Way back when we migrated to the U.S. legally in 83' when coming home from the airport to my uncles house I saw a U.P. loco lashed up to a few Chessie locos and I tough that wow what a nice paint job those locos had since over in rumania gray or blue was the only color on a diesel locomotive. I didn't think of it at the time that these two paint schemes would influence me to model (today) the C&O,B&O, Chessie, CSX and U.P. latter in my life but they did. Of course I also added the GM&O because I wanted a small independent short line to run on my layout. That's my story and I'm sticking with it what's yours.
My selection was not a decision it was inevitable. Ever since I started model railroading with my Lionel layout in 1954, at the age of 6 in western Pennsylvania, every layout I ever ran a train on is a Pennsy dominated layout. In my area, several other trains ran through my home town, like the B&O, Erie, Bessemer, and several others, all of which had an impact on me. My layouts in years past were O-27 and 4 HO layouts. Later in life, in 1982 when I went into N, again Pennsy, but later layouts incorporated other rail lines running near my area, even if in real life they didn't go through my home town. I also invented my own line, based on a real geographic area, the Shenango Valley which houses several towns I am now modelling. Plus I have since found out a lot of my relatives up in PA worked on the Bessemer, worked at the Greenville Car Co, and the PRR, my layouts are a tribute to my rich childhood memories. I consider it a miracle that I found an old Sharon Herald newspaper dated 1955 which depicts an aerial panorama of where I used to live, the Town of Sharpsville and Sharon Steel. I refer to it often when modeling my layout under progress. The other thing which really rewarded me, was a few years ago, we drove from soFla to PA to show my kids their and my roots, and my son told me that the area looked like my layout. What a great remark!!!! However, like the original post in this thread, I am moved by historical trains, colorful trains and even some Florida influence because the prototype layouts down here have just about every roadname in the US in the storage tracks, so I basically have anything I take a fancy to - UP, SP, SF, SRR, and others, just because of their historical or aesthetic value to me. Right now, I am running 4 trains on my layout - 3 Pennsy and 1 SP Daylight. Ken "FloridaBoy" Willaman
My choice was easy and not too creative: my Dad grew up in Chicago and modeled CNW in HO and I grew up (and still live) in the Milwaukee area--so I model both the Milwaukee Road and the Chicago & North Western.
I don't model in N scale, but my railroad's name might be of some interest. Many years ago, I "discovered" the Silver City, Pinos Altos, & Mogollon Railroad which was a real 2 foot gauge Shay powered mining railroad, running from a Santa Fe connection in Silver City to Pinos Altos..just 15 or so miles away. Mogollon was (and still is) an old mining town maybe 60 miles from Silver City and the railroad never got built far enough to reach it. Mogollon (pronounced Muggy-own) was one of the richest mining areas in the west but never had a railroad. I figured that my railroad was built from there in an effort to reach the "rest of the line" at Pinos Altos. In doing so, I could freelance almost everything. Downtown Mogollon has replicas of those in the real town and one of the trestles is a copy of one used on the SCPA&M, but outside of the ore cars and caboose, all else is "my idea". If you Google Mogollon, NM, you will see why I love the area-mountains, trees, and a wonderful old town. What more could a narrow gauge nut ask for? Woodie
Growing up on BN mainline in Minnesota (ex NP) I have always been a fan of any of the Hill Lines. I vividly remember the rainbow era. I always enjoyed watching covered wagon doing there job at end of service life. Memories. That why I model BN in the mid 70's. By the way I also enjoy CNW, Milwaukee Road and The Rock. JSL Opps forgot I collect Soo stuff too....
I freelance...so here is T.H.E. history of... T.H.E.R.R. When I atarted building my layout...the grandkids where always around. They like grandpas trains. They where always asking...."What's that Grandpa?" at everything. As it worked out....T.H.E. Wife and I where debating what to call our layout. I just told her " I am gonna call it all THE...because thats all I say to the grandkids !!" "Thats THE river..." "Thats THE lake..." "Thats THE yard..." "Thats THE roundhose..." "Thats THE (fill in the blank)" T.H.E. Wife then said "We gotta come up with somethin T.H.E. stands for...other then The !!" I told her "You come up with something I like...thats what it will be." She made a list. All day and night she was scribbling stuff down. The next morning she brought me the list. There where about 20 words that THE could have stood for. I wasnt to fond of any of them. She blushed and told me to turn the paper over. I damn near fell out of my chair! Right there in BOLD letters was the future name of our railroad... "The Horny Express Rail Road" >> T.H.E.R.R. *THE wife knows me only to well... :tb-biggrin: ROFLMAO !!!! *Thats my story and I'm sticking to it!:tb-tongue: .
