Naming a railroad can be almost as frustrating as a track plan. I drew up and discarded several track plans and names before I finally settled on one of each. My railroads name is Requietscat In Pace. Otherwise known as The Route of the Buzzards. Reporting mark: RIP It runs between the two towns of Requietscat and Pace and serves a whistle stop called In. The road is a transfer road between the Green Vally and Atlantic (the first layout I built) and another as yet unnamed road. In this way all kinds of cars from a lot of different roads and different cargos move through the RIP’s yards. It’s set in the transition era but is a scrapping by road but has a brighter future because of new industries moving inti the area, Even considering it’s first diesel. GASP!
As for a name for your road, since it’s on a 4’x6’ surface you could call it The Four and Six RR. No matter how big it gets it still would retain a connection to it’s roots. Reporting mark would be 4N6. It’s really a lot of fun thinking up names for the road, the cities and even business’s on your layout. I say just have FUN with your own world and if you freelance NOBODY can say something is wrong.
Good luck, have fun and keep us posted on your progress!
Over the years I have called mine a few names. The MC&V, Master Card and Visa. The U&O, useless and ornamental. The G&W, the generic and western. Right now on the tracks the 360 limited is running. I’d like to say it goes from somewhere to somewhere else but really it is lost in the devil’s triangle. The town I think I will name Lago after High Plains Drifter because of the western feel.
I wonder what the two preceding posters will think of their road names a few years down the road. It’s a well-known fact that John Allen came to despise the, “Gory and Defeated,” and simply pulled a BNSF by referring to it as the, “G&D.”
For that matter, when WWII put paid to the Moonlight and Violins, its follow-on was the Tuxedo Junction (and the track plan centered on a junction of the Northern New Jersey multi-track monster variety.) Granted that Tuxedo Junction was a Glen Miller hit, it still had a plausible, railroady, sound.
My `made up’ road name, which translates as Wealth River Valley, sounds innocently geographical. Its actual origin and meaning will remain shrouded in mystery - a simple matter of self-preservation… No one can object to the Japan National Railways, but that’s because it’s strictly prototypical.
Cute but railroady names can stand the test of time. Cutesy-poo gets old in a hurry.
I agree about the Cutsey poo stuff. I went with the Portage and Northwoods Electric Railroad…which eventually gets turned into the Portage Northern Railroad. Sometime in the 60’s It loses the word “electric” but the wire never comes down, the shop folks just staged a minor revolt. The current speculation is that the shop staff got tired of having have to spell it all out with the stencils, and management realized the ink and paint savings.
I spent a number of years with a railroad with no name. I just could not decide. Suddenly, after several years, it came to me, the ECI, East Central Indiana. Why? My railroad runs down the eastern side of Indiana from Anderson in the north-central portion down to Westport in the southern portion of the state. It wasn’t until I discovered what I had done, that the name became obvious.
And, no, it isn’t really a cutsey name. Perhaps that’s why I still like it after many years.
Years back I found a softcover book on the history of Minnesota railroads, that had listed in the back all the railroads to ever exist in Minnesota. Many of them were never built, just incorporated or got a charter or registered with the Secretary of State’s office and only existed on paper. When picking a name for my railroad, it came in handy.
In my case, I focused on the real St.Paul & Duluth railroad, and what it might have been like had it not been bought by the NP in 1900. In my world, it built up the north shore of Lake Superior, eventually meeting with (and merging with) another real railroad that was built from what’s now Thunder Bay, Ontario, south into northeast Minnesota, the Port Arthur, Duluth & Western. (The real PAD&W went backrupt in the Great Depression.)
I imagine if that had really happened, it would have been the St.Paul Duluth & Western. I thought about that, but tried St.Paul Duluth & Canadian. For some reason, the “Saint P - D and C” railway seemed to work for me, and I chose that as the name. My “St.Paul Route” herald is loosely based on one used (at least in advertising and/or stationary) by the St.Paul & Duluth.
I don’t have any idea what I’d call it because it’s taking place during 2-3 different time periods but run by SP&S during the first and then BN for the rest of the time periods.
Quite honestly I find no real need to name my railway. I call it all kinds of things. If I truly freelanced and had reporting marks with all the trappings that might be one thing. Right now I have a pair of BN SD9’s running on it. Last night I had a UP Passenger train on it. The day before that I had a pair of Santa Fe F3’s. I’m going to name the town something but other than that nothing else.
There’s no need to name a layout with prototype locomotives but,heres a thought.
Why not have a “paper” terminal switching railroad that is owned by the SP&S and later BN? This railroad is a “paper” railroad and has no equipment of its own.
Let’s say Spokane Belt & Terminal Ry or perhaps simply the Midland Division.
Oops! My brain was on vacation on that one. Your reporting marks are right on and still keep the roots of the layout as it grows. My brain is still out in the “shops”, as we call it, building and remodeling something.Thanks for the correction…