I can't believe it, but I'm finding myself being slowly swayed from my love of BN, towards its roots in Santa Fe - especially the blue & yellow scheme. I guess there's room enough on my layout for both without it looking too out-of-sorts. Do you have a similar story where you started out all gung-ho about one line, only to be swayed into a pre or post merger of that same line... or even a full-tilt change ?
Not yet! Been a war bonnet fan all my life. Don't get me wrong, blue and yellow works for me but that red and silver are the hot ticket. I must admit that I do feel the pull of kodachrome and will shift somewhat that direction with my own twist added. Just don't ask how that NS dash 8 ended up in my collection... moment of weakness, great deal, I dunno...
Sorry- unless it's black & yellow, I'm sticking to Mandarin Orange & white. I DO admit to having Santa Fe & UP diesels, but those are for runthrough purposes. ALso, I'm in the process of painting two diesels for MP, for interchange reasons.
BN roots in Santa Fe? Methinks you are very wrong there, Mike. I like to change from time to time but only add to the already bulging roster! Some BN pre-merger roads I have but all are patched (including those sweet Frisco Mandarin/White units ). BTW, I'll have one or two SF units for my BN coal drags but most have been repainted BN at some point, with a couple of outstanding units still to be done in WC (for the Soo side of things).
Easy for me, just marry a BN fan! Before I met Tina I was modeling the Santa Fe in 1968 - 1973. This allowed me to paint my favorite Santa Fe engines in the blue and yellow non warbonnet. It also allowed me to model the cool yellow bonnets and blue bonnet F units used by a new AmTrak. When I met Tina she was into anything Cascade Green. Her favorite model at the time was an Atlas GP-7 in early BN paint. By getting married (merged?) I have many schemes to model Santa Fe Y/B Warbonnet, Santa Fe R/S Warbonnet, BN green and black, green, white and black, green and cream and BNSF patch jobs, rec & silver warbonnet, green and cream, H1, H2 and the new Swoosh. No wonder I work for Floquil, these early mergers mean we paint all kinds of roads.
Well, I started as a kid wanting to model modern-day CSX......then it went to modeling the B&O. Finally, I decided to make an abrupt change and build a layout from start to finish with my own road...I am now on my 6th layout, the second with the Chicago, Pittsburgh & Eastern. Right now my entire roster is compiled of CP&E engines, but since I model the Pittsburgh region in 1967-68....I should make an effort to have some Pennsy, NYC, P&LE, B&O, MGA, and maybe some Nickle Plate, since many trains through pittsburgh came from the midwest (Indiana, Ohio, etc..)
Well I started out modeling SP in the early 60's having just returned from California and built a 4'x8' layout based on same, complete with "black widow" and the grey and scarlet. Then, started paying real attention to the local roads (SAL, ACL, and SOU). After very indifferent results painting my own, decided on a freelance road, the Piedmont-Southern with a color scheme of buff and brown. Still have numerous units from the 70's/80's awaiting paint jobs. Since the mid-90's there has been an avalanche of southern road names and at first I wanted ACL and SOU units only in black. Now, I've adjusted my time period to allow a lot of Southern green and ACL purple/silver.
My all time favorite road when I was a kid was the Mean Green Machine: Burlington Northern. I also developed a fondness for Western Maryland and PRR. Though they still have a place in my heart I find myself drawn to the modern roads. BNSF & CSX being favorites. I'm modelling present day freelanced, but if were to model another era it would probably be Pennsy.
I like early Canadian National, and its roots in Canadian Northern, Grand Trunk, and especially the Ottawa, Arnprior & Parry Sound (which ran through Algonquin Park). So that is what I focus on. But I am also drawn by Canadian Pacific, as it ran through the town where I grew up. That part of CPR had roots in Toronto, Grey & Bruce and the Credit Valley RR, which are also very interesting in their own right... Decisions, decisions Andrew
At one time, I had equipment from all the railroads that had been operating in my area. Steam and diesel. BN, all it's predecessors, Milw, and a couple of others. But narrowed my focus to the Milwaukee Road of the mid-1960's, with some NP sprinkled in. That certainly reduced my expenditures on models! Boxcab E50
I started modeling Southern and ATSF. Due to the lack of Southern equipment In N scale steam transition era, I've added SP where there is no lack of loco's or freight cars. Stay cool and run steam.....
Before hurricane Katrina put a halt to my model railroading, I liked SP, KCS, MoPac, L&N, Southern, IC, etc., and it was hard deciding which one to model. So I figured if I modeled the Port of New Orleans, I could have them all.
When I first got into MR I was going to model BNSF in the present. Then it was BNSF with some IC thrown in. Then it was IC in 2006(freelance,of course) with some BNSF thrown in. Then it was strictly IC in 2006. Now it's CGW in 1968. I think I'll stick with the Great Weedy.
