OOH! I love these topics! I had a recent merger oftwo ideas. On one hand, was a railroad called the Half-Moon Orion & Northern. (It don't really exist) Dad and I made up stories to pass the time away during car trips. Divorce, he moved out, I went with him every other weekend to Sharonville Ohio. We had a cast of characters, and when we settled down, so did they. Originally, fed by an extensve Thomas Wooden, then HO was started. Half-Moonwas a base for a bunch of Matchbox Seaplanes, parked in a cresent of Ertl thomas "track". Orion began as a space station, later evolving into a distant city and the original other terminus. Likely, the regional railroad evolved past that point a while ago. When I was togrow up and move into life, I would start a new layout, it was to be Rock Valley, connected by carfloat after a massive rockslide cut the Pass. That would be my end of the line, and he'd have his. Then I fell in love with Madison Indiana. (Sorry Wisconsiner's, we been here since 1800s, you ain't taking the name easily) And the CMPA (It does exist) took a spot in the que line. It's go behind Rock Valley. Then I lost Dad. Metastatic Colon Cancer (I just learned that M word, five years I'd never heard more than Colon Cancer, even if they did say it) And all those plans went POOF! No Dad means no room for modeling, there's no room at Mom's, all I've got is a paintbooth (of cardboard, a rubermaid turntable, and a desklight) and an 15"x30"(?) module we made when I was 6 for 4H. It needs a lot of help still. Half-Moon is to become an "interested party" in the CMPA, much like G&W is or Rail America, but with more leeway on CMPA's part (who considers HO&N a very large stick in some bargaining situations) I saw the OP mentioned Chessie, I'm hanging on to them and taking the name and paint of CSX out of the picture. They shot themselves in the foot when they dumped the Kitty as a marketing tool. temporary retiremant maybe, but out-and-out gone... Half-Moon's old locals are being carefully transposed into Madison's deigns (in my head). The station on that Module says Redwood too, so Redwood's gonna work its way in somehow. And from the Sharonville front, We're rolling in the Roadrailers. I likes 'em.
I have updated my original post to add a little story line behind my idea. I like what I have read hear already. Keep it up!
Ok well so let me stick my little mole head out of the ground having been a member here for sometime but never posting due to the massive lack of funds, time and having my layout some 150Km that'a'way *points to the east* which makes me feel like I have nothing to contribute. My layout concept is based on freelancing to the extreme which I have dubbed fantasylancing, by creating my own country and it's railroad systems it gives me an entirly blank canvass to both work with what's available in N scale and to freely but justifiably mix my Australian and American Rollingstock with Australian, British and American Locomotives (possibly with some japanese interurban) with some modifications into a believable setting, which just happens to have everything a modeler would want; eastern deserts, a giant dividing range from east to west across the country, northern tropics (it's located in the Southern Hemisphere), southern coal fields, midland granger districts ala the midwest or back o' beyond NSW and Victoria just to name a bit. my layout itself is modeled on a small island chain which makes up the nations' extreme-most eastern territory (should point out the nation is an island nation like New Zealand or Great Britain with no land borders) this territory also makes up some of the most eastern land mass on earth being a mere 1Km from the International dateline this coupled with being in the south pacific where cold southern and warm northern waters meet make it a hard place to access hence the name the Desolation Island chain. the railroad that runs it is the 'Desolation & Eastern', who are part of a consortium company operating under the name 'Freightlink'. As for the name it is drawn from one of my most favourite books 'East of Desolation' by Jack Higgins (review of the book is here: http://ezinearticles.com/?Book-Review---East-of-Desolation-by-Jack-Higgins&id=3540918) which I highly recommend. I do have the potted history of the D&E written down if anyone wants me to post it, as well as the history of a similar Freightlink member company located on the nations west coast that I hope to put into a plan one day and submit to the likes of MR.
I got into N Scale in 1964 because I was frustrated trying to model the CB&Q in HO. I figured nobody in their right mind would ever try to model a prototype railroad in 1/160. I had a college buddy who was also into N at the time and he styled his railroad the D&P (Danville & Peoria) after the intitials of his and his (then) wife's first names. My road (the G&S) connected with his and extended north from Farmington, Illinois through Savanna and across the Mississippi at East Dubuque on to the twin cities. Eventually he left N for HO and the D&P was merged into the Galesburg & Savanna forming a Minneapolis-Indianapolis route. The idea was to use the locomotive types that the manufacturers offered and to not emulate the CB&Q but rather have a typical midwest railroad that blended elements of the M&StL, TP&W, P&E, CGW, etc.. It has mostly steam (USRA) with some first generation ALCO RS, FA and PA power. I laid out the route on maps locating stations, etc.. and listing placenames in groups for future use for naming passenger cars, grouping them manually (this was pre-PC) by "series" (i.e., PhophetsTOWN, CharlesTOWN, etc..). Charlie Vlk
These are all great stories, which to me shows we as a group have strong family rich characters from firm foundations. It shows just another aspect as to why this hobby is so darn great, and the sub-stories as to why we migrated into N. My son grew up with me around the house always interested in N scale model railroading, and he always was included in the building and operation. He always knew how to run the trains on my layout and knew there wasn't any forboding against it when I wasn't around. My daughter either. From 3 to 9 he had his own bedroom layout in the wood trains, and at age 11 designed his own floor HO layout using my old HO, Kato Unitrak, and 3D puzzles as structures. Now he is 22, and is on his own after college grad, has a nice job, and making up for lost time with adventures and such. But yesterday, he inquired if my layout is still running, and indicated that when he returns from his driving vacation next Wednesday, he is going to stop by and run trains. The seed was planted............. Ken "FloridaBoy" Willaman
I grew up in Fort Scott KS, a division point on the Frisco in the steam era. So I picked the Frisco circa 1950, to model. I can have both steam and 1st gen. diesels and I know the country. The same tracks became part of BN in 1981, so when I have a hankering for "modern" trains I run BN. Time stops at 1996, no BNSF.
