Did You Name Your Model Railroad...


Greg@mnrr

Greg@mnrr

Section Hand
I named my model railroad the Milwaukee Northern since I grew up in the Milwaukee, Wisconsin area and seen a lot of Milwaukee road equipment in action and I wanted to model Wisconsin's varied scenery. The Milwaukee Northern is a fictitious line that has branch lines off the Milwaukee main and trackage rights on the Milwaukee. Most of the action on the railroad is the Milwaukee, but the C&NW, SOO and Wisconsin Central make appearances. The era is 1970 to about 1990, but I don't always adhere to a specific time period.

Did you name your model railroad and what name did you decide on and what convinced you to use that name?

Thanks.

Greg
 
I did name my railroad for the area where it is running. The Logan Valley connects with the Northern Pacific at Logan, MT and then runs to the south end of the Gallatin Valley where it connects to the Milwaukee Road and the Gallatin Canyon & Western.

The Gallatin Canyon & Western (now owned by the Logan Valley) was another freelance railroad that we were building for a good friend who passed away before it could be completed. It runs south (?) from Gallatin Gateway through the Gallatin Canyon to West Yellowstone where it connects to the Union Pacific where traffic heads west.

I have a fleet of locomotives custom painted for the Logan valley and a few for the Gallatin Canyon & Western along with a number of freight cars custom painted for both of these railroads.
 
I named mine, D&J Railroad. Many years ago when my son was young, we started building our HO scale layout. I had been away from the hobby for a couple decades so we were discovering things as we stumbled along.
To give it some appeal and identification we settled on D&J Railroad which was Dad & Jon Railroad. He really took ownership in that and told his friends about it with great pride.
He has moved on to his own life now. Most of his adult life has been behind bars for various offenses. He has a little 6 year old boy now who his sister is raising. He hasn't had much to do with the child for the past four years except use him as a chick magnet the few times a year he would visit him. The child has been over here to see the trains a few times. Not sure how he will take it when some day in his reasoning years he comes to understand part of the name is his father's.
 
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I actually modeled prototype railroads for years. My early previous layouts replicated the heavy operations around here. I ended up bored with the focus on mainline operations. They were set up as parade of trains layouts.

Then my last nscale layout was a freelance railroad the Lancaster & Reading. Post Conrail I was really without a favorite prototype class 1. I ended up interested in the Reading and Northern. Its about a hour north of me. So my railroad conveniently was aligned with the R&N.

A few years ago I had the itch to return to the steam era. New sound equipped steam locomotives caught my interest.
I decided to return to HO.

Now my railroad is the Lancaster Central. I have the story of a local railroad that succeeded in making large profits. Unlike the real railroads here that were built east/west and failed or were bought by the PRR, my railroad is north/south oriented.

In real life there was interest in building a continuous railroad in this area. Unfortunately the
Bankruptcy of the Reading and then the B&O forced those railroads to focus on their own issues. The PRR also exercised influence on both of them afterwards.

The PRR did buy the charters and build build both the north/south lines in Lancaster county. So someone with money and good timing could have done so.

My railroad empire is the what if. Conveniently it also was aligned with the B&O when the PRR bought out the railroad between Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore. They promptly ended the open access policy previously in place.

This cut off the B&O from its direct connections. In real life the costs of building a new line to Philadelphia resulted in the B&Os bankruptcy. The PRR took advantage of the financial situation to install a new president and two members on B&Os board of directors. Ironically Leanor F. Loree was the man who modernized the B&O of that time.

In alternative history the Lancaster Central bought the two north/south charters and built a continuous railroad through the center of the county to connect with the B&O in Perryville, MD on the Eastern shore of the Susquehanna River.

This connected the B&O to the Reading and it's connection to Philadelphia and access to NY/NJ over the CNJ. Effectively foiling the PRRs move.

Also conveniently making a profit for the Lancaster Central and giving the railroad trackage rights into Baltimore.



Even some proto freelance layouts have a name like the Cat Mountain and Santa Fe.

Every railroad needs a name.






Modeling the roaring 20's
President of the Lancaster Central Railroad
President of the Western Maryland Railway
 
