This is just a general question that some might have asked you or you thought it to yourself.
I’m a new N scale modeler after leaving HO (lack of space and desired cars) in search of a better scale to model and build my desired layout.
Feel free to talk about to post about your layout.
I know I haven’t built mine yet, but the premise I’m running with is a Midwestern area where Amtrak is the primary rail carrier, and the freight companies operate leasing lines from THEM. Besides Amtrak, I figure this would be BNSF, Canadian Pacific, and UP territory so it’s open to all. I am basing the scenery and areas on places I’ve seen when I rode the train from Yuma,AZ to Portland, OR to Minneapolis, MN via Amtrak a few years back.
I am in the process of figuring out the industries that I’d find in such a place, and what would fit into the space I have (and make a track plan where the ends actually sorta meet up to run in a circle). Another thing that has me anxious is this is technically my first full layout (pool table ovals don’t count).
Cool. I’m doing the same. My fictional railroad was formed after my fictional character, LMD. Manning, bought out all of the important illinois railroad and soonafter bought out other companies. I printed out a blank U.S.A. Blank outline map and for each locomotive Manning buys, it represents a railroad being bought like the U.P but instead of buying every rail line Manning buys certain lines that will help bring more travel to chicago and anywhere the line service. So far my layout only services coal, a steel mill, and a logging camp high in the mountains.
The Columbus & Hocking Valley Ry is owned and operated by the CDB Industries and is one of 7 short lines owned by CDBI.The C&HV came into existence in 1978 when CDBI bought the old Athens sub-division of the Chessie System.During this purchase 2 other short lines was bought,the Parkersburg & Ohio Valley RR that ran from Parkersburg WV to Athens Oh and the Ohio Midland Ry that ran from Jackson,Oh to Newark,Oh.These 2 roads was quickly merged into the new C&HV.By purchasing these roads the CBDI finally had the long sought after southern Ohio coal fields and industries.The CDBI relaid the track from Nelsonville to Athens which had been removed by the C&O some years ago.The old Logan yards was rebuilt and upgraded during this time as it would serve as the home shops and the only major yard on the C&HV since it was centrally located on the line.The second yard would be located in the old C&O(nee CHV&T) Mound Street yard and would require trackage rights over the Chessie to reach…A agreement was struck with the Chessie for those rights.The former P&OV yard in Parkersburg was upgraded as was the OM yards at Jackson and Newark.
Commodities haul: Grain,Lumber,coal,coke,steel,fly-ash,food stuffs,sand,glass,corn sweetener,corn starch,vegetable oils,scrap,pipe,chemicals,paints,news print,pulpwood,wood chips and other general freight.Total cars handle 32,584 a year
CDBI owns the following roads.
Cumberland,Dickersonville & Bristol Ry.Cumberland to Bristol VA.The CD&B is the flagship road.The CDB in CDB Industries is the same.
Kentucky Central.Cumberland Ky to Maysville Ky.
Artemus-Jellico Artemus,Ky to Jellico TN.
Toledo & Southwestern. Maumee Oh to Fort Wayne IN
Cincinnati & Lake Erie.Cincinnati to Toledo.
Detroit Connecting.Detroit MI.
Columbus & Hocking Valley Ry.
Huron River.Huron,Oh…Currently mothballed pending sale.
[quote user=“BRAKIE”]
The Columbus & Hocking Valley Ry is owned and operated by the CDB Industries and is one of 7 short lines owned by CDBI.The C&HV came into existence in 1978 when CDBI bought the old Athens sub-division of the Chessie System.During this purchase 2 other short lines was bought,the Parkersburg & Ohio Valley RR that ran from Parkersburg WV to Athens Oh and the Ohio Midland Ry that ran from Jackson,Oh to Newark,Oh.These 2 roads was quickly merged into the new C&HV.By purchasing these roads the CBDI finally had the long sought after southern Ohio coal fields and industries.The CDBI relaid the track from Nelsonville to Athens which had been removed by the C&O some years ago.The old Logan yards was rebuilt and upgraded during this time as it would serve as the home shops and the only major yard on the C&HV since it was centrally located on the line.The second yard would be located in the old C&O(nee CHV&T) Mound Street yard and would require trackage rights over the Chessie to reach…A agreement was struck with the Chessie for those rights.The former P&OV yard in Parkersburg was upgraded as was the OM yards at Jackson and Newark.
Commodities haul: Grain,Lumber,coal,coke,steel,fly-ash,food stuffs,sand,glass,corn sweetener,corn starch,vegetable oils,scrap,pipe,chemicals,paints,news print,pulpwood,wood chips and other general freight.Total cars handle 32,584 a year
CDBI owns the following roads.
Cumberland,Dickersonville & Bristol Ry.Cumberland to Bristol VA.The CD&B is the flagship road.The CDB in CDB Industries is the same.
Kentucky Central.Cumberland Ky to Maysville Ky.
Artemus-Jellico Artemus,Ky to Jellico TN.
