I made some changes and abandoned my previous shortline name and am going with something completely different. Was just wondering for those that have their own shortline/regional/layout division, etc how you came up with the names. Did you take a real railroad and "adapt" it to your needs? What about paintschemes/colors/markings? Just curious of your thought processes. I'm currently deciding on two different names for my shortline but both are what I think are good ideas. I'm thinking of adapting existing logos to create familiarity as well as a back story of how they're "spinoffs" of the real thing.
My paint schemes have always been simple. Black for steam locomotives, Pullman Green or Tuscan for HW passenger cars, silver for LWs, red or freight car red for cabooses. Diesels are also simple: a solid color with a decalled stripe for cab units and a solid color and decalled safety stripes for hood units. I always liked derogatory names, so I would try to dream up reporting marks that gave rise to derogatory names. Finally, I decided on a short line that would have a road name and reporting marks that would give rise to the same derogatory name. I gave up on the idea of long lines and went to a short line, as you could get away with more, there. The name of my current non-historic is Short Creek and Nopedale, reporting marks SC&N. I sometimes refer to my nineteenth Century pike as Goat Hill and Wayte, but I do not have any equipment painted or lettered for that road.
The Turtle Creek Central caught my interest when featured in an modeling article. Then a little research found the real Turtle Creek and the turtle emblem on the loco. The rest became history when I decaled the boxcar featuring Olde Moore's Turtle Soup, and later built a covered gondola to deliver spent sour mash from the distillery to the turtle farm as turtle food. Flash forward a few years and I discovered that MicroScale had Turtle Creek decals available. Since I model the SP&S and the former Goldedale Branch was abandoned later by the SP&S I decided to bend history a bit, have some fun, and have the branch be spun off and sold to sold to the Turtle Creek. Turtle Creek became a customer for all the small older ex SP&S steam and some older logging locos. J. Neals Lumber found a new source of timber and re-opened, Sabot Quarry re-opened, and the need for pure dry ice and CO2 caused the dry ice plant to re-open. Favorable rates caused the grain traffic from Goldendale to come back to rail shipment and the rest became history. Twelve steamers from rod to gear driven hold down the line with three diesels. An old gas electric and three railbus critters hold down passenger connections. Mt. Adams still is known for the spring lamb crop and old 34 foot stockcars serve to get the spring lambs to the stockyards at Lyle. About 1% of my rolling stock is lettered for Turtle creek. If I run only the later BN era the three diesels plus a leased unit or two continues the service into the 70s.
The PB&J RR is completely fictitious and is named after myself and my grandson (Jackson). Once more modeling and detailing skills improve, I will be thinking about logos and such.
From a favorite area, where we had much family and spent a great deal of time as I grew up. Made it an independently operated, wholly owned subsidiary of a real life railroad, to which I had many family and friend connections. That way I could use equipment from the parent company, or my own, as whim struck me. Created the name as a teenager, and have stayed with it ever since. Only a few years ago, accidently discovered there had been an attempted 1:1 version by that same title, which had never succeeded in getting built.
I made it up. My upcoming layout is the fictional Arroyo Mesa RR. The track plan is shaping up as a double track dogbone (using Kato V11 as the foundation) with a large yard and maybe (maybe not) a turntable. The scenery is focused on realistic (as I can do with my skills) geology. So there will be some more or less flat topped mesas comprised of more or less flat-lying rocks (think Grand Canyon layer cake) and of course, a more or less dry river running down the arroyo. For now I am leaning towards more roundy-round running, coupled with the ability to play around in a yard. Running stock will be mostly BN/BNSF/SF since all run out here and it gives me a semi-realistic reason to have several different loco colors. If I feel spunky I might do a passenger train as well, but not planning on it up front (subject to my whim and whimsy of course).
The JNXT is an amalgam of me and my wife's first names (Jerry & Nita) with CSXT. Actually have no real interest in CSXT, except for the "XT" suffix. The colors (blue/grey/white) are really borne out of simplicity and ease of application and availability. Being a graphic designer at work, I came up with a logo that is easy to reproduce in large and small sizes (although I did find out later in practice about the need for a white background on items since I can't print white decals). Our slogans are "we have a big job to do, so get out of the way" and "The Route of the Weasel" (the weasel being our mascot, aka Chessie). Don't have an official "history" for the railroad or a reason for it to be in existence, hope to come up with one at some point but for now it is strictly a fun fantasy. That said, the railroad has several items on the roster, both locomotives, freight rolling stock and passenger.
Mine is taken right off the employee timetable for the period I'm modeling; "Albuquerque Third District"; as in Santa Fe Coast Lines, Albuquerque Division Third District, which happens to be Seligman-Winslow AZ, the section I model. I have the employee timetables decorating the wall, nice fluorescent orange. If you go with a bigger prototype, or prototype reference, there's a wealth of great names in company information and employee information as each railroad section had to be given a unique name. Conrail, PC, PRR, all the predecessors formally named virtually everything down to the Industrial Track level, and they have great names and geographic references.
Well, I have a regional shortline, the Chicago, Rock Island and Western, running on the abandoned MILW trackage in Ill, Ia and Nebraska. The part I'm going to model is a short line, the Iowa Central, that handles switching between the CRI&W and UP just outside of Des Moines. At some point, layout space may increase and I can build a decent model of a regional that would have the towns spread out abit, but for now, shortline switching is where it's gonna be at.
