How did you become interested in your favorite railroad?

My time with the SP started very early. I was born in a California town that was served by the North Western Pacific, a subsidiary of the SP. SD9's ruled the rails, and somehow as a baby I knew I was a fan of the SP. My family moved to southern California, Lancaster, where I grew up and where the SP ruled. My dad began to take me track side, and I fell in love with the Golden Empire. I can't remember a time in my life when SP was not a part of it, in either model or prototype. Over the years I have recorder the sounds of SP trains, the radio transmissions, modeled SP in N scale, and of course, documented them in print photographs.
SP forever!

Thom

 

Nicely put. Around here, I'm exposed to CP in reality and to Canadian-prototype modelling. Don't get me wrong, I have an interest in Canadian roads, but no more so than many others. When it comes to Canadian prototypes, it's not about osmosis. My liking is mostly for a time before I was born, or that I was too young to remember.

Anyway, on to the real deal: Conrail. Having never experienced it in person, it's not the most obvious choice. I'm not of the generation where many people had railroad workers in their immediate family. I learned to like Conrail during its last days, when Model Railroader magazine was the most precious thing in the world to me. Not yet having an Internet connection at home, this was the way I learned about railroads. The April 1997 isue had two articles: "Lessons of the South Penn" and "Prototype drawings: EMD SD80MAC". The October 1997 issue added the article that secured Conrail's place as my favorite railroad: "Conrail's Big Flats Line". I can't logicaly explain why these had such an impact on me, but they did.

Now, I like many railroads - so many it may be impossible for me to ever decide what to model! Conrail still holds a special place for me, but will it still in a few more years? I don't know.

 

Wow. These are all great stories.

I remember the exact day for me. I was 7 years old. My family had just moved from Georgia to Fruita, Colorado. One day, just before my third grade school year started, My family went to see my great-grandmother in Hotchkiss, CO. It was the first time I remember visiting her house.

We pulled into the driveway and got out of the car. Then it happened. I heard an engineer lay into a horn as he approached a grade crossing. I had never heard a train so close. I looked up towards a hill that my grandmothers land backed up to. There was a cut in the side of that hill. From the angle I was standing I couldn't see the tracks.

And all of a sudden, there they were. Four dirty, grungy, mean looking locomotives. They were all black save for the orange safety stripes and the words "RIO GRANDE" on the side. The letters looked like they were flying on the side of the locomotive.

After the locomotives passed in all there fury and noise, the coal cars went by. Car after car, all filled with coal. I was absolutely mezmorized. I was frozen stiff with wonderment, fascination, and curiousity. I was hooked.

We moved to Hotchkiss the next year. Since both my parents worked, my grandmother would match me after school. That gave me great train watching time along D&RGW's Somerset branch. I have so many good memories from those times exploring that branch.

Eric

 

Variety of color scheme, and the fact that my uncle used to work for them.

 

For me it was living between the SP and the MOPAC. The town I lived in was serviced by both for a while.

 

mg: Talk about culture shock !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Bergen County to Mexico.
I'm in Rochelle Pk. now,& I can hear the trains blowing from Garfield up to Fair Lawn/Glen Rock. On a clear night,I can follow the horns to Rutherford.
We do have great pizza places.I promised JD I'd bring all the fixings from up here,down there before I go back to work.

 

In Model Railroader was an article about Grainbelt Farm Rail. They named their engineas after Indian Tribes. I saw the paint schemen from Indiana & Ohio. I knew I couldn't collect enough information for a prototype railroad (I've never been in the USA).
So I decided to build my own freelanced railroad, Westport Terminal RR.
Also, there were two articles in Model Railroader about layouts, which hooked me:Bill Baumann's Third Street Industrial District in Nov '85 and J. Decker's The yard at Westport in Sep '83.

Wolfgang

 

My Dad lived right next to the tracks between Snohomish and Monroe, Washington in the late 40's and he would always tell me about how the Empire Builder and the Western Star used to fly by his house and he always dreamed of being on those trains someday cause he and my Grandparents were not well off being farmers. He finally got to take a train back to Chicago though, on the Milwaukee Road!!:teeth: He said he can remember the train pulling into Cedar Falls and getting a Boxcab helper put onto the front for the run over Snoqualmie Pass. He finally got to ride the 'Builder in '69. He took us kids over to Wenatchee and back 'cause he had heard of the coming BN merger, and wanted to take it while it was still "his" GN train!! :teeth: So that's where I get it from. I model the GN in Z-scale over Stevens Pass, but I also collect Milwaukee Road stuff, just like a chip off the old block!

 

My intrests

Well grew up in in jersey pennsy area, and all I heard ever morning and night where the distant sounds of train horns, As I got older and explored there where 4 sets of tracks not far from the houses we lived in, We had a CNJ yard, Pennsy main and EL yard and cant forget the Raritain Rail road (real small short line). All of which went away in 76 with Conrail and Amtrak but for years after wards you could still see all the fallen flags roll by once in a while.
I cant leave out My grand dad He got me hooked on trains He had an old set of linels he set up for years and eventaully got me a set of my own HO and it grew from there.
TONY:teeth:

 

I got my interest of the Nickle Plate from my dad, who crossed it daily on the way to school. He often saw the NKP Berks running faster on their single track then the NYC diesels on the 4 track "Water Level" main.

