Looking for a name for my model railroad and for the name of the big city I wanted to model. My favorite prototype is Santa Fe from the time I got my Lionel warbonnet streamliner set in 1950-something. The Lionel catalog had an artist's painting of the train going through what looked like Monument Valley. Romanticized Southwest. Southwest. A mission station like Albuquerque or San Diego or like SP's in San Antonio. So many Santa Fe stations and towns had names in Spanish with some kind of a religious connotation. Santa Fe = holy faith. San Diego = Saint James. Santa Cruz = holy cross. And so on. I thought of a real Santa Fe town in California-- Victorville in the desert. And that reminded me of Vacaville, where there was some kind of prison disturbance. And the name Santa Vaca came. It means Sacred Cow, or Saint Cow, or Holy Cow! My railroading got started with a train around the Christmas tree, and after a while, I thought of a way the name Santa Vaca relates to Christmas. I will tell you in advance it is entirely made up. The Legend of Santa Vaca In one of the early Spanish missions established in Texas to convert the Indians, a priest was telling his congregation they should give to the church even though they didn't have much to give. He said that God can use our gifts more than we know, and he told the story of the cow who gave up her feeding stall to make a place for the Baby Jesus to lay. He said the cow's gift-- the manger-- became more a part of the Christmas scene than even the expensive gifts of the Wise Men. But the Indians confused the cow in the priest's Christmas story with a buffalo cow who was worshipped in their pre-Christian native religion and they began to bring back the cult of the Holy Cow. The Church tried to discourage the practice but could not stop it entirely. The village near the mission took on the name Santa Vaca, and it grew into a major city served by a subsidiary of the Santa Fe Railway. At the cathedral in Santa Vaca near where the mission once stood is a stained glass window with the manger scene featuring the Baby Jesus, the Virgin Mary and the Holy Cow, each with a halo. I have decided NOT to model the city of Santa Vaca but an island seaport based on Galveston. I use the name "Santa Vaca" to refer to my layout...current layout, "Karankawa Terminal District of Santa Vaca and Santa Fe." I do NOT have any cars or locos lettered Santa Vaca.
There is no railroad that was a minnesota company more than BN even the Dm&ir was owned by ussteel from out east. Jay
Well this is interesting. I always wondered how most of you came up with your names.. My first layout The Desert Hot Springs was an accident. It was a desert layout with a river and a mountain lake. The only thing was that I screwed up pouring the resin for the lake. All the resin in the lake got sucked up by the foam and surprisingly not a drop made it to the floor. It was the beginning of fall and the weather was getting cold. I had mixed the first couple of batches of resin outside while it was still warm for the river and the beginning of the lake. When I discovered that the lake was gone I wanted to get it done as soon as possible, but I had to wait until the first batch fully cured. What I didn’t know was the outside temperatures had dropped dramatically overnight and I had left the resin outside. I got up early and mixed up the resin as fast as I could before going to work and due to the cold mixture it pretty much foamed up. I desperately tried to get all the bubbles out before I had to leave for work and I just knew that I was probably going to have to completely remove the mountain to start over. When I got home my wife said “Wow, how did you make the hot springs, it looks exactly like the hot springs we went to when we got married”. I didn’t know what on earth she was talking about until got out back and saw for myself. It was at that moment that I realized that it was not a lake at all, but a desert hot springs. cool:
My project's name is "Gossamer Condor," not a railroad but note to the Brit lads that built a pedalled lite flying machine to cross the English Channel ... they did it ... It was designed to be built and rebuilt easily to allow redesign/remaking until they got it right ... thought that would get me through to my goal ... lotsa fun and never settle for "doesn't work." ... on GC #5 now w/6 & 7 on the drawing board ... Planned 2x4 benchwork modules, nailed trak & roadbed, and Peco 55 trak, best for reusability ... have implemented 4x14, 4x10, and 4x12 sets, so far ... never 4x16 or other shapes thsat are possible ... big factor has been garage space utilization with which I can live. BTW, I model only modern passenger flow Seattle to Spokane, the East Wash desert ... and some BNSF freight flow, too ... What would you call it?