As you are from Iowa, you probably already know there was actually a prototype Iowa Central RY? http://www.train-orders.com/TOUR/IAC/IAC.html
Mine is just a tourist excursion railroad. The local tributary that runs near where I live is called Oyster Creek. The first railroad to build in these parts was named after tributaries, the Buffalo Bayou, Brazos & Colorado Railroad. (The Colorado River in Texas was named before the one that flows through the Grand Canyon.) Many railroads added "Western" to their names to indicate their desire to expand westward, whether they ever did or not. So, I put the names together and came up with Oyster Creek & Western.
For my garden railroad, I'm going with a Western theme so I came up with the town names of Perdition, Busted Wagon, and Gunpowder Creek. The railroad is the Busted Wagon, Gunpowder Creek & Perdition aka "The Road to Perdition." I also came up with this name but I don't know where I'm going to use it: Leaning Pine & Lake Zurich River Dell or the "LP & LZRD." Little Orphan Annie would be proud. Andy Tetsu Uma
My youngest daughter gave me the name. She was probably 6 or seven years old at that time and came out to the garage layout and said that it was the Southern Pacific in Dad's Garage. So Spidge it became.
I wondered where "Spidge" came from. Thought it might have something to do with Popeye...you know the rest. On mine, (mine, mine, mine, all mine...sigh) there was a lot of names floating around. Just so you understand the layout in my care, originally belonged to my dear departed Dad. Names? What to call it? Dead Horse Junction, for attempting to beat what seemed to be a dead horse to death (we were working with old junk AND I MEAN JUNK... at the time). Atlantic & Pacific (Why? I don't know). At one point, we got together at a family pow wow. Dad, my sister, son and self discussed several names for the layout. Incidentally the same number of family members involved with his layout. Ashhill & Ashfork Railroad (Again no idea why? Unless someone thought we were all going to hell. What?) Final consideration....our families given, last name, The Howland Pacific. We also have a number of Williams in the family and there are two locations on the Santa Fe Railroad (1X1 foot scale) Williams and Ashfork, both in Arizona. Both locations a favorite of my also departed Granddad, who worked in Helper Service for the Santa Fe Pacific. Uhh, errr Athchison Topeka and the Santa Fe. Long story short, selection process noted (having taken way to long to decide), we choose the Howland Pacific Railroad, of the Williams and Ashfork Division. So, the layout has to live up to it's name. How? In a ten by ten shed? I think I'm in the middle of making that happen. Wishing I had more room. Nope,:wideeyes: PCH gave the prize to someone else.
T.H.E.R.R. Paraphrase: "The story you are about to hear/see is true. Only a few things have been changed, to protect the innocent." T.H.E. is a Regional Railroad. It originally got its name from my grandkids. They would come up from the Phoenix and they loved the trains. They were always asking "Grandpa...Whats that?" Pointing at everything...and I mean everything on the layout. I always answered "That The (flll in the blank)" over and over and over and over... One day THE Wife asked what I was gonna name the railroad. I simple said "I'm gonna call it THE because thats all I seem to say anymore when it comes to THE layout !" It wasnt long before I was useing the letters T.H.E.R.R. as the acronym. THE Wife asked what the individual letters T. H. E. would stand for. I told her to make a list of words we could use. She spend the day and half the night before she came up with an extensive list. None struck my fancy. She explained that her and the grandkids always like playing with a toy train set we bought... "The Polar Express" She told me to turn the paper over and see what she had written. I flipped the paper over and I was ROFLMAO! She had simply changed one word to change the "P" to an "H". Which left us with The Hornytoad Express Regional Railroad. (Mike Fifers ACT already had a horny toad as its logo and use in its railroad name...so we simply left off the toad and went with that !!) Sooooooooooooooo T.H.E.R.R. stands for: "The Horny Express Regional Railroad" Thats my story and I'm sticking to it !!! :teeth:
I call mine the "Arizona Midland Railway Company" - Back when I was doing HO, all of those words were available from Champ Decals. They're also all seven letters long. I use "railway" instead of "railroad" because the railroad was built by British backers - the only people they were able to convince to back a railroad in the middle of no where and to part with their money sight unseen. And I've always liked the Colorado Midland and the Magma Arizona, and was born in Phoenix, blissfully unaware of the Magma Arizona RR a couple of hours drive to the east until it was too late and the steamers were out of service. In N scale, pretty much everything is (or will be) lettered "A. M. RWY." or just "A. M." I don't have the patience to spell everything out one letter at a time anymore.
Greenbriar Delta & Rutland (GD&R) I took initials of my first name, my wife's first name and our last name then had my wife look through an atlas and gazetteer of our state to find towns with names that started with the initials. We complied a list and then put combinations together that sounded good. Narrowed it down to 3 and then sat on it for a few days and then we picked the one that sounded the best. Location names on the layout represent people and places that are important in my life.
Mine is currently is called The C&C R.R. , which stands for "Celotex&Cathair". Management is considering a name change once scenic restoration is completed.....
My White River and Northern is/was a tourist line, and the name is a twist on the fictional railroad's real-life inspiration, the Black River and Western. The logo (above) is a black WR superimposed over a large blue N, deliberately highlighting the layout's scale as N, and reflecting the railroad's color scheme of black and blue (below). I'm currently building a new layout which is a departure from the White River series: the Jersey City Industrial Railroad is a fictional shortline that has some real life counterparts. The name is straightforward enough, describing where it is and what it does. The JCIR does not have a herald; locomotives are simply lettered in block letters, just like the 2.5-mile-long East Jersey Railroad and Terminal Company, a line founded in 1901 that still exists today.
