Alright, I saw a similar thred on another site and just had to ask (not to mention I saw someone runs a railroad called M.E.S.S.).
With that being said, I’d like to hear what some of us have come up with.
If I can fit it in on my layout, I’m going to have a shellfish market called:
A.W.E. Shucks.
I still like name Pottersville. This was a town on Bruce Chubbs original Sunset Valley system. The town was in the basement bathroom!!!
I will be building the King Coal Company for my layout. I’m also planning a small park around a statue of Civil War hero John Buford Brad, to be known as Brad Park.
In the real world, there’s a small company on Route 26 in Maine which specializes in docks for small boats in the state’s many lakes. It’s called What’s Up Docks.
Well, it’s not a town but if you drive down I65 south of Louisville, KY, there’s a billboard up on a hill that advertises tattoo’s “while you wait”!!!
John Allen had lots of cute names on The G&D like sowbelly and cold shoulder. It is written that he grew to regret calling them “silly” names. I name things after my modeling friends from here and on the net. Fred
One I’m partial to is Belly Acres. I may put n a trailer park with that name.
Tom
There will two towns on my layout (some day) linked by my railroad giving it its name: the Notyme & Munee RR. (of course, those are pronounced “NOT him” and “mun NEE”)
I got the “money” one but I thought the other was “naughty me”.
The Sublime to Redikulus was inspired by John Allen 40 years ago. I have not come to regret the names that have now survived 3 layouts. Green Mountain came into existance because of the Malachite quarry that is there, using left over Malachite slabs from the jewelery making days and the chunk of Malachite I found at an old mine site.
Looked more like “no time” to me.
Not exactly odd…but my town is named Plaster Falls, because the ceiling fell on it.[:(!]
Nick
I could see that…[:D]
I hadn’t anticipated the “naughty me” interpretation, though it does add a certain depth to the name. I’ve always been partial to double meanings. I kinda like it…
It’s actually meant to represent why there aren’t any trains running yet.
I was thinking of putting up a billboard for Carolina Rice, but changing the name to “Condoleeza” Rice.
I have a receipt in my files from the “Watts Up Electrical Contractors.” (They installed a couple of 240V outlets for heavy appliances.)
Terry Walsh, one of the earliest wayfreight switching gurus, had some beauts. Off the top of my head:
Thrust and Parry Fence Co.
Burns and Burns Fuels.
Laydee-Zunder Warehouse.
My narrow(er)-gauge logging line bears my wife’s maiden name, and two of the stations use names associated with our children. All three are an in joke (in Japanese,) which I will not explain here.
Why narrower-gauge. Because my mainline connection is narrow gauge - 1067mm, or 42 inches. The Kashimoto Forest Railway is 762mm (30 inch) gauge.
Chuck
My pike is named the Ludington & Northeastern Railroad after the real life Ludington and Northern run by my father-in-law some years ago. The local wags in Ludington call the L&NE the Ludington & Nowhere Else.
And there is a real seafood restaurant in Charleston, SC called A.W. Shucks. We ate there last week.
Jimbo
My layout represents the outskirts of the town of Serling (after Rod Serling) on the Hobb Creek subdivision. Hobb being loosely translated from Old English as something that goes bump in the night. (like a hobbgoblin) I’d like to eventually expand the layout to include the towns of Ellison (Harlan Ellison) and King. (Stephen King)
Not that I’m the first person to use hobb in the name of a place where things aren’t quite right. The movie “In the Mouth of Madness” mostly took place in the fictional village of Hobbs End, and one or two older British movies featured a street named Hobbs Lane. (Though, I have reason to believe there used to be a real Hobbs Lane, but it has long since been renamed.)
After I made the post, I had an off the wall idea:
2 towns Heere and Therre.
If not in them, your niether here nor there but, if you where in the middle, you’d be between here and there!!!
That’s actually pretty funny…sort of. [:D]
There was an old thread on this forum with the same general subject. I don’t remember the title, alas. Maybe a search can bring it up.
My contribution: the Pervert Building hosts a complete set of related businesses.
In the basement is an adult bookshop.
The front door leads to a peep show (it says so on the windows).
A woman of the night walks in front of the store. She has high heels, a low-neck blouse (which does not quite reach her waist), and a very short skirt.
A red light shines from an upstairs window or two.
A big burly guy in a pinstripe suit lounges in the doorway, partially out of the glow from the streetlight.
Invite your teenaged daughter to help you build and detail the model building. Explain each part of it to her as you go.
On my “planned” layout-- hope I get started on it soon-- my Santa Fe freight yard in the island seaport of Karankawa (my version of Galveston) shuttles cars to the port switching railroad. I plan a couple of tracks to be used for that operation. But the yard for the switching railroad will look somewhat bigger, because behind the two front tracks used in actual operation will be four more tracks full of freight cars that are actually visible (but incsonpicuous) staging. Freight trains leaving the island seaport run around the room across a bridge to the mainland where they disappear, and then they stop at the visible staging. The visible staging will be called DEMARA YARD.
Demara was the name of a character who was the great imposter, subject of a movie of that name back in 1960 or thereabouts. Demara Yard is a staging yard impersonating an operating yard.
I often use names with no obvious pun but a long complicated story behind them. My railroad is the Santa Vaca and Santa Fe. Holy cow!
