Hey guys, I posted this poll back in March and it went pretty well. I put it back up for all the new guys and the guys who have not been to the forum in a while. Remeber, there are way too many shortlines to name and there are only 10 spaces! Post your comments, and enjoy!
SP is first with ATSF a close second.
- SP, SP,SP!!! [bow]. Now for my other top 9.
- SSW- Cotton Belt
- Santa Fe
- Mopac- T&P
- Western Pacific
- Burlington
- Rock Island
- Great Northern
- Union Pacific- Steam Era
- Northern Pacific
UP; just because C&NW was historically UP’s eastern leg
And also RIO GRANDE!!! I can’t believe I forgot about Rio Grande!!! [banghead]
One more vote for Rio Grande [:D]
MRL
I went with AT&SF just because I like the blue warbonnett look. A close second was Union Pacific even despite eating up a bunch of railroads. I do like the look of an SP locomotive though when they come through town which is few and far between. I’ve seen maybe 4 patched up SP locos.
CNW ranks Number one in my book. ATSF is number 2
I voted other because there is no all of the above!
Well guys, here’s my vote:
- Union Pacific 2) Southern Pacific 3) BNSF
Canadian Pacific
[:D]
Gordon
UP! for me, nuff said[;)][8D]
HOW can you leave out Northern Pacific and Great Northern!?
GO ESPEE!
Aw [censored]!!! [banghead][banghead] I knew I forgot a couple!
For me the Union Pacific is 1st for Big Steam & Turbines. 2nd is Southern Pacific for their Cab Forwards and 3rd Santa Fe for the Warbonnets! Western Pacific and Rio Grande are great RR’s too. But like Aggro said, where is the Northern Pacific and Great Northern?
Favorite for what reason?
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CB&Q - managment team trained almost all the executives that became leaders in all the other railroads. The salvation of passenger service in the 1930’s. CB&Q never missed paying a dividend while its neighbors were in bankrupcy.
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Santa Fe - Still has the mistique of a well run, well marketed railroad dispite going broke once. They have the distinction of one of the most recognizable paint schemes and passenger trains in the world. They almost invented modern railroading by actually refusing to take traffic that wouldn’t pay well.
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Great Northern - First trancontenental built without government aid. Never went bankrupt. Very unique steam locomotives and an electrified segment. Big sky blue paint scheme is the one that lured me into modeling passenger trains.
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Rio Grande - How can one not love the battles for passes with the Santa Fe, the moutian scenery, the narrow gauge, the engineering, and in the end the purchase of the SP.
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Minneapolis & St. Louis - Facinating array of paint schemes on their diesels.
What do I model? - Northern Pacific. Railroad probably has no right to be in existance after all the waste, poor managment, scandles, poor engineering, etc. I like the big steam power and yellow nose Alcos.
Rio Grande: The L-105 4-6-6-4 was the most beautiful Challenger ever built IMHO.
And for a ‘small’ Western railroad (only 2 states on their standard-gauge lines) they had a LARGE selection of very handsome steam locomotives, and they went into Colorado country that gave mountain goats acrophobia.
Next would be SP if for no other reason than their cab-forwards and those long PFE trains winding through the Sierra over Donner Pass. Man, that was railroading!
But there was a lot more to SP than just Donner–the Pacific Coast, Mt. Shasta, Tehachapi Loop, a commuter run between San Francisco and San Jose that was the busiest in the country, outranking even today’s AMTRAK Northeast Corridor. SP was BIG TIME! It was the Pacific Coasts answer to the Pennsy.
WP: the ‘little railroad that could’–had to go almost 150 miles out of its way to do with a 1% grade what SP did with a 2.4%, and that’s conquer the Sierra Nevada. And it did so through the incredibly beautiful Feather River Canyon. And the High Line, which contains some of the most spectacular cliff-side railroading on the planet.
Tom [:P][:P][:P]
Esspee, Where’s the SD&AR.R.
Definetely the Western Pacific! I am currently designing a layout based upon the idea: What if the Western Pacific had survived and was still around today running Dash 8s and big SD60s+?
ATSF would be a close second.
The UP is definetely at the bottom of the list because the UP is the Borg since the UP eates everything in sight.