Myself, I grew up chasing the NS fan trips with NKP 765 and N&W 611. Today, when you go down to the tracks, the CSX trains are a dime a dozen, while it is a rare treat to see a train on the Nickle Plate.

 

I've thought about a layout for over 30 years - ever since visiting a friend with an n-scale layout in his basesment. After reading books and collecting some locos and cars over the years I am ready to start.

My wife bought me a book "Encyclopedia of Steam and Rail" and I have been reading through it over the years. One area intrigued me most. The railroads of Vermont and New England in general. The Green Mountain Railroad was mentioned as being a good tourist trip to view the New England (I've never been there.) fall foliage. I decided on that railroad and Vermont in general, simply because it was someplace I'd like to visit someday for a vacation when I am retired.

My thinking is that it's far from home, differnent than where I live, someplace I'd like to visit someday, and has a great railroad history. I'm now modeling the Vermont Railway/Green Mountain/NEC roads and they pertain to the area presently (diesel) and in the past (steam).

 

I was born, grew up in southern Minnesota and got to know the Minneapolis & St. Louis, Milwaukee Road, Rock Island and Illinois Central through the kindness and patience of my dad and grandfather neither of the "Rails".
Later, when I was twelve we moved to Urbana, Illinois and I got to know the Illinois Central up close and personal by working in train service while going to college. Since 1966 until now I have worked for several railroads some big some small, but the Illinois Central is still my all time, number one, favorite.

Barry

 

Well I have been around railroads all my known life. But as for the modeling goes, I wanted my own railroad. So I came up with the PJ&E and the PJ&W. Well as time progressed and I did more thinking about the real life operations, I renamed and merged the 2 together to become the MANW. Wich stands for the Mid-America and Northwestern. Well in my world it is the IC of the mid 60's in a current real life situation. There is no CN take over as it is considered a class I carrier. Then there is the western part of the route, what was the old NP. and others. It runs west of Chicago to Portland, and Seattle. It has the MRL in the middle as what is there today. Well that is a brief little history on my railroad. But I do build models of CSX NS and others.

 

As many kids did, I grew up with Lionel and in later years HO trains. When I was 12 we moved to Clarksville Arkansas (my dad was a USDA inspector at the poultry plant). The house had two bedrooms in the upstairs portion, one was by bedroom and the other was my first trainroom (a couple of loops of HO track on the floor with real rocks for scenery and cardboard structures). The only railroad was a branch line served by the MOP that ran next to the house and switched the lumber mill across the road from our house. The train ran once a week so during the summer I would go down to the tracks and watch them switch the mill. That was my first chance to ride in the cab of a GP7 while they did their switching. Can you say HOOKED?
Years later after school, marriage,and a house with a garage here in Dallas I started fanning the MOP in the DFW area until the Ultimate Predator ate the MOP. During that time I modeled everything from N to LGB with other modelers I had met (I still had HO in the garage) and just about every era from the early 1900's to the present (mid to late 70's). When I designed my current layout 20+ years later, my needs had changed in that I tend to run solo or with one or two additional operators and I wanted something I could run a complete operating session by myself. The MOP and the Van Buren sub was a natural for me to model with the lighter traffic density and the Clarksville branch. Now I will be able to model that little two story house on the hill above the tracks with the lumber mill across the road. The time will be in the mid to late 70's as opposed to the early 60's when I lived there, but it will still be the MOP.

 

My parent's house was located right up against the Croghan's branch of the ACL, the old mainline of the Charleston and Savannah Rwy. dating from the 1850's. Two blocks to the north on Hwy. 17 south, the SAL's Charleston-Savannah main line crossed Hwy. 17.

As far as I can figure/remember, I was about 3-4 years old when I first really began paying attention to the daily branch line local headed variously by 4-6-0 "Copperheads", 0-6-0 switchers, and purple and silver "butt head" switchers. Later they were replaced by one, sometimes two, purple & silver GP-7's.

The ACL at that time serviced quite a few small industries along that branch. A grist mill, a box-making company, several small packing sheds, a team track, a concrete plant and several other small industries.

The Seaboard on the other hand, had but one siding in my neighborhood and it was fun to watch them switch FGEX reefer/ventilators at the packing shed during the vegetable season.

But the primary attraction was the Seaboard's main line freights and the daily passenger train, the "Boll Weevil", northbound about 11:30 a.m., southbound about 3:30 p.m. But it was the freights that really got my attention because they moved across Hwy. 17 at speed - whether behind double-headed Q-3 Mikados or quintet of "Jolly Green Giant" GP-40's in the 1960's. Those are indelible memories.

Southern was third on my list because as a kid I rode the city buses quite often. The bus route ran right alongside the Southern round house in downtown Charleston and one of my frequent places to catch the bus was at the bus stop there. Didn't see any freight trains there but there were always some E's, F's, or RS's in the round house or on the table.

So, from a very early age I was afflicted with this life long disease and explains my love of, and for the SAL, ACL, and Southern in that order.