How many of y’all name places on your layout after something that has had some significance to your life? Or for people?
On the layout I build, I want to base a small town off of the town I lived in for twelve years of my sixteen year life. Sykesville is where I grew up, and on my layout, it will be Skyesville. I will also have a “replica” of the Sykesville and Patapsco Model Railroad Club, but this will be the Skyesville and Patapsico Model Railroad Club on my layout.
How about you? Do you name places on your layout after family? Friends? Anything that isn’t prototypical?
Absolutely. On my first free-lance design almost everything was significant. I was a Sophomore in High School. The towns were named after scientists/inventors (Tesla, Voltaire, Faraday, etc.). The locomotive numbers were the line numbers (last four digits of the phone number) of the girls in my class. The train numbers were certain room numbers from the school. Passenger cars carried names from historical figures that were significant to me. As I recall automobile types, music groups, songs, and Star Trek themes were worked into it.
Today our club layout has industries that carry members names, and all observation cars carry the names of past Club Presidents.
Yeah, the town on my layout is Castle Rock, Maine. If you read Stephen King, its the town where several of his novels take place. So why Castle Rock???
Because in the book “Needful Things” the town get destroyed. I know that in a few years I’ll be moving and the town will cease to exist…it’s days are numbered, it just doesn’t know it yet.
Well on my coming layout Townsville was the best placed I’ve lived at and Brisbane was where I went this year with the NT U14’s Rugby Union team to play the QLD teams this year. So those two places are significant to me.
Mitchell
The Schuylkill Valley Model Railroad Club was featured in Model Railroading earlier this year. I was a member there while it was being built. I named one of the towns “Hathaway” because when you got there you were hathaway around the layout.
The C. R. Owings mfg. Co. is named after my grandfather That I have mentioned in the coffee shop, I named it before he was having problems. If I showed it to him now he will like it but in a couple of hours he won’t remember it but thats ok. I also plan to have Coopers Coal Co. Which is named after my great uncle because He loves trains and model railroading too. His layout is so cool…but thats a different subject.
Here is a pic where you can see the sign. This was on the old layout.
Now it has been painted. It is the red building on the left.
Sure thing. My daughter claimed one of the tunnels on my layout, smashed a bottle of Champagne on the portal and named it Sara Tunnel. She’s 7 so I agreed since I didn’t have a better name in mind anyway. My son (3) wanting to do what his sister had done, claimed a bridge in his own name, Benjamin Bridge. I named the chorded 18" long bridge that spans the center of my layout for my wife, Matriarch Bridge, and finally my best friends wife suggested that a water fall would look good in a certain spot on my layout. So I named the falls Margaret Falls after her.
I have yet to name the Freight Depot and Passenger Station, and have several more unbuilt stores and the like to build and place, but I’m sure those will get named after people and places in my life. I just makes it a little more personal.
Most of the naming on my layout revolves back to my college days. In a sense the whole thing does, since it’s set in genericish Upstate New York. The passenger station is ‘Illium Depot’ since I went to school in Troy. Likewise the newspaper office on the layout will be called ‘S&W Publishing’, named after Statler & Waldorf, a magazine I worked on in college. (Yes, the magazine was named for the muppets. [:D])
Still haven’t named the river, which will be a semi-fictitous Hudson tributary, the port (fairly small and modest, really a barge unloading facility) or the power plant. Or the mountains. I guess being unmarried and without kids cuts back on potential names, eh? [;)]
The Autumn’s Ridge Railway & Navigation Co. is named after my daughter (Autumn). Winndy Hollow is named after my wife (Winndy). The town of Andrews is a tip of the hat to John Allens town by the same name on his Gorre & Dephieted RR and is also named after my son, Andrew. So far thats about it. The rest of my names mean nothing really.
If you want to do this, I’d say that it’s YOUR RR, go for it! [8D]
Towns:
On my layout I have plans to name the towns after some of the neighborhoods in our area, we live in Walnut Bend so the main town will be named that. We also live in an area known as Algiers, so another town will be named after it. The side of the river we live on is also known as the Westbank, so I have named another section of the layout after that.
Businesses:
On my layout plans I have named businesses after my wife, kids, and pets. Such as Mo Betta Coal is named after my wife Monique, and Ryan’s Hardware after me, then there is Benn Station, the passenger station in Walnut Bend named after my son Benjamin, I also have Bryan Meat Packers after my other son Bryan. I have named my main yard as Paco Yard after one of our Chihuahua’s. Then there is Sparky Depot named after my mutt Sparky.
When I get my layout going I’m going to model the grade crossing where every almost Sunday my family would be stopped by a Chessie System/ SeaLand double stack train on our way to church. This is actually my first recollection of why I got into railroading as a job and hobby. I was impressed by the size and many different colors on the Chessie at that time, B&O and C&O blues, the WM, once in a while a Seaboard engine…GP-30’s, mid train helpers, cabooses. Takes me back.
The places and industries on my layout are named for the real ones along the line. The significance is that I grew up living in a few of the towns, and traveled to, or through, them all frequently. Big nostalgia trip, though the era is pre-me by about 20 years.
The layout I’m currently starting is just for the experience a probably won’t have any names. The narrow gauge line I’m planning for the garage out back already has a name - Dagascagonda, Lycippus, and Euclid Railroad and Coal Company. The intitials, DLE, are in memory of my late father. I’m sure other personal names will figure into. I’m already considering towns named after my daughters.
I do [#ditto] One of the towns on my layout is my last name: Adamsville. My last name is Adams. Also, another one is my middle name: Scott Yard. My middle name is Scott.