Okay, I Need A New Name For My Fictional Railroad That I Will Model In HO Scale. The Original Name Was Georgia Central Railroad, But Upon Doing Research, I Discovered That The Georgia Central Is A Real Company, So Now I Need A New Name For The Company.
GCX RR
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My railroad is the STRATTON AND GILLETTE. This is a name that has many advantages.
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It does not represent any specific area, there is a Gillette, Wyoming, but it is not all that well known. Names like WASHINGTON AND OREGON or NEBRASKA PACIFIC suggest a specific area. This is important if you ever want to change the location that you model.
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It is just cities in the name, so it could be a tiny railroad like the ATLANTA AND SAVANNAH, or a huge railroad like the CHICAGO BURLINGTON AND QUINCY. Using city names does not dictate the size of the railroad.
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It does not even sound completely American. Who knows, maybe someday the STRATTON AND GILLETTE could become an English Railway…
So my suggestion, just because it has worked for me, would be to use two made it city names. Be as generic as possible.
-Kevin
Not sure that a long name equals a long railroad? I grew up along the Minneapolis, Northfield & Southern, a shortline that ran about 40 miles north to south around the western side of Minneapolis. They connected with Great Northern and Northern Pacific, two huge railroads.
Part of the charm of small railroads is they often had grandiose names. In the last half of the 1800’s many railroads were chartered with “and Pacific” tacked onto the end of their names…even though they often never left the state were chartered in, if they ever got built at all.
One thing some folks have done is taken a real railroad that was merged or bought or just went belly-up years ago, and imagine what it would be like now. My “St.Paul Route” is based on two real railroads that coincidentally each were bought by larger railroads in 1900, so I have a foundation to build upon for a mid-late twentieth century line.
[#welcome] to the forum.
Not to be rude, but you can’t come up with a fictional name? This is a hobby of imagination.
I don’t know much about Georgia, Athens and Eastern, or one of the river names Conasauga RR, Chatahoochee RR
A friend in Atlanta named his layout the Napanoch Lackawack and Kerhonkson Railroad. Which I thought was ridiculous. But as it turns out, those are actual towns and/or counties in upstate New York. Go figure. Has a nice ring to it . . .
Robert
A lot of it depends on what the concept of the railroad is. If its meant to be a shortline, then a couple towns or cities are always good. If you want to include the state of Georgia, then add a direction (Georgia North Eastern). If was intended to be something larger or the original builders had aspirations (whether or not they were realistic), Georgia and distant geographic name, Georgia and Pacific, Georgia and El Paso, Georgia and Colorado, Georgia and Atlantic.
I would not add the letter "X’ after the name, because in railroad initials, the X indicates a private (non-railroad) owner, so its confusing to name the railroad a name that says its not a railroad. That’s why the CSX has to initial its equipment “CSXT” because it can’t use CSX since its a railroad.
LOL, that it does, Robert. [Y]
Rich
I had a layout that was a ficticious branch of the Reading Co. I combined the names of an actual branch that inspired me (The Cattasuaga and Fogelsville Branch) and the name of a large industrial area near me (Conshohocken) to come up with a new name, the the Cattahocken Branch.
Word of advice, never pick a name that sounds like your pet puking.
TARR
Trans America Rail Road
Go big or go home.[swg]
Well, that’s a bummer. How about GCXT then?
Rich
The Parsley, Sage & Rosemary.
But not Thyme?
Fictional? How 'bout “The Orlon & Wah-Watusi”…
Tom
This just in: representatives of Thyme have filed a lawsuit in district court to require Parsley Sage & Rosemary RR to extend trackage to Thyme, and that Thyme be granted full partnership including being added to the name of the railroad.
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If Georgia Central won’t work, you could do Central Georgia & Eastern or other.
The only thing I would suggest would be to resist cutesy names like Itsy Bitsy Lines, etc. because you will most likely grow tired of it quickly.
My railroad is named the “Atlantic Pacific Railroad” and named that way since I like the railroads on both side of the US… Now I can run any engines from those areas. Since I am east coast based, my railroad can lease engines from the UP, BNSF, KCS, and CSX!
Absolutely, cutesey names are a bad idea. So are naming the railroad after family members like the SHARONVILLE AND DAVIDTON.
-Kevin
The Georgia Gnat Line. Runs smack dab across the center of the state.
I seriously like railroad names with Native American names and names of rivers, lakes, canyons and ridges. The tribes that lived where railroads were built and the geography of the lands they crossed are part of their history and their heritage.
You make it sound like a bad thing. But if you do fictional, you’ll have to paint and decal a lot of models; but if that’s your thing …