Toledo & Southwestern. Maumee Oh to Fort Wayne IN
Cincinnati & Lake Erie.Cincinnati to Toledo.
Detroit Connecting.Detroit MI.
Columbus & Hocking Valley Ry.
Huron River.Huron,Oh…Currently mothballed pending sale.
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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 t
You know I have never really given much thought about actually giving my N scale layout a name. When I look through model railroad magazines, I’ve wondered how some layouts get named but never found it important to give mine one. I have given some thought about naming towns on my board, like maybe Edwardsville for my pop, or something to that effect, but haven’t gotten to writing anything down. Huh. I’ve just kind of always thought that I wanted to run trains and CN became the railroad I started to model in 1990 after honeymooning in Alberta, Canada. Before CN it was kind of a hodge-podge of stuff, mostly GN, with no real thought or direction. Am I the odd man out because my layout doesn’t have a history?
-Paul
I’m curently designing my trackplan but haven’t really nor will I try to replicate any specific area.My important concern is designing curves and grades that my articulated can negotiate on a limited size layout,and it is some challenge.After the tracks get laid down,then I’ll concentrate on the scenery that I’d like believable at least,short of being a replica.However,I will model SP with some UP and CP thrown amongst them and will try to obtain some resemblance with this area.
No. It just means that either it is fairly evident what your layout represents, or you simply don’t care about what it represents. In either case, you feel no particular compunction to inflict on random bystanders attempts to explain away inconsistencies and implausibilities.
In my opinion, “backstories” are mostly (at least in these model railroad forums) about forum posters who , for some reason not entirely clear to me, seem to be eager to try to make others accept and acknowledge that the ecclectic mix of trains the backstory fan is running is “sort of” plausible - if one postulates a railroad owned by an eccentric millionaire or billionaire.
The backstory person often also thinks this is an original approach, without realizing that it has been seen dozens of times before. Often the person will spend an inordinate amount of time on his back story, drawing large and complex system maps of railroads spanning large areas, and agonizing about this or that aspect of plausibility (“could there have been wineyards in Northern Alberta if the world had been tilted 20 degrees on it’s axis by a huge comet striking it?”), or drawing up eleborate numbering schemes for a roster of 300 locomotives of 13 different classes, but when it comes to actually buckling down to design and build a layout that will fit into the space actually available, things tend to stop up.
Of course - there are also a few people who essentially just have a humorous little anecdote to explain a layout name (like the “holy cow” name on Leight Anthony’s layout), or who just have a brief rationale for some departure from actual history or geography.
As in “the main industry on the layout is based on mining and processing Flux, an additive used in many industrial processes” (doc Wayne’s excellent layout). Or Chuck’s japanese coal railroad run
[quote user=“steinjr”]
Fastball:
Am I the odd man out because my layout doesn’t have a history?
No. It just means that either it is fairly evident what your layout represents, or you simply don’t care about what it represents. In either case, you feel no particular compunction to inflict on random bystanders attempts to explain away inconsistencies and implausibilities.
In my opinion, “backstories” are mostly (at least in these model railroad forums) about forum posters who , for some reason not entirely clear to me, seem to be eager to try to make others accept and acknowledge that the ecclectic mix of trains the backstory fan is running is “sort of” plausible - if one postulates a railroad owned by an eccentric millionaire or billionaire.
The backstory person often also thinks this is an original approach, without realizing that it has been seen dozens of times before. Often the person will spend an inordinate amount of time on his back story, drawing large and complex system maps of railroads spanning large areas, and agonizing about this or that aspect of plausibility (“could there have been wineyards in Northern Alberta if the world had been tilted 20 degrees on it’s axis by a huge comet striking it?”), or drawing up eleborate numbering schemes for a roster of 300 locomotives of 13 different classes, but when it comes to actually buckling down to design and build a layout that will fit into the space actually available, things tend to stop up.
Of course - there are also a few people who essentially just have a humorous little anecdote to explain a layout name (like the “holy cow” name on Leight Anthony’s layout), or who just have a brief rationale for some departure from actual history or geography.
As in "the main
Wasn’t saying that you were stealing ideas. And even if you were to get inspired by someone else’s layout, and want to copy or modify elements from it, it would not be a bad thing.
But if you want to learn more about what other people are modeling, perhaps a better question would simply be : “what are you modeling?”.
Or better yet - “I am thinking about modelling in N scale a railroad in the Midwest (or Applachians or the SouthWest or in urban surroundings on the east coast) in the steam/diesel transition era (or civil war era, or late 1800s, or early 1900s or 1970s or current times or whatever). I have a room . Anyone else modeling this subject and era? What are you modeling?”.
Or something more or less along those lines. The more specific you get about what you are looking for, the more likely it is that you will get responses that are relevant for you. Up to a point, of course - asking only for people who model the X, Y and Z railroad in A-town in May 1972 makes for relatively few respondents 
Smile,
Stein
Unlike the suggestion that the story is created to explain an ecclectic set of equipment, mine was quite opposite. I developed the story from 1972-1976 and had it all completed before I started designing a model railroad to selectively compress the made up prototype. I then started accumulating equipment to match the story and compressed space.
