The letters in my moniker are a reference to the Adirondack RR, previously Adirondack Scenic, where I am an active engineer, conductor and DSLE. The 64 is my birth year (I’ll let you guess on which century 
). My avatar is our cat Eve, now heading into her 14th year.
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Regarding my moniker, one of my college roommates would take the last part of someone’s name as his nickname. So, Richard was Chard, Michael was Gul, etc. So me being Christopher I became Topher, which was shorten to Tophs, then later evolved to Tophiass. So I named my layout the Tophiass Valley Subdivision of the Burlington Northern. Of course my avatar is the BN logo.
Regards, Chris
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My Avatar is an outline sketch I drew of the Transporter Bridge which traverses the River Tees, between Middlesbrough and Haverton Hill, in the Northeast of England.
I intend to use this as a company Logo on my Locos along with the name ‘South Bank’ (South Bank Terminal Railroad) reporting mark ‘SBT’.
This is what I like so much about modelling American Railroads – there is nothing to stop you from modelling exactly what you want to, using all the Imagination and Initiative you can muster.
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Pretty self explanatory. My avatar is a 1971 Fiat 124 Sport Spyder. Drove that car for 22 years before selling it to a young lad a couple hours away. He and his dad were restoring one and wanted a second one to drive in the meantime.
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Mine is real simple, the name of my freelanced model railroad - ATLANTIC CENTRAL, and the avatar is the railroads herald.
Sheldon
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My username comes from two things- my nickname, and my hobby, sorta.
On the nickname side, people have been calling me ‘El’ for years- not only did it catch on quick, but it developed independently amongst multiple people.
On the ‘hobby’ side, I primarily work with ‘toy’ trains, but I do a variety. I also mess with other things from time to time, such as tape decks and vintage kitchen appliances. A common thread between it all is that I started out with very, very limited funds. I couldn’t afford very nice stuff, so I learned how to repair broken things that were within my price range.
These days, I probably could afford things in better condition, but I still prefer to get secondhand stuff that needs work. I usually get more bang for my buck this way, and entertainment value from working on things.
Now, the profile picture…
It’s of a very special set of mine. A Lionel No. 134 set from somewhere in the 1931-34 time period. It’s in rather poor condition, with rust, paint chips, and discoloration all over. Despite this, I have no plans to restore it- the only thing I did was make it run again.
What makes this set special, is that it was part of a collection of trains that a couple gave to me. These trains had been in their family for years, but unfortunately must have been stored somewhere wet as they were all very deteriorated. They found me via a place I volunteer, and initially I thought they simply wanted to inquire about repair work (which I do). But after talking for a few minutes they said they wanted me to have them. I felt very touched. Even if the trains were in poor shape, they had sentimental value.
Some of the equipment from that collection will eventually be restored, but at the least, I want to keep this one train original, even if nobody would fault me for repainting it. Thanks to my efforts, It runs great, even if the outward appearance might make you think otherwise.
-El
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Where is the photo?, I hear you cry!
Good question. It failed to attach. Let’s see if I can make it work…
No, not playing nicely today.
I am very short of memory on this tablet, must get a new card…
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My logo is a combination of my first name and my location. Not very ingenious. My avatar is an older Al Capp cartoon character Fearless Fosdick. It was my teenage nickname assigned to me by my buddies because I was always trying to find explanations for things.
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Although I seem to model more UP than KCS, I’ve always had a fascination with Kansas City Southern. I love their history, especially the paint and branding.
Now that they’ve become CPKC after being acquired by Canadian Pacific, the KCS brand will slowly fade away into history. As to why I chose it as my profile name and avatar? It was just the first thing that came to mind. 
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I have been known as the Bear all my working life. But upon joining the Forum I needed to add Ja as the prefix, which was logical as my favourite locomotive is the New Zealand Government Railways JA Class, 4-8-2, which is the subject of my avatar.
The last offical steam hauled South Island Limited by Bear, on Flickr
Cheers, the Bear. 
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Ok, Forum Monker:
My name and favorite locomotive.
Yes, I know that some modelers generally respond with “But you’re a southeastern and northeastern modeler, not Santa Fe!” 
Avatar: An HO diner that I metalized with Alclad II. Am a fan of stainless steel passenger equipment. 
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My original forum moniker was simply my first name and two initials (erikem) which I used for my email address. That account went away when trying to change my email address for my forum account (flintlock76 had the same problem), so now use my first name and first three letters of my last name. Fun fact: there is a former NFL player with the same first and last name who grew up down the street from, whose father’s name is Eric. Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought that I would have the most common name on the street.
My avatar is from a 2012 trip on the D&SNG with #481 on the point. This was on a trip where the first stop was 3 days ar the Grand Canyon arriving late afternoon on Easter Sunday, then a stop at 4 Corners, two nights in the Stadler Hotel in Durango, a visit to the Painted Desert, Petrified Forest and Meteor Crater before spending the last night in Sedona. There was a fair amount of snow on the ground in the shaded spots of Grand Canyon, got snowed on the train ride and got snowed on the last day in Sedona.
