I am planning to build a freelanced railroad known as the Greatlakes and Atlantic Railroad. I have come up with a logo and plan to paint up some engines and rollingstock with it. I will come of a history on the G&A including an engine roster and freightcar roster.
Part of the fun is in the planning and imagining what your railroad would be. Have a good
time with it.
Here is the history of it.
The Great Lakes and Atlantic is a class 2 railroad with class 1 hopes. It was originally a consolidation of shortlines in order to compete with the class 1 railroads. The railroads included the Guilford System(Boston&Maine, Maine Centreal, Springfield Terminal), Providence and Worchester, Genessee&Wyoming, Trillium Railways, Hamilton Raillink, Michigan Southern, Ann Arbour, Goderich&Exeter, Chicago SouthShore and SouthBend, Indiana&Ohio and the Belt Railway Company of Chicago. This massive group endeavoured to build a mainline connecting from Boston to Chicago using the old NYC route into Ontario. With major investments and struggles with their shareholders; the Great Lakes and Atlantic operates over 400 trains a day throughout the system. It runs intermodal service for the cities of Boston, Worchester, Rocherster NY, Buffalo, New York, Toronto, Detroit, Elkhart In, Cinncinatti, Toledo and of course Chicago. It has intermodal transfers with KCS and UP and thus uses their power often. It has replaced most of its older and obsolete engines with and order of 50 AC4400CW from General Electric in Erie Pa and 200 SD75I from London Ontario. It has also purchased ex amtrak F40PH engines for their roadrailer service. It currently is devising a plan to build a line into Montreal, Quebec and extend its service into Flint Michigan.
I plan to model the line that will run from Grand Island (near Buffalo) to WIndsor Tunnel or at least half the distance