some are contemporary images taken on my trips to the region beginning in September, 1999.
Note that some historic photos are from the North Carolina State Library Photographic Archives and are considered public domain. Other images come from personal collections or the University of North Carolina Southern Collection. These photographs, along with my contemporary shots are copyrighted and have restrictions on their appearance and use. Please do not copy these images for other uses without contacting me first. In some cases, I have not been able to obtain permission from the original photographer and/or owner of the original negative/print. Please contact me if you feel one of the images on this site is in violation of copyright. I will remove it as soon as possible until I can obtain permission for such use. I am glad to share my personal photographs for research and other non-commercial use so long as you ask me first and obtain written/email approval.
If you have any photographs of the Atlantic & Yadkin Railway or related subjects you are willing to share or sell for my personal research or for inclusion on this site, please contact me!
by email: dbott@vt.edu or by regular mail: David Bott, 2200 Carroll Highlands Court, Sykesville, MD 21784-6306