I grew up near the C&NW "spur" that ran from Chicago to Janesville, WI. My first real diesel locomotive was an HO Athearn GP lettered for the IC. I am sure I had others but the growling of that black beast with it's white stripes and green diamond still come back to me. A couple of years later I switched over to N scale and created my own railroad - Northland Mining RR. As the decades passed my railroad empire grew in size and scope, and had interchanges with the GN, C&NW, and Soo. When my eyesight started failing I opted to abandon N scale. Much of my stuff went to eBay, while the NM-lettered equipment and rolling stock remained boxed up. The layout came down and I kind of figured I was done with model railroading. Two Christmas' ago my youngest son said, "Dad, why don't you model the CGW in HO?" I asked why that road and he explained that it linked to railroads that he liked (mostly the CB&Q). Why not the CB&Q? "Well, that's the road I intend to model someday" was his response. Doing some research I found that Dubuque, IA actually had the CGW, the CB&Q, and the IC. In fact, IC's bridge over the Mississippi fit in well with the small U-shaped benchwork I needed to have - a removable bridge would allow for continuous running. So now I have mostly CGW equipment, with plans on having a token IC unit or 2 and the ability to "borrow" my son's CB&Q power as needed (I guess that's a benefit when you're storing a lot of his stuff). My wife's into circus trains, so I have a couple of those as well. Oh, I also have a freight house with Miller Engineering's big IC sign on its roof. Funny how things from the past re-surface. I guess there's just something about that green diamond...
The Norther Pacific well I do not have a layout as of now, being a Army spouse it is hard to have a layout that can travel well, and being in germany, kinda throws up space issues. But, I am prepairing and collecting for now. I will be Modeling the Northern Pacific, from 1942-1955. I have decided on the Tacoma division, 4th Sub. the "Prarie Line." The reasoning behind this choice is pretty natural. I grew up in the City of Tenino, witch was the southern Terminus of the 4th sub. Mile 0 was in Tacoma, Wa. I chose this line because, it is home, access to protoype resources, and the relitivly short sub (38 miles) makes it a natural Being 38 miles, I think that I, in the future could realisticly model the entire line 1 to 1 in a large basement around the room with 3 decks a with pennusla (1250 feet of main line total). The Sub also leands its self to selective compression well too, the distance between citys and stops is pretty even, and far enough to reduce the space between towns by 30% without a dramatic change to the feel of the line. The line had a Interchange with what was then McChord Airfield, and Ft Lewis, so I can have WWII movements in and out, then their was a large lumber/logging industry, coal, sandstone, Cattle, Oil, and some other industrys, of course by this time passenger traffic was down to 2 or 3 trains a day, morning and evening, with an occational special coming though. This was also in the middle of a helper district. Long of the short: lots of modeling oppurtunity. Also their is an oppurtunity to have an interchange with sevral logging lines along the sub. As of now I am planning a Ntrak module of the depot in Tenino, with some modeling licence adding a 3rd main to match the Ntrak standard. I may do a Hidden moutain division also. can't figure out a way to intragrate a raised line though the middle of town. You can only take modelers licence so far...
When I re-entered model railroading in 1982 (as an N scaler) I had no real direction as to what I would choose as a roadname to model. I made a decision to buy a pre-packaged set at a hobby shop... and those pre-packaged sets were very limited to a few roadnames. I chose a Santa-Fe passenger set and bought a second powered diesel (to compliment the one in the set). After about a week, I went back to the hobby shop to get some freight cars so I could run either a freight or passenger consist. While looking at the assorted Atlas, Bachmann, Roco, Micro-Trains... etc... rolling stock I noticed that the shop had specials on ConCor PA-1 locomotives. I didn't really know too much about the geography that the Santa-Fe covered... so I asked the attendant of the model railroad counter if they had a Santa-Fe PA. He said no... but... Santa-Fe had some interchange or joint trackage with the Rio Grande (which happened to be available). So I chose the Rio Grande as my freight engine and bought a few cheap Roco cars (back then about $2.00 each) which were also on sale. As I learned more about the Rio Grande (Denver & Rio Grande Western) I became fascinated by the scenery that the Rio Grande railroad traversed... particularly the mountains and numerous tunnels. I then focused on getting more D&RGW rolling stock and interconnecting roads such as: Chicago Burlington & Quincy, Western Pacific, Southern Pacific, Rock Island, Missouri Pacific... and of course Santa-Fe. About 7 years ago, I looked at the numerous engines and rolling stock I'd acquired and decided to create a pre 1970 fictitious railroad merger called the Burlington, Rio Grande & Pacific to accomodate all of the diverse roads I collected... which now included Northern Pacific, Great Northern, Spokane Portland & Seattle and Milwaukee Road. They were merged to compete against the Union Pacific... their arch nemesis. In real life... in 1970... the Burlington Northern was created to do just that; I just re-interpreted to merger to have occured in the late 1950's with more railroad banding together (artistic license).
