Personaly I picked nyc because it was black.
Memories of the Western Maryland from when I was a kid, running right through my home town, now 30 years later the Maryland Midland runs the same tracks, so,I model Both!
As far as my occasional dalliance with the D&H, its just because nothing looks better on a Shark or a PA than a blue warbonnet!!! (count 10% to ohhh thats pretty!)
I chose my grandson’s first name to come up with KOBY CREEK RAILROAD. He gets a kick out seeing his name on some of the trains, and besides, for an old poverty stricken logging railroad, it looks and sounds neat.
My layout is nothing more than a test track at this point, but I should be starting the bench work soon.
Mine is freelanced but it will be a family tradition and /i will pass it down to my children and they will pass it down to their children and so on. So I chose tradition (here son, here’s my old Pacific North Queensland)
I wanted to go freelance so I chose an area close by that I thought would be interesting to model, which was the Musquodoboit (muscadabit) Valley. Then the idea expanded as there had never been any rail service along the Eastern Shore of Nova Scotia except between Musquodoboit and Dartmouth. Sheet Harbour was closer had a port so the Musquodoboit, Eastern Shore was born. When I saw the acrynom M.E.S. I said “something is missing here?” I then looked to the layout for inspiration and as they say " You know the rest of the story".
Regards
Fergie
Well, I ended up with a very strange collection of locos and cars - started out buying what I could A: Find, B: Afford and C: Liked the look of! Then I came across the Illinois Railway Museum, and decided that here was something I could replicate - hence my fictional museum line, named the West Radnor RR Museum (I’m living in the western part of a county that used to be known as Radnorshire, and after searching on a map and finding somewhere with the same name in the USA, I decided that this would be a good name). Basically this allows me to run anything, though I do try to keep to locos that might conceivably have been passed to a museum. The occasional Dash 8 or Dash 9 that appears is assumed to be either run-through power on a freight to an industry served by the line, or visiting power for a special event.
I wanted a freelance railroad so that I could incorporate what I wanted (HEY! it’s my railroad, after all), but I liked the C.N.R. because I worked for them, I liked the O.N.R. because I ran through North Bay quite often with the CN and I liked the Maine Central.
I also considered the C.P.R. because I like beavers, but CNR and CPR fellows were always in competition with each other. So, I chose a name that constantly reminded me of an incident at Washagami siding (on the CNR main line between North Bay and Capreol). Since it is near the ONR and I wanted an interchange with that line, I chose to call my line the “Washagami & Northland”. I’ve kept the same name for 45 years so far!
Norman
I love Pennsylvania and I love the Pennsylvania Railroad. Happily, though I am exiled to the midwest, the Pennsy made its way to both Indiana and Michigan.
I chose Amtrak because its cool, and i liked it and it kinda caught my eye as the only passenger rail in the country
I chose the Cedar Branch & Western because it sounded like a short line but at the same time was location specific to the Ozark Mountains. In Hillbilly terms a “branch” is another name for a creek or stream. At the same time, it gives no specific location. That’s great since my railroad is fictional.
The other reason was the I had a nifty engine with CB&W on the side already. [:P]
The Western Maryland Railway was a block away to the west and the Pennsylvania Railroad was a block to the east of my home growing up. I started out modeling the PRR since I watched the turntable in action and the shops they had, but changed some years later to the WMRY because I just liked it better. I would gulp down my lunch when I came home from school at noon to run back to the area where they switched cars around every day picking up MTs and dropped off loaded cars.
Well, the traction line will have 2 names running on it. Joliet & Northern Indiana and the Illiana Railway. Illiana will give me a little more room to position the line. Still haven’t nailed it geographically yet.
I always had chessie engines and I have worked on CSX & Norfolk Southern for about 4 years So I model both. Chessie and CSX that is…NO NS
The UP attracted me because of it’s imense steam locomotives.
I chose Canadian Pacific as I rail fanned it with my Dad while growing up & the fact that I’m not a big fan of CN.
I also prefer the history of the CPR over the CNR & the multiple modern paint schenes allow for an interesting lash up.
Also, now that the CPR as a corporate steam program, this allows me to run a steam excursion train & people can’t say that Canadian Pacific doesn’t run steam anymore.
Gordon
i guess i chose to try and get Norfolk Southern stuff because i saw a couple locomotives go through town and i just loved the look of the black loco with the white face and lettering. i chose the BN because that was the first locomotive i bought at a train show. now i branched off to BNSF/BN and NS. i’d say its primarily based on looks. BNSF and the Heritage II scheme is awesome looking so i wanted to have that on my layout, don’t have any loco with the scheme yet but there will be.
I picked “Falls Valley” as my railroad name. Falls Valley is easier on the decals than some of the other really big railroad names.
My Great Grandad helped build the VGN, and I have loved steam since I first saw it all those years ago, especially N&W steam, and they ran together and even on each others tracks at times. So I model N&W and VGN.