My railroad is called the ES&BM. I can't tell you here what that stands for, it's unprintable. The "official" name is East Smithfield & Brown's Mountain, set in the Pacific Northwest, and the theme is lumber and through freights. The town consists of three small houses at the edge of the layout, a dairy farm centered at the rear, and a very small seaport/lumber transloading facility at the center front edge. The rest of the layout is trees and a sawmill. Lots of trees. Did I mention there are a lot of trees on it?...
I model the CB&Q in N scale but I work with a garden railway named the Leaning Pine & Lake Zurich River Dell (LP&LZRD) better known as the "Leapin' Lizard." I've cooked up this name for a mining/lumber short line -the Bad Water, Busted Wagon, and Perdition aka "The Road to Perdition." Not easy getting that name on a tender.
I chose to model CSX because of the merger of a merger of a merger of a merger left a railraod with such a wide diversity of heritage paint schemes. And then after that choice, CSX has continually changed their scheme. So by modeling CSX, I can model WAY over 100 paint schemes counting all the variations. I did make a decision to stop at Dark Future which came in at about the Millenium. So I model up to the Conrail merger or what I call Pre-millenial CSX. My fictional layout is called the Gulf Central-- A fictional railroad that intersects with the CSX in the Deep South.
One of my earlier HO railroads was called the Oklahoma and Northeastern, which was based on the formr Northeast Oklahoma RR that ran between Miami, OK and Baxter Springs, KS. The NEO served the lead & zinc mines in Ottawa County, OK, and was purchased by the Frisco in 1968. In my alternative universe, the NEO stayed independent, and even picked up the Frisco's Baxter Springs-Joplin, MO line. While the mines were all closed and the line taken up from north of Miami to Baxter Springs, there was plenty of work to do in Miami itself (which there was in real life). I am currently drawing up plans for a new model railroad depicting the Frisco's Afton Subdivision, which provided a main line link between Kansas City and Tulsa.
Mine was picked for a connection with a favorite geographical area and thus a relation to a favorite railroad. Boxcab E50
I called ours the sweet water r.r. as my other half is from Maine, and I am from West Virginia. We had Shays and whatever else they had around. There was B&O, C&O, Western Maryland to name a few at home. Deb had Boston & Maine and a few others up there in the maniac state! We wanted a logging layout an like that we thought about sweetwood but she didn't like that an so I played around with the name. Right now it is sweetwater as the maple wood was in the drink and that was her idea. And she was quick to point out that that WV also had maple as well. Anyway I can argue to much as making waves don't get more funding for engines and other goodies. I still think that sweetwood would work butnnn :tb-confused: Now if we could come up with another idea for a name........:tb-biggrin:
My RR is called the "Union Pacific Vallealmar Subdivision." It's a fictionalized modern-era former SP route in southern Central California that links the San Joaquin Valley with the Coast Line. In m made-up history, the SP built the line in the late 1950s and completed it in 1960, but the route was only used as a backup line for trains to bypass the Tehachapi Loop during emergencies or periods of high traffic. During the '70s and '80s the line was mostly unused but was renovated in 1988 (Coinciding with the year my last HO scale layout - set in the same location - was built). In 2006 (coinciding with the year I started building my current N scale layout, whose trackplan was roughly based on the old HO layout - I basically wanted to continue the same layout in another scale), the line, now owned by the UP, was refurbished with concrete tie track and put into regular service due to higher freight traffic. The name "Vallealmar" (Valle al mar) is Spanish for "Valley to the Sea" which reflects the geography of the line from the San Joaquin Valley to the Coast Line. It's not a historic name but a name that the SP created.
No long story here, my youngest daughter came out to the garage when she was little and asked some questions about the layout. One thing she said kinda stuck. She said so you model the Southern Pacific in your garage. So I came up with SPIDGE (SP in Dads Garage). The only issue is many assumed I was a kid who built my layout in my Dads garage. So I am thinking of changing it. Maybe, Dessert Valley Lines, Inland Pacific(used by my modular group), Socal Connection. who knows.
