Locations and names

When I first joined the forum I started by reading just about all of the threads. One of them was about layout progress with pictures.

The setting was in the old and rugged west. The layout was a point to point in the shape of a large U.

The town at one end was named Arock and the one at the other was Hardplace. In the middle was a “whistle stop” called Inbetween.

Only after I hadn’t seen any postings for a long time did I learn from an inquiry on the forum that the modler (I have forgotten hi name) had cancer and had died.

Then I realized he had picked names which suited his real life situation. He was literally between a rock and a hard place.

You don’t forget whitnessing something like this.

Happy Railroading

Bob

Former Teamsters Boss Jimmy Hoffa. Indecently, one of the name decals that goes with Walthers Medusa Cement is Hoffa Cement.
http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/933-3019

On my layout, place names are mostly taken from small towns in Lincoln County, Maine as I am modeling a railroad in midcoast Maine. Sheepscott, and Muscongus are real place names located north of Wiscasset and part of Bremen, respectively. Greenvale is kind of a contraction of Greenville, ME and Greenfield, MA (I have some 1980s B&M equipment). Other names will be added as the layout progresses. The freelanced part of things is Bunker Hill and Eastern RR; Bunker Hill is a large hill on the north shore of nearby Damariscotta Lake so Bunker Hill would be the ruling grade on the line. Many business names are taken from real businesses or family names, otherwise they are just from the decals that came with the model. Dragon Products is from a large cement plant in Thomaston; The Cupboard Cafe is the name of a favorite local

Some of the names on my layout…

A. Madonna Della Ferrostrada Cathedral (literally “Our Lady of the Railway”); inspired by the Madonna Della Strada chapel at the Loyola University of Chicago campus. The cathedral complex also contains the diocesan administration building and a high school, named after deceased friends.

B. The Jesuit Brewery. The Christian Brothers (my high school) make wine; it would be logical that the Society of Jesus would go for a stronger drink like beer.

C. Wisteria Lane, with appropriate warning signs for “Desperate Housewives”.

D. Lawyers Can Service; a company that services portable toilets. Their motto: “Call a Lawyer to Clean Your Can”. I’ve got around a dozen portable toilets with the appropriate signs.

E. The V. I. Lenin boat store, named after the birthplace of Solidarity in Gdansk, Poland.

F. Beck-Colbert Wind Farm, after the Fox News and Comedy Central commentators.

G. Bismarck Auditorium, built during the 1880 - 1914 era when Americans idolized the Iron Chancellor (hence Bismarck, ND; Bismarck Hotel, etc.).

H. Frate House; a freight house recycled into a museum. The spelling dates from the reformed spelling era prior to World War I.

I. Canine American and Feline American; dog and cat food companies.

J. CTA bus route 666, which serves a well known megachurch in Chicago.

I’ve also got a number of streets and honorary street names named after friends and their pets.

I’ve got the abundant directional signs to churches (blue) and tourist sites (brown) giving the directions to the real places, relative to my layout.

I grew up in a river town at the end of an SR branch. While I don’t model it directly, it is the inspiration for my proto freelanced Smoke River Railway. My goal is to capture the feel of the cotton mill region of the Carolina’s such that people will say “I know that town, but just can’t place it.” I figure that’s better than the alternative of “I grew up on that town and you got this, and this, and … wrong.” Since the Southern had a habit of using its subsidiary’s names but a standard paint scheme, that makes several things easier.

a. Smoke comes from our first cat’s name, Smokie.

b. River of course refers to the river town from my youth.

c. The primary town is Kimberly after my wife.

d. My dad owned a Gulf station in town, so that will be on the layout.

e. I’m working on passenger cars that will have my children’s names on them.

I have not yet built the main Santa Fe freight yard in my port city layout, nor have I built the yard for the port switching railroad which goes behind it. But I have built the open staging yard which goes behind both “operating” yards which are intended to represent something sort of prototype. The open staging is intended to be inobtrusive behind all the other yards-- it is in a scene that in real life had yards of 5 railroads side by side. So we can say it is actually a staging yard which is “impersonating” an anonymous unrelated possibly foreign-railroad yard. This yard is named DEMARA YARD for the title character in the movie THE GREAT IMPOSTER who played about 50 years ago.

A real building in the Galveston scene I am modeling is called the Old Peanut Butter Warehouse, now a antique place with lofts added at the top ofn the original 3-story building.

I have bought 2 DPM kits to approxibashmate the building as it was when used as a waterfront warehouse…

You are definitely a man of exquisite taste, sir, LOL! Especially B: I teach at a Jesuit High School here in California, and I can guarantee you that any off-campus, after-school gatherings of Administrati