Well my home layout is the B&M pre 1978 and the Minute Man is no more. One fallen flag. BNSF is kind of a mix right now of both modern and a mix of old BN and SF equipment. A line I both model and Railfan. Just started modeling CB&Q too, interestingly a fallen flag but most of it's locomotives and equipment live on.
I have railfanned a few fallen flags: MKT, Rock Island, BN, ATSF, SP, DRGW, MoPac I model BNSF, which has elements of most of these, but technically only SP and BNSF coexisted...and for a very short time. However, I do plan on having "turn-back-the-clock" sessions where I will be modeling mid-80's BN and MKT. Just need Kato, Atlas, and/or Life-Like to run some MKT stuff. (SD40-2, GP38-2, etc.)
I model Milwaukee Road; my layout is based on the section between Portage and LaCrosse set in 1984, right at the end of the "true" Milwaukee Road. On railfanning trips, I keep an eye out for fallen flags on all the rolling stock and always take an extra photo of them. I usually give a merger/buyout/whatever five years before I actively seek out surviving rolling stock on railfan trips; before then, unrepainted stock is still too common. In 1993, for example, I caught these two cars in Aurora, Illinois...
My name's Jeremy, and I am a Fallen Flag railroads junkie.... I have railfanned BN, GN, MILW, NP, D&RGW, Conrail, and predecessors of some of these as well. I am a book junkie, and really dig into the history of the D&RGW over the Moffat Route. DNW&P, D&SL, etc.
"Now what does it say beneath the "10" and above "brotherhood"? " Stolen from Stourbridge Lion's post I am not so sure it "says" anything. The picture on the "Trainboard Brotherhood" seal of approval (?) (seal of fraternity?) is a photo of the old D&H caboose aboard which one of the original prototype real railroad brotherhoods was formed. It is a historic symbol of organized railroad labor. The caboose was (is?) a four-wheel bobber. Instead of a truck at each end, it has one pair of wheels at each end. What Matthew Roberts interpreted as "Now what does it say beneath the "10" and above "brotherhood"? may have been a picture of the grass on the other side of the track that shows under the car. Then again, maybe it is the initials of the historic prototype brotherhood or of the trainboard group. Does anyone more familiar with the original photo of the historic D&H caboose know?
Its says "fallen flags" Model mainly the SP/SSW with a hint of DRGW. I railfanned the SP, BN, DRGW, SF, SSW
I did railfan, and now I model, the Seaboard Air Line, Atlantic Coast Line, and the Southern. Now, unfortunately - I no longer actively railfan. It's not that I haven't tried, but it just doesn't seem the same. Still love the railroads, think that they're still mankinds greatest invention, but ... Then too, the places and opportunities no longer exist. Forty, fifty years ago, there were more rails in place, lots of local freights, and five man crews. The chances to be surprised were also more numerous. With about 100 "Class 1" railroads, to see a Sacramento Northern. Ann Arbor, or Fort Dodge, Desmoines and Southern box car, led me to want to know "what and where is that railroad." And the motive power is both very big, and impressive. But I'm not the first one to use the term "technotoaster." Unfortunately, the -99ABC's, etc. - remind me more of Mack or Kenworth, than EMD, or GE - don't even mention Alco or Baldwin. And don't want to fight anyone over this, this is not a "flame" or the start of one. I'm just going to try and carve out and recreate some happy memories of childhood and young adulthood.
With a name like Friscobob, you ask ME that question? Just kidding............Besides the obvious RR, I've railfanned the C&NW, MKT and MP, and model mostly Frisco, plus a smattering of MKT and MP. I've also sadly shot several deadlines' worth of Rock power in Council Bluffs and Oelwein, IA, in May 1981. At one time I did have a couple of Rock ISland diesels, but sold 'em off (one each GP35 and GP40 in the maroon with yellow ends). I may do some more later. No MKT power, but I AM working on two MP diesels (GP35M and GP38-2), in addition to enlarging my Frisco fleet And after BN took over things, I railfanned & shot beaucoup pics of BN power in Afton, Tulsa, Hugo, and Miami, OK; Kansas City, MO; and along the old Frisco main in Kansas.
Stourbridge Lion - Exactly! A train without a caboose??! FRED, in my book the "F" does not stand for "flashing"! Guess you had to be standing in your yard watching an ACL M-3 caboose on a late running branch line freight and smelling coal smoke and the smell of frying bacon from the caboose. That memory, from about 50 years ago, is still indelibly etched in my mind.
Here in Dallas we had Mop (of course) SP/SSW, ATSF, Frisco (later BN), CRIP. Now I look for the occasional "ghost" on the KCS (even they've been overrun with NS trash-9's on stack trains of late). I now know how the old steam heads felt when diesels took over the RR's. And no cabeese! I only model now as railfaning just ain't fun no more. :sad: :sad: :sad:
I model the GN over Stevens Pass in the fifties in Z-scale!! But, I dable in NP, used to model the MILW in N-scale, and a long time ago, the BN in HO when I was a kid!! I live right next to the old NP Stampede Pass route, have walked over the Milwaukee Road on Snoqualmie Pass, followed the GN from Seattle all the way to Grand Forks, ND on a couple vacations,(and the MRL on the way back), and all points in between! So, anything that roamed the NW, I like!
I model a fictional division of the B&M, which operates transition era power with Minute Man heralds and Maroon & Gold colors ONLY. This line was originally organized as the Saucier & Southern Railway, but was absorbed by the B&M way long before records were kept. The S&SRwy runs from Saucier, NH in northern Coos County on the NH/Quebec border, south to Ashland Jct., NH where it interchanges with my brother's Beebe River Railroad and continues on to Ipswich, MA and the Boston markets. Well, it makes sense to me...:sad:
