So “Attuvian1” was asked about his forum name over in the diner and provided a fascinating response to the question. That being said, I thought it would be interesting to find out the how’s and why’s of how we all ended up with our forum name and avatar. We have a lot of new members along with the old crusty ones and have a rejuvenated forum so maybe some new and/or repeat introductions are needed.
So, if so inclined, tell us about your forum moniker and avatar and how you ended up choosing both.
I’ll start. My surname begins with the letters “Bat”, followed by many more letters, as a result, my whole life I have been called Batman. Right from my earliest memories of going out to play it has been Batman. When I learned to drive, whether it was my parents car or my own my friends woulds always say “to the Batmobile”. When I was working for the Feds and would be out on the ramp at the airport with three radios and two phones hanging off me, the radio would crackle and someone would be calling me as Batman. So from early on I wasn’t going to shed the name and I could be called worse.
My avatar is of a water tower in Brookmere B.C. It is still there and I always stop to say high when going by as it is only a few kms off the highway and a great spot to take a break.
I spent a major portion of my working life at a school in Mid-City, New Orleans. I loved going to Saints games in the Dome, even during all the years when they were setting records with their losing streaks. Yes, I was even there during the years that many in the crowd wore grocery bags over their heads. “Who dat say dey gonna beat dem saints?”
Being a French city, the Fleur-de-lis is a symbol of the City of New Orleans, as well as the Saints football team.
Way back in the before time, the long long ago of the late 1990s, I had a different screen name for every forum I was a part of. I joined a Disney Parks forum and chose YoHo as a reference to Yo Ho Yo Ho a Pirate’s life for me and it started to become more of a nickname than other forum handles I’d used. So I started using it everywhere. It was short and easy to type. on the Various railroad related forums I participate in, there’s an assumption is relates to HO scale/Gauge. Which I don’t disabuse people of.
Anyway, as I said, it has become a nickname since I’ve used it for over 25 years now. People have called me by it in real life.
On here I had to add my birth year. I’m sure someone who doesn’t post anymore took the original name.
I built a series of 1/25 scale tow trucks in the late 90s, early 2000s. I wanted a name for the fictitious company. There was a Northgate Towing in town then, and I live on the south end of town (Bend Oregon) So Southgate was chosen. I built a sizable structure and diorama for it too.
Later, when trying to come up with a name for my layout, an ISL loosely located south of Coos Bay OR where I grew up, Southgate was a natural fit. Thus, my forum name.
I built an HO version of the 1/25 scale dio, and have it placed prominently in my HO layout. A model of a model! Talk about easy reference material, right?
The avatar? Just an HO junkyard dog truck I built following an article in Scale Auto Enthusiast magazine when it existed. Somehow that avatar followed me to this forum from the old one. I don’t have the original picture, or I can’t find it. Dan
My moniker is “ground effects” which reflects my interest in race car aerodynamics (mostly F1 & Le Mans racing). My avatar is of a westbound U.P. train climbing out of Cold Stream canyon 5 miles west of Truckee, CA in the Eastern Sierras… I’m hoping this avatar will show when I hit reply…
My avatar is a Bitmoji of myself. My screen name follows the example of Joshua Lionel Cowen. Cowen used his middle name when he founded the Lionel Manufacturing Company in 1900 with Harry Grant. Later, when the window display electric cars he was making outsold everything else, it became Lionel Trains around 1906 when they switched from 2 rail 2 7/8" gauge to 3 rail Standard Gauge. (Lionel started with a cream cheese box on wheels, not intended as complete train sets for consumers but rather to display other merchandise as the car ran around the track )
I followed Cowen’s example and used my middle name, Penelope, to create a wholly fictitious toy train manufacturing company for the extremely limited amount of toy trains I restored for friends and family. I used Lionel, Ives and American Flyer advertising art to create interesting, if not completely irrelevant box art.
“Penny” also seems to describe my hobby budget these days!
My username was the invention of my initials, Anthony Vasiento, with Trainz coming from one of my earlier entrances into the railroading world. Trainz has been my favorite railroad simulator franchise for many years, and was one way I enjoyed railroading as a kid with no way to travel, and no space to build a layout with my models.
