hi all
What did you finally decide the name of your railroad would be? I know the names are endless and some have the same name. And some are just plain fun. So let us know what the name of your railroad is. I want to name mine Big Thunder and Western and i am sure that it has been used abillion times but I like it.
Thanks for the fun
DMl
Detroit Southern
I never named my railroad. I grew up climbing all over Southern Pacific steam locomotives in the El Paso Texas SP yard so my stuff is mostly SP. I lived 20 years in Alamogordo New Mexico and historically the old railroad to Cloudcroft New Mexico was the Alamogordo & Sacramento Mountain Railroad so I have a few Shays and shorty coaches with that road name.
My favorite is John Allen’s Gorre & Daphetid RR
Mel
Modeling the SP in HO scale since 1951
My Model Railroad
http://melvineperry.blogspot.com/
I have not named my railroad, but I did name the town on the layout–Bradshaw. This was my grandfather’s middle name, his mother’s maiden name. My grandfather was a brakeman and conductor for the Union Pacific Railroad in the Ogden, Utah area. My town pays tribute to him.
My freelance railroad is based on what might have happened if two real railroads, the St.Paul & Duluth RR and the Port Arthur, Duluth & Western Ry, had merged in 1900 instead of being bought by larger railroads (NP and CN respectively) that same year. The most logical name would have been “St.Paul Duluth & Western” (similar to how the Duluth Missabe & Northern and Duluth & Iron Range rys became the Duluth Missabe & Iron Range in 1938).
However in playing around with names, I came up with “St.Paul Duluth & Canadian”, which I really liked partly because I imagine people would have called it the “Saint-P, D and C” which sounded good…kinda like how the Minneapolis & St.Louis was the “M-Saint-L”.
For short, it’s called the “St.Paul Route”. When I had the custom decals made up, I had some done with the slogan “Route of the Famous Lake Superior Limited”, which was a real slogan the St.P&D used in the 1800’s to advertise it’s top train. I use the slogan on some boxcars and engines.
Karankawa Terminal District of the Santa Vaca & Santa Fe (a Texas subsidiary of ATSF). Karankawa (from Karankawa Indians who supposedly lived there hundreds of years ago) is “my version” of Galveston. There is an actual unincorporated community of Carancahua but spelled differently.
This thread might be an interesting read for the OP
My Grande Valley Railway is so named because I live in Grand Rapids, Michigan which is (sort of) split down the middle by the Grand River which just happens to be in the Grand Fiver valley.
Interesting side note about the city is that until the first bridge was built over the river there were really two Grand Rapids.
My free lanced railroad is based in the origonal (for Grand Rapids) yard for the Grand Rapids & Indiana railroad turned 35 on January 11th 2015.
I name my railroad(s) the M -K & Eastern RR.
The first one was an eastern RR, and the full name was Middleton - Kensington & Eastern RR.
My new Colorado/Rocky mountain railroad with a lot of D&RGW influence is named Minturn-Kings divide and Eastern.
Originally my railroad name was the Fountain, Ft. Carson and Southern Railroad, A wholly owned subsidiary of the Denver Rio Grande and Western that served the local switching needs of Colorado Springs and Pueblo areas.
I switched the Colorado Front Range Railroad (CFRR) when I went to college in Golden, Colorado. I grew up in the Denver area (for the most part…long story) and frequented Golden on a weekly basis. My dad, mom and I are all members of the Denver HO model Railroad Club in the basement of the Colorado Railroad Musuem and we went down to Golden every thursday. I always will remember the Beer Line that serves the Coors Brewery. Coors also has their own Railroad.
I have a love for the Rio Grande but also for the Beer Line that serves Coors. The Beer line is actually owned by the BN (now BNSF) but my Fictional Road the CFRR has taken over the local switching duties of the Denver area from the UP, BN, Santa Fe and Rio Grande and interchnages with all of them for the long hauls.
My Railroad uses primarily leased power from the DRGW due the proximity of the Burnham Shops but does have a few rogue units from other carriers.
Although I model the Union Pacific and BNSF in 2005-07. I haven’t named it yet by subdivision. There’s a Conrail layout set in 1987 after the Amtrak Maryland accident.
My freelance railroad is the G.N.O. Railway a Class II railroad shared with the Norfolk Southern. (Atlanta, GA-Coulmbus, OH) A 1,011 miles.
Hello All,
Buckskin Creek bisects our town and feeds into the Middle Fork of the South Platte River.
Eventhough mine is a freelance pike, like many prototypical railroads I took the name from nearby features.
Hence the Buckskin & Platte Rail Road (B.S.&P. R.R.).
I thought for sure PennCentral’s link was going to be to this thread…but it wasn’t.
Anyway, the story is there; the name is Philadelphia Delaware Terminal (PDT), a subsidary of Penn-Delaware Rail Holding, Inc. (properties in Pennslyvania & New Jersey)
I haven’t chosen a name for my yet to be railroad. My favourite prototype is the Algoma Eastern which ran from Sudbury to Little Current on the Manitoulin Island in the 20s and 30s. However, my layout plan doesn’t even remotely resemble the AE in shape, features nor era. The best I have done so far is to use the AE name on some cabooses and I will have a few white quartz and pink granite mountains along the backdrop.
The reason that I am not modelling the AE is that it was pretty much a point A to point B operation with a few passenger stops and a couple of mines along the way. Not particularly interesting from an operational point of view.
Maybe I’ll call it the AE(L) - (Algoma Eastern [Later]) and pretend that Little Current grew into a major city, as if![(-D]
Dave
Columbia Northern, because I’ll attempt a situation where the SP&S made it to Seattle. The original line that was to be built “Portland and Puget sound Railway Company,” however it will share a name with the absorbed “Columbia river and Northern.”
[:-^]
Obviously the name of my layout is the ficticious “Last Mountain & Eastern RR.” a wholly owned subsiduary of the Western Pacific just as the Sacramento Northern and Tidewater Southern were. We also run a little of their equipment amoung ours.
The name has been following me around on several layouts since about 1950. So it is well aged and proven.
Johnboy out…
My off-and-on layout that never seems to get “there” is the Allegheny, Mercer, & Lake Erie Railroad. Its basically an alternate history version of the Bessemer & Lake Erie. One of the predecessors to that company was the Pittsburg, Shenango, and Lake Erie (note the H-less Pittsburgh, as was the style of the day).
After thinking a bit, Shenango and Erie are bodies of water. I decided to replace Pittsburg with Allegheny, after the river. Allegheny, Shenango, and Lake Erie sounded good and I actually liked it a lot, but I didn’t like how ASLE looked as reporting marks or AS&LE looked on the locomotive scheme I designed.
I thought…well the major yards on the system would be in Allegheny, Mercer, and Erie counties. So maybe Mercer worked better. AM&E didn’t have the symmetry I liked, but AM&LE did. It looked better on the locomotives and I preferred AMLE as a reporting mark.
So that’s how I got there.
Since I currently model northern New England in the transition era, I’m considering naming my railroad Boston & Maine Central Vermont, Rutland & Grand Trunk (B & M C V, R & GT). However, I’m considering switching locales to the southern Appalachians (N & W, C & O territory) or perhaps out west to AT & SF or SP territory which of course will require a name change should that occur.
So many areas I would like to model so who knows the province of my ultimate location?
South Oroville & Livermore.
“If you don’t ship with us, you’ll be Ess Oh Ell”
I am LION.
I build subway trains.
Model is mostly of Broadway Local, but with other intersting locations thrown in just because I like them, and found them easy to model.
Subway. Broadway. LION…
What could possibly be more natural than the Route of the Broadway LION,eh?
ROAR