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These pages replicate the layout designer Scott Perry's questionnaire for his clients. The contents are used here with is permission. I have formatted it to be an series of pages with his questions and my answers.

Personal Interview Survey Page 1

What is your vision of a layout? Please be as detailed as possible and take as much space/time as you need. The more detail the better. Imagine that you walk into your dream layout and are going to run trains. What do you see, hear, think, and feel? Take some time with this as it is very important. Take a copy of Model Railroader and look at someone else�s layout. For instance, �I see a run down, old logging layout just making it by with rusty equipment hauling huge logs out of the Washington State wilderness. I have a DCC throttle in my hand and the trains run flawlessly. There are lots of tunnels, and none of those terrible passenger cars.�

I want to have a layout that represents at least a portion of the Atlantic & Yadkin Railway, especially Mount Airy. I envision a single track mainline through the rolling hills of the Piedmont plateau region. I want the layout to be fully scenicked. I prefer operations to be limited to a maximum of 5 people, and fully expect no more than 2 or 3. I want the train lengths to be reasonable representations of a short line�the prototype freight trains ran 12-30 cars and passenger trains were limited to a combine and two coaches or a mixed train. I�d like to have a passenger train run during operating, but more for scenic interest.

My fantasy layout would have a representation of the full Mount Airy (passenger station, freight house, furniture factories, yard, a wye for turning the locomotive, a representation of the open air granite quarry, and maybe the abandoned track of the narrow gauge Mt. Airy & Eastern), it would have a representation of Pilot Mountain (either as a scenic item or painted on backdrop), it would have some water-level running track along the Ararat River with a few bridges, it would have an interchange with the Southern Railway at Rural Hall, perhaps using a staging yard on an oval behind a backdrop to represent the Southern�s Winston-Salem Division (see track plan and aerial photo of Rural Hall), it might have another town/station representing Summerfield or Walnut Cove (with N&W at grade crossing), it would include an industrial switching district and yard representing Greensboro where A&Y locomotives were serviced and most A&Y trains originated, it would go further to represent the south end of the CF line with a junction for the Ramseur branch which would end along the cotton and fabric mills in Franklinville along the Deep River, and then a passing siding switching center at Siler City and/or Liberty, a crossing over the Deep and Haw Rivers with a through truss bridge with a fake junction with the Atlantic & Western, a representation of Gulf with its gravel/clay pits and junction with the old Norfolk Southern, then ending in Sanford where the track kept going, but now as the ACL and the SAL had a connection too. This fantasy would be built as a walk around layout in it�s own building if I had a regular group of modelers helping me out.

In reality, I still want the Mount Airy 3 track yard. I have the HO scale model of the station. I have a photo of the freight house, and I know that furniture factories were located along the yard with a walkway (looks like a coal mine conveyor structure) linking factories on either side of the tracks. I�d like to have a way to represent the spur to the Flat Rock granite quarry�maybe as leg of a visible wye for turning trains, but going to hidden staging instead for flats and gons with rock loads.

After Mount Airy, the question is what next to make this a feasible operating layout that captures the rural character? I think a forested section with the track running along the Ararat river (basically a rocky stream�I have photos) and crossing the stream on a pile trestle bridge or a deck girder bridge. I think that a single passing siding with a station and hint of town above with Pilot Mountain viewed in the distance (painted on backdrop?) could represent the small stations and towns from Mt. Airy all the way to Rural Hall.

Now I could skip Rural Hall since it is a small yard too, but it is an interchange with the Southern and might be all I can do to represent the Southern as an interchange partner and source of off line traffic since Greensboro is huge and complex and might be hard to represent. If I could get Rural Hall (where I have aerial photos of the track, trains and buildings from the 50�s!) in the layout, this would be a bonus. The Philco warehouse in the photo, along with the lumber company and the softdrink sign on the side of the one building are key identifying elements of Rural Hall to me. Someone who lived there mentioned the soft drink sign has been there on that building forever! So it would be memorable and identifiable if I could get Rural Hall in, but it is not a must, like Mount Airy .

There�s not a lot of info on the region/stations between Rural Hall and Greensboro. The Factory branch junction to Madison was there (although the branch was abandoned in the 30�s) and the N&W crossing was there. But I�m not all that into modeling the N&W and the only item of interest is the Belews Creek store of which I have information from descendents of the owners.

So the layout could end there, with a representation of Greensboro in a staging yard which originates and receives trains. This becomes an �out & back� kind of operating scheme with a couple of daily freights and a passenger train each way plus extras to cover fertilizer and harvest seasons plus granite and pulpwood.

Or I could have another branch out of staging head south to model the Ramseur branch (which I think would make a great little display layout with the shallow but interestingly rocky river, the sluice gate and industrial canal, the factories, and the river running track. I have a photo postcard that shows the potential here.

I think that the clay and gravel pits around Gulf are kind of interesting, but I wouldn�t know how to model them well. I�m not that into interchange so the junctions with the shortline A&W or the NS, SAL and ACL interchanges aren�t a big draw to me. I�m a Southern and A&Y modeler in my heart.

Now Greensboro would make an interesting industrial switching and massive yard/interchange layout if that kind of thing interested me. The �Furnace branch� served several huge cotton and textile mills as well as in ancient days a pig iron foundry (hence the name furnace branch), additional A&Y trackage in Greensboro served metal fabricating factories and numerous fertilizer and farm equipment dealers. The A&Y derived the majority of it�s revenue from this switching in Greensboro! But I don�t find interesting a massive yard (Southern had a yard and there was an �A&Y yard�) and industrial urban switching. I prefer to see trains snaking through rural lands with small simple towns/stations and some pickup/setout switching.

I also have an interest in �signature� scenes/situations. The A&Y correspondence files indicates that a chapel car was run on the A&Y at various times. The chapel car in question was from the Catholic extension society and was used to hold Mass in areas that had Catholics, but no organized parish and church. I think this would add operational interest with little or no additional track! I have a model of an Episcopal chapel car from Labelle to use as a substitute until I can scratch build the Catholic steel heavyweight version that actually was on the A&Y rails.

Another interest is an A&Y work train or two. I know that a large crane was run on the line (I have drawing from Southern Railway to use to modify and detail a Tichy derrick kit I own). I also have a photo of a camp car lettered for the A&Y, so I would like to make a B&B train with 3-4 camp cars from MDC old timer boxcars, and maybe a ditching train (I have a photo of a ditching train on the A&Y although it�s an old dark photo showing the equipment more in profile, but I plan to use a Walthers kit of a Jordan spreader to represent a ditcher from that era). These kind of models are fun to build, add operational interest to a low volume short line, and don�t require a lot of layout either.

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