Im in the brainstorming process for a new layout. I have quite a lot of room and I want a railroad that will be interesting to build and historically accurate. Any suggesions? Southern Pacific? Santa Fe? I am looking for modern railroads that would offer me an opportunity to really have a good time both running and building the layout. I hope that there are some suggestions.
Norfolk Southern, the Thoroughbred…
see: www.nscorp.com
Why not just invent a country and call your railroad anything you want. Believe me, it’s a lot of fun.
go with the UNION PACIFIC they merged with S.P. amd RIO, ect… get alot of cool raods and color schemes and big diesels and flag units are the best!!!
When I created my railroad, I wanted to be able to model anything that I wanted, so I didn’t go prototypical. I decided the kinds of things I wanted my railroad to be involved in, such as logging, hauling ore, and hauling freight. I also wanted my motive power to be diesel, and located in an area I was somewhat familiar with. So, since I’m from Wisconsin, and I wanted to be able to model alot of forests, I placed my railroad in northern Wisconsin and Minnesota. I named my railroad the Amnicon & Brule, after 2 actual rivers that flow through this region. The names of the rivers are the only thing that are taken from reality.[:)]
what part of Wisconsin are you from?
i really wanted to just come up with my own railroad and run with that but then i realized i can’t do all the painting by myself so i decided/am deciding to go with the Burlington Northern and Rock Island. i have CB&Q and GN as well because they merged and formed the Burlington Northern. and i just like the Rock Island so i decided to have some of their stuff as well.
i’m also working on my own railroad right now. well i’m just painting a caboose to see if i like it and if i want to stick with it. its Baldwin Rail Service.
I have to give my vote for Norfolk Southern too! But I also understand what everybody means by doing your own thing. My next layout is going to be non-prototypicial. I’ll come up with my own name and my own paint scheme. The only grip I have about being pototypicial is that someone is quick to point out a mistake or to say “I never saw that on the NS.” I live in a formal Conrail served area and most of the geeps are still in conrail paint with some NS mixed in. The only big difference is I run some high nose locos with low nose geeps and there are no high nose locos where I live but everybody is quick to point this out on my model railroad. Some people didn’t even know they have locos with high noses like that. See what I mean… Just do it your own way, say a small shortline like no one has heard of that mixes it up with the class 1 railroads.
One thing you might look into is short lines in your area. Since the elimination of the Interstate Commerce Commission, small short-line railroads are once again economically feasible. These roads tend to be smaller than giant railroads (but can still be big enough to fill the biggest layout room) and use a mixture of older rehabbed equipment and newer rolling stock (they mostly serve to carry cars from larger railroads’ mainlines to industries that aren’t accessible by the big lines’ tracks.)
If you’re interested in historical accuracy, look into what railroads ran near where you live. If you passed along your general geographic area (city/state) lots of folks on here can tell you what railroads are in your vicinity, or were. Look into local railroad or historical societies for a load of neat research information. Don’t over-research, but you might find that research is a lot of fun in itself…
If you do, don’t forget to pay Uncle Pete his copyright fees[:D]
CN in the Rockies would be a challenge.
My approach was to model a fictional shortline railroad, which means that it is small enough for me to completely fictionalize the whole thing, from the moment of its inception in the 19th century, up until its final demise as it was merged. Then, I chose a larger prototype railroad (in this case the Norfolk & Western) which was the one who gobbled up the smaller line, in much the same way that NW raked in the Akron Canton & Youngstown in 1964. This way, I model a real line with specific references to the NW motive power that was running in the Shenandoah Valley in the 1970’s, while at the same time being free to invent whatever I want for my WP&P (now the Winchester Branch of the Shenandoah Division).
Actually, my short line was supposedly birthed by two major parents, the Baltimore and Ohio, and the N&W, neither of which was on its own ready to invest in the region but who each became major shareholders in the road, which ultimately formed an east-west bridge route between Front Royal and Grafton. This backstory lets me exhibit influences from both roads in my fictional paint schemes and practices, while permitting diversions wherever I really just feel like it. Nobody can tell me that my top-heavy WPP fleet of Alco RSD-15’s (with NW style high noses) is wrong! Had I painted them in NW blue and yellow, though, I’d know through and through that it was incorrect, and live a life without joy because of it. 
I vote for with the short line lovers! Pick a neat town name and add a direction (north, east, etc,) and bingo: Danbury and Southern or whatever! Run what you want and how you want. You can be the captain [4:-)] of your fate!
Just keep in mind that there are and were plenty of real short lines out there, and the process of research and discovery can be as much fun as making it up yourself…
You can do any railroad you want! I would model a CSX mainline not because I like it but because they lease many engines so you can run engines from almost any railroad you want! Good luck.
P.S. I model a prototype-freelance regional railroad in Eastern Pennsylvania and western New York.
I’m from south central Wisconsin, around the Janesville area.
I want to apologize to Yarolax, the original poster. I don’t want to take away from his original questions, but as I’m new to the forum, I haven’t quite figured out how to post private messages. I tried sending you a private reply so that a private discussion didn’t interfere with this thread, but either your profile is not set up to accept private messages, or I just haven’t figured out how to do it yet (probably the case!)[:I]
Looking forward to participating in the discussions. I had to dismantle my layout some time ago, but I’m planning on resurrecting it in the future. I saved as many of the structures, track, landscaping materials, etc. that I could, because I knew I’d want to re-build in the future.[;)]
AMTRAK… AMTRAK… AMTRAK
Union Pacific most definently! But there’s also Amtrak, BNSF, NS, CSX, KCS, Conrail (even though it’s gone), or the AT&SF and BN before they merged.
Thanks for you suggestions. Someone said that a lot of people would know some lines that used to run through my area. So, I’m fron Nothern New Jersey. I am sure there were some, but I’m not usre which ones exactly.
By the way, Golfgar4, no problem. It is no big deal. I’m new too and I don’t mind. I’m not the kind of erson to take stuff like that personally.
By the way, I’m sorry that I didn’t mention this before, but I was thinking frieght and not passenger.
I model Canadian National but the area is not prototypical. I also want to model Chessie System but have not figured out how to incorporate the two.
ShaunCN
Correct me if I’m wrong butyou could “bridge” the two at Buffalo, Detroit or somewhere in Vermont.