When building the first part of my layout, I made so many mistakes on my own instead of asking at Trainboard first and then correcting the mistakes AFTER asking, someone here suggested the Lessons Learned Line and even created a logo for me.
The common advice to writers: "Write about what you know". Seems like a lot of folks "model what they know". I don't know much / was never really exposed to the prototype. When it came time to give my layout a name I was known as "Grey Gryphin". The orriginal name for the layout was: "Gryphin and Grandure". "Grandure" was a typo but I decided to keep it for "local flavor" and possible story line background etc. When I chose a new handle I changed the name to "Grey and Grandure" aka "G&G" or "GnG". The GnG is a short line operating in the Grandure mountains, (of a fictitious state) connecting to the Great Northern and Canadian Pacific. The main resource carried by the G&G is "Mysterium", (which goes by several spellings). Due to visual limitations and other issues my modeling will never compare to others here. I created Mysterium so no-one could ever say "that's not real". Works for me.
I grew up in eastern New York and northern New England during the late 40's and early 50's, and fell in love with B&M steam, 1st generation diesel, and Minute Man Maroon & Gold. Now living in Saucier, a rural community in south Mississippi, I figured this area needed reliable rail service for economic development. Thus the birth of the Saucier Central, a wholly owned subsidiary of the B&M during the transition era. All power and cabeese carry Minute Man logos while operating two branches serving thriving, though rural communities in the area. The economy is based on machine tool manufacturing, dairy, electric power generation, sawmill, wooden furniture, and freight and passenger interchange with the Beebe River Railroad of Ipswich, MA, owned by my brother. The scenery is beginning to look suspiciously like central New Hampshire, but that's OK because I seem to be living quite happily within my own little world. :tb-tongue:
What made me pick the Union Pacific? When I went to the local train store the only pair of locomotives available in a road name I even recognized was a set of Atlas/Kato UP Gp-35s.
"What made you pick the RR name that you model?" I didn't pick it, I inherited it from the prototype. Susquehanna and New York is what they called it. Better question might be why did you pick that prototype? Have fun, Ernie C
My current working fictional regional is the RR&RRR - The Reduced, Reused, and Recycled Railroad. Self explanitory name. I'm hoping to eventually run a vintage photo freight for area railfans. Another plus on the name is decals should be easy to come by.
As a kid my dad made a freelanced layout called the Dorado and Silver Mountain. It interchanged with the Rio Grande. My first train set was a chessie system bachman set. So naturally I wanted to model the chessie. Didn't get far with that idea. Since I am from Utah I started looking at the Utah RR. I inherited my dads layout when he passed away in 1995. So I thought how can I put the old in with the new. Well with the new plan I have added a few of his layout ideas and names and am running a freelanced layout of the Utah RR. I have also placed a few of his scratch built structures on the layout. Here is the track plan if interested. All in HO. I have come up with a nice little story to go with it as well. Since I still have the chessie locos that I purchased many many years ago I plan on having an automated interchange where I can put an occasional chessie engine on as well as a nice CP engine. I have also brought the Uintah RR out of bankruptcy. It went Bankrupt in 1939 and was a narrowguage line. I am running it as standard guage with modern equipment. Gotta love freelance. The layout is based in Central Utah around the Helper and Price area with some logging, mining areas. So a wide range of areas to model.:tb-biggrin: I have added a copy of my dads layout. Now you can see the changes that have taken place.cool: I should say that my dads layout was based in 1939. Mine is modern. The Dorado and Silvber Mountain went bankrupt and purchased by the URR. The D&SM only had two customers left. Now that the URR has taken over they have grown considerably. Also the Weyerhaueser Timber co. has been running their own trains for years, but since they want out of the railroad business they never upgraded their equipment from steam. They are slowly giving the reigns over to the Uiinta RR who is doind all their work now. The URY has been modernized with deisel. however they are still like most shortlines and have many older engines such as first generation diesels and steam. And so the story goes as the world continues to revolve around the Railroad. Gotta love it.! Most of the old D&SM equipment is now stored in a museum at the old turn table and round house in Uintah.
Well when I first came out Southwest I ran into the Southern Pacific I really found the train action interesting. And since I could easily take pictures of the existing train action I decided to model what I could see. First I modeled the Sp now UP staging yard and after the Copper Mines. Hence the "Southwest Sunbeam MRR"