My Pine Ridge & North River actually began as simply the “Pine Ridge” as an English assignment sophomore year of high school. We had to write a “short story” so I wrote mine about a fan trip on this imaginary railroad. Through high school and college I used the railroad for mechanical drawing class, graphic arts class (that is why it has three progressively more modern logos), ecconomics, and geology.
The Pine Ridge began as a connector between the AT&SF northern main somewhere in SE Colorado, the Burlington (Colorado Southern) to the NE, and the Denver & Rio Grande Western to the W (narrow gauge & NW (standard gauge). During WWII a large uranium deposit was discovered in the high valley that this railroad served. The mine became a major source of traffic. While mining the uranium other mineral deposits were found as well. After the war the mountain resort traffic increased and the railroad even opened its own ski lodge at the railside. In the high valley an aquifer was discovered and the soil conditions proved to be perfect for certain fruits and vegitables. This added yet another source of revenue.
The railroad followed the lead of the Norfolk and Western resisting dieselizaion in favor of steam powered by its own coal mines on the route. When the diesels did start coming they were second hand power other railroads had upgraded from.
That put the railroad into the mid 1950s and there it got stuck in time. All the new farm towns in the high valley were named after girls
I believe the suggestion I was making was that back stories (and in particular the “eccentric millionaire” type) often seem to be created to try to explain away inconsistencies or implausibilities. Not that they always serve that function
What you did was essentially to settle on a theme, era and location for your layout. It could briefly be described as a bridge route, with on-line mines, agricultural products, passenger traffic to resort, second hand diesels, 1950s, south/western Colorado.
Smile,
Stein
The backstory of the Laurel Valley was covered in the November/December 2010 N Scale Magazine, but it’s also sketched out on my website. It’s easier to refer you there than to regurgitate it here…
Scroll about halfway down the page. Thanks.
Lee
Nice layout. is that an updated scene or no? Also, I have your webpage bookmarked because your layout looks amazing and new modelers could learn something from your layout.
Basic fallacious premise - there are coal seams in the Kiso Gorge, Nagano-ken, Japan.
Backstory. Six close-typed legal pages (plus a map) explaining how things got named, who owns what and how nationalization changed the character of the railroad - starting clear back in the sisteenth century. (I’ll spare you the details.) The main point is that the local coal-hauler was taken over, extended through a long tunnel (and had other major engineering changes) and became a secondary main line. The truncated end that remained survived for years mostly on the annual payment for the line taken by the Imperial government - then the owning family uncovered a really good coal seam farther up the Tomikawa Valley,
At the same time, the mineowner’s daughter showed up in the valley with her new boyfriend - who had gone into the U.S. Navy after being laid off when Roanoke completed its last S2! He took one look at the yard full of teakettles and the new coal cleaning plant (so new it was still clean!) and promptly proposed.
Now, seven years later, our Virginia boy is Chief Mechanical Officer of the Tomikawa Valley Railway. The result - locomotives and rolling stock like nothing else in Japan, all intended to move coal as cheaply and efficiently as possible. Race Horse Smith would have loved it. Stuart T. Saunders would have hated it - the only diseasels on the property are a four-wheel rail bus and an asthmatic diesel-mechanical that can barely move itself and one car on level track. In the meantime, having assembled Japan’s only Mallet, the TTT shop forces are picking through the junk to get parts for another articulated.
As for the rest of the line, now long nationalized? It’s partially electrified (1500VDC catenary) and diesels are making inroads in the steam fleet. This comparatively insignificant route through the hinterlands sees well over 100 train movements on a slow day! As a result, double-tracking is in
I’ve built my Westport Terminal RR. This is a railroad in the 70-80th. It’s a freelanced Terminal RR.
And I’ve started with my narrow gauge Pueblo & Salt Lake RR, also freelanced.
Wolfgang
Great northern plain states and southern prairie provinces.
Abandoned rail got picked up by a trio of investors who had big plans to make their own rail empire…from Leemer on south with a few spurs and interchanges betwixt and between…
Primary usage is grains of all sorts plus the tourist who are heading to fishing/hunting paradise to the north…oh…and Blue Circle Audio has a couple of plants here and there as well[:-^]
Southeast coal hauler/bridge route circa 1980 very loosely based on the Clinchfield
Video tour of the railroad at:
http://www.youtube.com/user/ClinchValleySD40#p/u/6/EPdw9Gr-Gt0
Stein,My CDB Industries is based on Rail America and GWI .However,all of the shortlines owned by my CDBI has been modeled my me at one time or the other-Detroit Connecting was my first freelance terminal railroad…The CD&B was my N Scale railroad of the 80s and still very dear to my memory since my late wife and I planed and built this railroad.
The “history” of the C&HV is a play on RA’s Indiana & Ohio that operates the real old Athens Sub.
So,my concocted corporate history is based on actuality and therefore the locomotives was carefully chosen following prototype examples.