I've never been tempted to abandon lark gray and scarlet, but kodachrome red, yellow and black seemed to make it onto the layout along with santa fe red and silver.
I'll tell you this, in my earliest days I was a total Santa Fe fan, but more then Santa Fe, I'm a modern(ish) railroad fan and for modelling, I love freelancing. This really helps, because as I grow up and railroads merged, I'm losing a lot of what I didn't even know I loved. So now I want to see green and Yellow C&NW and even more recently I've fallen in love with Scarlett and Lark's Gray. Even though I barely saw it when SP still existed. My freelanced line is an overgrown regional in the mold of Wisconsin Central or Montana Rail Link. So, I have my own colors, but there's tons of runthrough from modern Diesels including Warbonnets of all types and I can justify my Ex-C&NW patch jobs. I've also recently decide to take a further step away from reality, because in my world, it seems that in my little world, UP's struggles last year were enough to allow my regional to force the STB to give them control of Donner Pass, and the coast line to LA. This Gives them what amounts to the better part of a Transcon. In addition to the trackage, they've gotten control of the Central Pacific name and a large number of Tunnel motors. They are proceeding to change the company name. to reflect this and a large number of engines will be left in gray and red with the Southern changed to Central. Rumor has it that a battered SD9 may come out of the paint shop in Black Widow. On an interesting side note, my home grown paintscheme has undergone a couple transformations too. Some of them never even made it on to an engine, but existed only in my head. This conviently mimics the real world where for instance BNSF has what? 3 Heritage schemes plus 4+ BN and SF schemes still running around. In this day an age, You can get away with just about anything.
Mike, You can have both BN and ATSF, if you model the Joint Line from Denver-Pueblo, CO......... As for me, when I started in N scale in 1987, I was hardcore Conrail, since it was the hometown RR. My late grandfather also worked for CP/PC/PRR. When I got into high school, I quit trains for the most part. I had a BN RS-11, which was my first N loco. I joined the military, and got moved to North Dakota--BN country. All the sudden, I was a BNSF nut--right at the time the first Kato H2 Dash-9's were coming out. I quickly built a small roster of BNSF stuff, then slowly weeded out the BNSF stuff, in 2002, completely backdating to 1989 BN. Fast forward to late 2003.. A friend of mine took me along on a trip to the old D&RGW Moffat Route, and the bug very seriously bit. I was enthralled by the heavy trains using not 2 or 3 engines, but up to 11! The further I explored the line, the more I liked D&RGW. Then sometime in late 2004, I shifted focus completely. I didn't sell all my BN stuff, and start from scratch, but again weeded out the fleet, and settled on mainline BN locos, and a good assortment of freight cars. I then began my largest buildup of D&RGW equipment, with a goal of 10% of the Rio Grande's roster as of 1986/87. I am near to that goal, with a few small gaps left to fill. The coal hoppers I need to complete the fleet will by far be the largest expenditure remaining. I still love BN and D&RGW, but my interests have also included Milwaukee Road (my Lionel set for my first birthday was MILW) and all the BN precessors--GN, NP, CB&Q, SP&S, Frisco. I have a small portion of my fleet dedicated to pacific NW roads.... My focus is trains that ran on the Moffat Route in 1986/87. I have a good mix of freight cars, and add runthrough power as funds allow. WP, Cotton Belt, etc. BN runthrough and joint BN/DRGW trains are also going to have a big presence on my next layout, based on Tunnels 1-19 of the real Moffat Route. The latest gig is in Z scale, but that's a story for another thread....
Hmmm....well, I'm a BNSF modeler but I'm still a hard core BN fan, and I predominately model an ex-BN line in 1998 still heavy on the BN. But there's a reason I model BNSF, and that's because I always doted on the Santa Fe. So when the two hitched up, combined with my interest in high octane modern railroading, it was a no-brainer that I would model a not-long-after post-merger BNSF. In my horribly oversized previous modeling stint I modeled BN and MKT, wavering on which was my modeling choice although BN was always my favorite railroad, hands down. Speaking of colors, maybe I just like GREEN, huh? Never thought of that but you could be on to something! Anyway, except for defunct MKT, my chosen era and locale presents me with all KINDS of colors: BN Cascade Green/Black, BN Grinstein Green/Creme;Yellow Warbonnet, Silver Warbonnet, Armour Yellow, Conrail/EMD Blue, SP Scarlet/Gray, CNW Yellow, D&RGW Black/Orange, GE Gray, BNSF Orange/Yellow/Green, MRL Blue, NS Black, and almost any other 1998 railroad colors you could fathom. But, cut me and I'll bleed Cascade Green, and I think that says it all!!!