My avatar actually has quite special meaning for me. The larger locomotive is one of the first model trains I ever owned, my grandfather’s American Flyer #499 New Haven EP-5. I inherited it when I was maybe 6-7, and it was my first electric train (I had Brio trains when I was very little). It’s stood the test of time, and been through many repairs by me including having its motor replaced. The little loco in the photo is a Hallmark Great Northern EP-5 ornament, given to me for my 18th birthday. Its very special because (excuse my backstory to explain) back when I was 10, our house was sold from under us. Our really good friends lived (and still do) out in the country, and they offered us one of the houses they had on their property to rent. When my family was in a situation where we weren’t sure what would happen, they gave us the perfect support. After that they really became our adopted family, and we had an amazing time living on their property. Fast forward to last summer, and we decided it was time to buy our own house, and we moved in November. Even though we moved away, our friends have remained family just the same. I turned 18 in December, and the gift from them was that EP-5 ornament. Now, they had no idea about the backstory of my Flyer loco, and it really is doubly special that they picked that by coincidence. I cherish it not only because of its ties to my trains, but the because I have been through so much with the family that gave it to me.
Pardon my long winded backstory.
Mine tie together.
The FRRY part comes from the reporting marks for my primary protolanced road: Forest Railway. (Yes, I realize it really should only have one “R” but I didn’t like the idea of having reporting marks similar to a popular fast food.) The Kid part comes from the fact I started using that “handle” in college with one of my first non-institutional email addresses.
My avatar is one version of the logo for said railroad. (This version would go on any silver cars. It is the lesser used of the two I have. It actually shows better in this environment than the silver version. The silver one goes on green cars.)
My avatar is a lineup of the freight power on my freelanced Genesee Terminal.
The moniker is more involved. I’ve always lived in Erie Canal towns. In one such town, my son’s Cub Scout den was having their first campout in one of the boy’s yards, near the canal. One of the scouts approached a dad, and with a little worry, asked if there were any animals around. The dad replied, “Only the canalligators, son.” I’ve been using Canalligator as a login name ever since.
Well, at that moment, we were closer to Conrail than the canal.
Back in the early 90s I played MechWarrior on Genie network ($6/hour!). I needed a user ID and since most of the people took it SO seriously I decided on a user name that was decidedly silly. “ONEWOLF” came from Lenny’s red satin jacket on Laverne and Shirley. Laverne stole the script L so his jacket said “ONEWOLF”. And I have been OneWolf ever since. I am Onewolf42 here because my “Onewolf” account got screwed up here and I was never able to contact someone who could fix it so I created a new account with “42” appended on the end because, well 42.
And my avatar is the Union Pacific crest because I model the Union Pacific around Ogden.
I was modeling the New Your Central and collecting the Walthers 20th Century Limited cars. Newly retired, I got involved with the forums and had to come up with a username. Lacking any imagination I simple chose NYCMODEL. The avatar was simple. What better than the tail sign of the 1948 20th Century Limited. I found a photo on the Internet to use. Frankly, I am not sure the Century tail sign was that blue. The picture borders on the purple. When I modeled my Hickory Creek I used a blue LED and toned down the brightness a bit. Still not sure about the actual color. Wayne
My username is mostly just based on my own name, so no exciting story here. The profile picture is me in the cab of Illinois Central #790 at Steamtown National Historic Site. I went this past winter and loved it.
@Onewolf42 I cannot believe Ive seen a mechwarrior reference out in the wild, let alone on a model train forum. That was my favorite video game growing up.
My username is a tribute to my dad, who was a gunner during World War II on a Navy PB4Y2 bomber, and my career as a firefighter for 42 years. The avatar is the logo for the Tennessee Central Railroad that ran near where I grew up. As a kid, I spent a lot of time climbing on the box cars and hoppers parked on a siding as well as walking across the trestle on my way to the hobby shop. Interesting enough, the hobby shop was on one side of the tracks, and a fire station was on the other. When I became a firefighter in 1978, my first assignment was the same ladder company that I used to walk by as a kid even though the fire station had been replaced.