Long story short..My Great Grandfather was a engineer on the Columbus,Hocking Valley & Toledo RR which the original Columbus & Hocking Valley was a part of and seeing my family hailed originally from the hocking hills I wanted to model this area.Of course this idea simmered for years and one day while looking for a new freelance short line my Columbus & Hocking Valley was born. As far as my NS and CSX I wanted to model either the NS or CSX and I couldn't make up my mind so,I invented a paper railroad-Columbus Terminal CT-owned jointly by NS and CSX..The CT is operated similar to CR shared access.
the better question is why anyone would want to model anything that is standard guage other than the Southern Pacific or the Rio Grande in narrow gauge?
Hi, My wife and I had a small business making electronic items for model railroads. The main items were a couple throttles. We purchased the inventory from a company in CA and were allowed to keep the product names but not the company name. So after a bit of brainstorming (and that hurt) we decided to use our initials in a mixed up order (GD&R). When I started building the current layout I used the same for its name. I originally named the railroad Great Divide and Rivers, but that really did not fit since there was not a divide of any size and only one river on the layout. I gave my wife a map book of the our current state (KY) and asked her to come up with a new name for the railroad using cities (towns etc.) located in the state that matched the GD&R. After about 10 minutes if that long she had about three choices. The winner was Greenbriar Delta & Rutland. All three towns could have been easily connected by a short line railroad. The GD&R is 100% fiction and has only the town of Grose (pronounced Grows). Many of the customers on the railroad and other business located in the town are named for something from my history, either by a location or family member. As the story line goes the Greenbriar Delta & Rutland has acquired short lines in many locations over the years as other railroads were going under or being broken up. The GD&R obtained the Grose Line when the Conrail was split up. Neither CSX nor NS wanted the short line that serviced the community of Grose and the variety of industries that the line serves. Since the GD&R has only 4 locos (2 GP-38, 1 GP-50, 1 C44-9W) assigned to the Grose Line it leases motive power from where ever it can get it from. Because of this, the locomotives seen on the layout are a various lot of types, ages and road names. READ: I get to run what ever I want. The truth of the mater is that when I started in N Scale 26 years ago I purchased any and all that I wanted and before I knew it I had a very large mixed bag of locos in all road names. All this happened before I even thought about modeling an area or era. Gary
I used to model lines in the Pacific Northwest. When I moved to New Mexico, I wanted to model what I could see at my new home. At the time, that was the Santa Fe. So I decided to have a double-deck layout so I could model the Pacific Northwest on the lower level and northern New Mexico on the upper level. (That even made sense considering that the first was at sea-level and the second at 7,000'). But I was also very taken with the Chili Line and the New Mexico Central, since I could see bits of both of them around me. I really like local history. The NMC disappeared long ago, and the D&RGW abandoned the Chili Line in the 40's. I got to wondering, what if the NMC had survived--what if they had made better decisions--and had actually bought the Chili Line (instead of the D&RGW), then actually ran it up the roadbed that the D&RGW had begun building but never finished, toward Gallina? My NMC could then connect to Tierra Amarilla and points west, and also mine the gypsum that is plentiful near Gallina. It appealed to me because I could make the NMC my own, since they disappeared long before my chosen time of 1962. My own route, colors, station architecture, and so on.
I have not named my last layout yet, but I was going to name my last layout “The Train Wreak” because of the high number of train wreaks that occurred. My wife thinks that would be condemning it. laugh:
Reading. Grew up in a Bethelem branch railroad town, with a grandfather who fired camelbacks and engineered the Pacifics to New York and back. Model 1st gen diesel Reading in SoCal, and my fictional anthracite line Shortbuck Railroad (short on bucks, get it?). Still all steam in the early 50's operating hand-me-down cast-off 2-10-2's Ex-LV, ex-Erie, ex-NYO&W 4-8-2, ex-Pennsy 2-8-2, ex-Reading 2-8-0 steam and rolling stock, some not even relettered. How BULLFROG SNOT got it's name is another story.
