I've often wondered, and it could be applied to other scales, but I'd rather hear from G-Scalers for now. How did you get started in your chosen road name? For many it usually is a family history, a place you grew up, etc. That's the case for me actually. Burlington Northern's Chicago-Aurora Commuter Corridor. These 'Dinky' Double Decker Coaches with a green E-8/9 in front was a daily sight in Westmont, Illinois. I moved in 1993 but I never stopped wanting to see the Units. 1994 They were retired. I stood there at Main Street Station and watched the parade of E-8's and E-9's being retired on their last run of the Chicago-Aurora Corridor. The Green units were all I saw as a child. Watching the BNSF Merger and transformation never got a hold of me. I new it was happening but my love for the Burlington Northern never changed. And to this day it's my chosen road name. So tell me, what's yours and how did it become yours?
I model the same Road on my N scale layout so I just carried the Road over to the large scale.I'm not into real modern equipment and I like the color scheme.I didn't grow up in the part of the country or even around railroads,I'm just into model trains.
My family was into working for Railroads many, many years ago. At one time or another family members worked for Pennsylvania Railroad, Reading Railroad and Jersey Central Railroad, but nothing and more modern than that. My Dad was even given a Lionel Pennsylvania train set back in 1956 from those relatives. You would think I would have picked one of those railroads, but I didn't. You will probably never believe how I picked out my railroad name, but here it goes. After I sold out all of my Lionel stuff, I got into racing. During those years I bought and restored a all original 1970 Dodge Challenger R/T. Back in the day during the muscle car period which would be 1967 to 1971, Chrysler Corp had a club just for racers called the "Scat Pak Club". This would not be an appropiate name by todays standards due to the first word, but back then it had a different meaning. The emblem for this club was a yellow bee with black stripes that had a helment on it's head and headers on it's back. It was a factory club for such cars as mine that I restored, so all top dog Plymouth and Dodge muscle cars got to be in this club. The decals were still in the 1/4 windows when I bought the car, so I left them there. When it came time to settle down and buy a house, a big time investor just happen to make me a ridiculous offer on the car so I took it. I bought my childhood home and wanted to get back into trains knowing I wanted G scale ever since I fell in love with it back from my later Lionel days. All I had to do now was to pick a railroad, but who? When I saw the Bachman Rio Grande steam engine set, I knew that was the railroad for me. It would remind me of those fun and crazy race days due to it's similiar paint scheme of yellow with black stripes like the bumble bee decal used for the Chrysler race factory club. I named that railroad "Bumble Bee" express and although it was short lived due to a terrible fall from the wall, I stuck with the railroad name of Rio Grande. My little one now has a Aristocraft 2-8-0 consolidation in the Rio Grande "Bumble Bee" paint scheme so not all was so in vain. Plus I liked the fact I had a huge time era in which I could model Rio Grande in, unlike most of the Eastern railroads such as Pennsylvannia, Reading, Conrail, CSX. Although you could intergrate the different road names depending on when each road name was bought out, but I didn't want to go thru that. My SD-70MAC heritage unit and a few rolling stock is only a few in which I picked Southern Pacific or Union Pacific to model real modern type of era.
Sorry, I'm an N scaler but I saw your topic heading and couldn't resist to tell the story again. Looking for a name for my model railroad and for the name of the big city I wanted to model. My favorite prototype is Santa Fe from the time I got my Lionel warbonnet streamliner set in 1950-something. The Lionel catalog had an artist's painting of the train going through what looked like Monument Valley. Romanticized Southwest. Southwest. This kind of scene... A mission station like Albuquerque or San Diego or like SP's in San Antonio. So many Santa Fe stations and towns had names in Spanish with some kind of a religious connotation. Santa Fe = holy faith. San Diego = Saint James. Santa Cruz = holy cross. And so on. I thought of a real Santa Fe town in California-- Victorville in the desert. And that reminded me of Vacaville, where there was some kind of prison disturbance. And the name Santa Vaca came. It means Sacred Cow, or Saint Cow, or Holy Cow! My railroading got started with a train around the Christmas tree, and after a while, I thought of a way the name Santa Vaca relates to Christmas. I will tell you in advance it is entirely made up. The Legend of Santa Vaca In one of the early Spanish missions established in Texas to convert the Indians, a priest was telling his congregation they should give to the church even though they didn't have much to give. He said that God can use our gifts more than we know, and he told the story of the cow who gave up her feeding stall to make a place for the Baby Jesus to lay. He said the cow's gift-- the manger-- became more a part of the Christmas scene than even the expensive gifts of the Wise Men. But the Indians confused the cow in the priest's Christmas story with a buffalo cow who was worshipped in their pre-Christian native religion and they began to bring back the cult of the Holy Cow. The Church tried to discourage the practice but could not stop it entirely. The village near the mission took on the name Santa Vaca, and it grew into a major city served by a subsidiary of the Santa Fe Railway. At the cathedral in Santa Vaca near where the mission once stood is a stained glass window with the manger scene featuring the Baby Jesus, the Virgin Mary and the Holy Cow, each with a halo.
My MONTGOMERY & CRIPPLE CREEK RR name came from the 1st bldg I bought was the Cripple Creek station from Pola, my wife's maiden name is Montgomery and since her father built quite of few structures for me I thought I would "honor" him by naming one of the towns "Montgomery" Although my long time HO "Saline, Ann Arbr & Yuma RR" was based on the Ann Arbor Railroad my M&CC RR is strictly a fictious line.
I have selected the Colorado Central for my son's large scale stuff. The rational is this: The CC operated many short, small freight and passenger cars. The largest locomotive on the line was a mogul. The typical trains were 2-4 cars. The railroad itself had plenty of interesting features and scenery, and its most famous feature can be enjoyed today...the Georgetown Loop. A major benefit to the equipment is that it didn't have many safety appliances...so less details for him to brake off and the short lengths (typically 23'-24') look great on LGB curves. It also had some very odd cars...what little boy wouldn't love a metal sheathed Powder Car...that is only 23' long...and the excursion cars! The passenger cars mostly had duckbill roof profiles, so they'll be much easier to build than modern stuff. Another aspect of the selection is the MLS templates from David Fletcher for the mogul and porters. There are a couple small details which are off on the mogul, but the templates are fine...and I'll share my work over there (and here) as a thank you to them (him). The mogul's construction will begin within a few days when the chassis arrives. A window for the waycar (caboose) has been constructed and a log for it is in the ng forum. A flat car is also under construction, but awaiting access to a power sander for tapering the side and main sills. The station will be either the diminutive Forks Creek depot or the tiny Golden depot.
The Winter Valley Regional Railway started out as an, indoor, mid-January, N scale time waster in northern Alberta in which I invested $16.00. The colours come from my favourate football team and the name came from a short story I read about the Lehigh Valley in my first Railfan magazine. The prairie branch line theme came from watching the local CN movements between Bonnyville and Grande Center and Cold Lake AB. The logo grew from the CN wet noodle scheme and has lasted through all of the 37 years the railway has been running. Twenty five in N and 12 in G scale. Not going to change now I guess. I still build all my own structures based on real buildings and I still run 1st generation power in September 1975. Now of course I spend a lot of time updating my web site and writing short 'how to' stories for magazines and local newsletters. My house is always open so I have guests from far and near drop by quite often and you can see the one and only HO scale Winter Valley engine show up from time to time on the local KVR railway in our museum. Dave
