I was looking at another forum at the Model RR mag forum and replied to a question about what our rr is named. I replied and realized that it could be a fun topic for us gardeners to talk about. Here is what I wrote on the other forum.
The line I own is the Gnome Garden Railway. I employee 5 gnomes who live in my backyard. I couldn’t tell you what they do besides work on the railway. They always seem to be in good humor and attitude so I don’t meddle in there affairs. I think they are friendly with the skunks and squirrels. I have seen birds close to them so I assume they are friends with them too! I never see any cats hanging around my yard, so I am sure that cats are affraid of gnomes. Maybe they eat cats because they never ask me for food and I never see cats in my yard. The cat in my house always runs away when the gnomes come in. Maybe they will reveal there mysterious lives to me someday. Time will only tell. They speak in a very low tone and only communicate with my daughter, who translates everything they tell her to me. Which isn’t much anyway. They usually only tell her about weeding the garden and cleaning the track. They also have a keen eye on the ballasting situation. I in turn do most of the manual labor on the railway. They are around, leaning on their tools and try to look busy, they can stand still and not move for hours, truly spectacular little guys. At any rate, the line is featured in this website. http://www.trainweb.org/gnomegardenrw please stop by and take a look. Thanks.
pfd586
My railroad is just getting started but the name has been choosen. The basis for my layout is 20’s -30’s northern Minnesota mining and logging. Thus the name :
Mine is the Borracho Railroad, a small 42" gauge shortline set in the desert southwest straddling the Mexican border.
The back story:
It was originally built in the early 1900’s to service two mines, the Ferrous Underground Boring And Reclaimation Company, a.k.a. F.U.B.A. R. (an Iron mining co. trying trying their hand at Gold mining) and the Silver King, another competing mine who when they say the FUBAR sign posted over above the new mine, jokingly renamed thiers SNAFU just to egg them. But mines only last so long and can only dig so far, so by 1937 it looked like the end for the mines and the little town of Purgitory that served the miners.
That was until a shady character came to town with a couple of very odd looking plants, and stating that the climate was “perfect”, he set up a farm growing and cultivating and spreading the odd yucca like plants, they were Blue Agave’s smuggled out of Mexico. Within a couple of years he bought an old warehouse, brought in a lot of distillery equipment and announced plans to open a tequila distillery, the only one in the US. When he asked for name suggestions an old man in the crowd said the town was already full of “borracho’s”, the name stuck and the Borracho Distillery went into business July 4, 1940. The business grew, and within a short time the railroad built a spur to the distillery.
Dec. 7, 1941 saw the business change to making medical alcohol for medical use and the mines picking up work. During the post WWII years (the current setting) , The town renamed itself after the distillery, Borracho Springs, which also took over controling interest in the RR, and the distillery went back into full production, so did the mines thanks to new WWII vein discoverys, and the little trains keep chugging along.
Equipment consists of whatever the owners can get thier hands on. Ex-Mexican narrow guage, ex-Hawiian suger plantation locos, ex-logging engines. The owners will take anything t
My railway is calledhuckleberry mine.It is meant to be amine in a tunnel but I took the roof off so that you can se the insideof the mine.There are workers and stuff I have also managed to add sound effects o.k thats all for now post another reply soon bye.
Nick-
The modeling of the inside of the mine sounds interesting. Is it outside? Would like to see some pictures of that.
pfd586 www.trainweb.org/gnomegardenrw
I am just getting started… but it has already been named :“Jacaranda Garden Railway”. My wife are I are particular fans of the South African tree which grows very well here in Southern Western Australia. Their beautiful coloured flowers hilight wonderfully against our beautiful blue skys… and whilst they make a mess when they drop, the carpet of flowers is something to behold… hopefully just like kevins railway. The railway will be basically English styled with a lot of the planning and buildings from the Severn Valley Railway in the U.K. … an area I fell in love with when on holidays.
I started back into the hobby when I lived in Hawaii and since I primarily model the Colorado & Southern turn of the century 3’ Narrow Gauge’, I called it the Mid-Pacific Colorado & Southern, and used to have a web site devoted to the topic.
But now I live in NM, newly. And am waiting for winter to pass before starting the new layout.
I think I’ll just go ahead and call it the MPC&S for the heck of it since it started there. Regardless of the fact that it will now be in the middle of the Southwestern dessert.
(At least I won’t have to deal with the humidity problem any more.)
Interesting topic, pfd. I have to say that garden railroad names can be quite interesting and–dare I say it [:0]–more fun that model railroaders in the smaller scales. [:D]
Since I’ve worked for the magazine, I’ve heard a bunch of names. My favorites are:
Almosta Railway (took me a while to get that one!)
Spring Lake Railroad
My railway, tentatively, is called “Belanger Southshore Railway” due to the fact that it runs from my cabin (aka workshop) to the boathouse then along the southshore to a wye. I had not decided if I like the route that is staked out for my planned railroad. So far the test track is all that is being built right now, just a simple loop near the cabin and an open air car shed. I hope to get the kinks worked out with the test track before laying any more track.
I’m currently trying to think of a name for my railroad because i want to be able to call it something during its construction phase. I might ask for advise later on in the construction if nothing has come to me by then. The names certainly are interesting and fun to look at.
Teran-
The Gnome Garden Railway was named when the gnomes arrived, which was this past spring, the beginning of the second year of the garden railway. I, at first didn’t have a name but wanted to call it something. Nothing really clicked. I was thinking along the lines of my city name or street name, nothing really sounded right. My wife suggested the Gnome name and wanting to include her in my master plan saw her suggestion as a kind of positive thing for the future of my garden empire. I guess it is called diplomacy. I am sure something will come to you and you can be as proud of your name as all of us are of ours. Have fun with it, good luck.
Pete
Thanks Pete. Right now I’m considering calling it the “Blue River Railroad” because the track follows a stream that I put in for a considerable part of the mainline, but that’s only tentative…
We had Gnomes in our garden too, at first didnt know what to do with them.
Then we found a great use for them, we’ve tried grilling them with a dill/ginger vinegret sauce, satey style on sqewers, and good ole fashion BBQ …them’s good eaten!
[:D][:D][:D][:p][:p][:p][;)][;)][;)]
The NTCGRR= North Table Creek Garden Railroad. Basic history is that the first GRR was by North Table Creek that ran through our town. I was starting to go public with the RR so I figured it needed a name. Now RR #4 we are no wheres near the creek but the name stays the same . Tho I lean more toward calling it an outdoor RR cause its no longer a “gardenish” style RR.[:I]
Teran-
It looks like you are hitting upon the right creative brain cells there. The “Blue River Railroad” sounds good. The initials BRRR kinda look cool, no pun intended. Looking forward to hearing what you finally settle for.
Pete
You know, I didn’t realize that it made those initials. It’s a bit ironic because I live here in sunny California where we think it’s cold if the temperature gets down to 50…
After almost ten years we have changed the name of our railway from Southouse Inabode & Underwood to… Dutch Valley Narrow Gauge. We became bored with the old name and it was site specific so wouldn’t work in a new location. The new name reflects on our family name which is from Holland.
OLD DAD
My indoor railroad is the Plantsville Valley Scenic Railway. The outdoor railroad is the Hemlock Ridge Division of the Plantsville Valley Scenic Railway, due to the fact that I have row of Hemlocks planted behind the RR.