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My handle is just 'cause I kinda got a kick out of some of the car dealers in the area: Toyota of Jefferson, Honda of Covington, Toyota of Slidell, Cadillac of New Orleans…
My avatar is a locomotive owned by my great-grandfather. My grandmother and one of my great-aunts used to tell me stories in the early 1950’s about their father who owned a sugar plantation and built a railroad to haul cane from the field to the refinery. I’m guessing this would have been around the 1890’s.
Many years later (about 1990) a relative came across some very faded pictures of the plantation. I greatly increased the contrast of this one. It looks like Porter’s shield on the smokebox, and I’m guessing it’s 2-foot gauge.
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Mine isn’t as neat or meaningful as many others. I model the New York Central and use their slogan as my moniker. The avatar is a photo of one of their supreme 4-6-4 Hudson type locomotives.
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Mine is also pretty straightforward. It’s based on an old nickname that’s not that uncommon when your last name is Cooper. The avatar is an Illinois Central logo that was round and worked well as an avatar. The IC will be the focus of my upcoming and unbuilt layout. The logo worked better as the avatar than the Wabash logos which will also be incorporated into the layout.
Jeff
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My name comes from my YouTube channel, and it has become my online moniker for basically everything lol! I made the channel when I was in my early teens and the name has just kind of stuck, being that I am a boy (well, not sure if I’m too old for that anymore but whatever) and am an N scaler through and through!
As for my Avatar, the image I picked is the logo for my fictional Balfour and Colucci Creek Southern railroad, which you can read the whole history of through the link in my signature, but the long and short of it is it was a small regional railroad in the Hudson Valley that gained control of the New Haven following financial missteps at the NH, and runs the two roads under a single management through 1980, when they merge.
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When I joined the forums and had to pick a moniker, I initially thought of using ‘NKP fan,’ which I am, but that sounded more like a piece of equipment than a person. Hence, I chose the generic ‘guy.’ Maybe I should have used the name of the Rodney Dangerfield of trunk railroads—the Erie.
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Batman, Thanks for a very interesting thread, nice to learn about the meanings behind member’s handles and avatars. Your avatar always reminds me of Fort Ross.
HO-Velo = favorite scale & cycling. Avatar = Poster of bicycle shop in uptown Berkeley that was next door to my granduncle’s delicatessen in the 60s & 70s.
Regards, Peter
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Hello All,
My avatar is the herald of my freelance pike.
When I got back into this great hobby in 2014, “She Who Must Be Obeyed” relegated the size to 4’x8’ sitting on the top of the bed in the computer/spare bed room- -now train room.
During my musings of what local industries in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado- -where I now live- -I should base my pike on, the two that came to the fore were logging and mining.
On a road trip to the Western slope of Colorado, I “discovered” that there is a coal mining operation which is still producing to this day.
Modeling a logging railroad would require a lot of scenery- -of which I am not adept at- -especially trees.
A coal mining operation requires little scenery as it is mostly devoid of flora and fauna.
In my first foray into this hobby- -in the early 1970s- -I was gifted the Tyco “Hopper Car Unloading” set.
My current pike is based on the loading and unloading of these vintage cars on a freelance pike based on coal operations in the 1970s to 1980s.
The town we now live in is situated at the confluence of the North-Fork of the South Platte River and Buckskin Creek.
I took linguistic license to split the word Buckskin in two- -hence the B.S.& P. R.R. was born.
My moniker is based on my email address, jjdamnit@…
I have had this email address since the early 1990s.
When I was a lighting technician for touring bands, one of my crew chiefs would bellow, “J.J. damnit, where the hell is…!”
My “signature” is an actual quote from an early post when I was admonished that what I was trying to achieve; a 3% grade on a 4’x8’ pike with 15-, 18-, and 22-inch sectional track was “impossible.”
Hope this helps.
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Hello!
GM Pullman here… I recall that on one of my first ‘real’ train rides, the Erie-Lackawanna’s Lake Cities from Cleveland, Ohio, with a connection in Youngstown to Hoboken (New York City) back in 1966 when I was a mere ten years old I wandered through the train with a wide-eyed curiosity. I’ll never forget passing through the diner (oh the sounds, aromas and activity even though it was well past dinner time) and wandered into the Pullman on the train which must have been one of Erie’s 6-6-4s since I seem to recall sections still used in the car. The porter showed me around a bit but he wasted no time in politely reminding me that I belonged ‘up front’ with the other coach passengers.
Not long after I became involved in a railroad club that happened to own quite a few passenger cars and two heavyweight Pullmans were part of the roster. Exploring these cars and learning of their history made me even more interested in the operations of The Pullman Company. In an old book store (pre-eBay!) I found a copy of 'Pullman Instructions for Porters, Bus Boys and Attendants which outlined every minute detail expected of the Pullman employee and exactly how the cars were going to be operated.
That actually led me to meet several other private car owners and while still in high school I was ‘hired’ to be the steward on a former Nickel Plate Road 10-6 Pullman the Cynthia (NKP 211 City of Lima) on several trips around Michigan and one trip from Detroit to Toronto and on to Winnipeg! What a thrill!
So began my appreciation for what George Mortimer Pullman had brought to railroads and the level of attention and luxury a Pullman traveller came to expect.
Pullmanb_prop by Edmund, on Flickr
Pullman_ad-1943-crop by Edmund, on Flickr
Cheers, Ed
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