Greg@mnrr said:
Did you name your model railroad and what name did you decide on and what convinced you to use that name?
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1. Yes
2. That is a harder question. My original name from the 1970s was simply "Pine Ridge". By 1975 it had morphed into "Pine Ridge & North River". Then after some time in the late 1980s and early 1990 I thought I wanted to switch to a short line and came up with "Pikes Peak, Fossil Creek & Tesla". After reconsidering going straight prototype for a while with things like the Minneapolis & St. Louis which needed no name. The current plan is now to go proto-lance, so the name is "Pueblo & Arkansas River Valley" which is so very close to the real thing "Pueblo & Arkansas Valley".
3. I don't really remember where the Pine Ridge came from other than I wanted something generic and simple. A real "Pine Ridge" could be anywhere even in the desert.
It morphed into the "& North River" because my vision for it expanded from an industrial type to be a more regional type railroad.
The Pikes Peak clearly lands the railroad right on the Colorado Front range. Fossil Creek comes from my other hobby of geology and paleontology and because I wanted to use an ammonite in the logo. In this pretend world the Tesla electrical power system was fully realized and the first Tesla Power Plant was right there in Colorado Springs where the original Tesla research laboratory was. Being coal powered the Tesla power plant became one of the railroads primary customers.
The Pueblo & Arkansas Valley was the railroad that owned the Canon City & San Juan Railroad which in turn is the railroad that built the hanging bridge over the Arkansas River in the canon of the Royal Gorge. In my protolance world the Rio Grande did not get control of that feature and will be on my railroad.
 
Yes, the East Central Indiana RR is a HO railroad.
I decided to model the line running through Anderson Indiana going south to Westport Indiana. That line was abandoned by PC and was available. But in 1983, I originally built Westport and then decided I needed more. Gradually the railroad increased until I built Anderson. That's when it became the ECI. It named itself when I began looking for a name. Today, the railroad runs down the Eastern side of Indiana from Anderson to Westport with the NYC/PC running across the line East to West.
 
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NON-proto or rather, un-proto as I am I named it The "Michigan Central UNLIMITED" I'm in Michigan, centrally located and what I run is UNLIMITED!
 
I model the Northern Pacific between Logan Montana and Garrison Montana and that part of the N.P. was named the Butte Short line. So my model railroad is named the Northern Pacific's Butte Short line.
 
Yes, I did. The Chester & Delaware River RR. Back in the late 1800s PRR predecessor PB&W, relocated and improved it's route from Grays Ferry to Eddystone, and sold it's old ROW to the Philadelphia & Reading. The C&DR was chartered to connect the P&R's new route to the Delaware River waterfront in Chester PA, and the refinerys and oil pipline terminals in Marcus Hook, PA (via the Crescent Connecting Railroad). Ultimately, the C&DR was leased and operated by the P&R and later the Reading and Conrail. Conrail still operates portions of the line , along with the adjacent former PRR branches. built in 1916.

My era is the Penn Central era, 1968 -1976, when the PC and Reading operated parallel lines as well as shared lines, a very interesting industrial operation, serving the Auto, Paper, Steel, Petrochemical and Shipbuilding industries, as well as warehousing and distribution and port activities.
 
WJLI26 said:
My era is the Penn Central era, 1968 -1976, when the PC and Reading operated parallel lines as well as shared lines, a very interesting industrial operation, serving the Auto, Paper, Steel, Petrochemical and Shipbuilding industries, as well as warehousing and distribution and port activities.
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Yes, us westerners are often blinded by the scenery. Until a decade ago very few double track main lines out here let alone the dense industrial coverage of the east. For the longest time I had a hard time envisioning a whole railroad being needed just to serve a port area (thinking of the Hoboken here). Wow. Sounds very interesting.
 
Horseman: When I view the concept of a model railroad, I immediately assumed a vision of trains conquering time and distance, sort of a continuous run layout filling as much space as possible to sufficiently satisfy my vision. Then reality set in. There is no way that could be done within the physical limitations I had available to me. The alternative, was something on the order of the Miami Industrial layout built by Lance Mindheim, but with the added dimension of two competing railroads within the same space. I also had the problem of shrinking about six miles of actual trackage into about one scale mile of actual layout. The prototype, C&DR, (Reading) covered the entire distance. The PRR, built two separate lines that were connected by sharing about an actual mile of the C&DR. This allows for two PRR /PC crews, plus a two Reading Crews, plus a Reading Transfer in the event of an operating session with guest operators. It also allows a single operator, running a single locomotive to cover the entire layout. Right now, I have about 60% of the benchwork completed, and some of the structures. I presently run one DC powered Genesis GP9 and 14 industrial sidings, mostly marked by printed cardstock signs, instead of actual buildings. Fortunately, there are numerous structure kits available, that fit almost any industrial scenario, and are kitbashable into reasonable facsimiles of actual industries. The fun part is that even with selective compression and modelers license, I will be able to follow prototype practice and operation.
 
WJLI26 said:
The fun part is that even with selective compression and modelers license, I will be able to follow prototype practice and operation.
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And therein is the most important part to have a true "model" railroad.

I've been trying to think of a layout design that can be operated as a "dispatchers dream" of getting the most trains (cargo) through the system in a given time; or as a down to the minute "time scheduled" meets; or as the "switchman's dream" with all the complexities of getting all the right cars to all the right places in the correct orientation; or "the big one" that is combinations there of.
 
My weakness has always been creativity. Thanks to Tony aka Wombat I did however come up with a name; The BGR. Tony's idea was to call my RR the BGR only he meant for it to stand for the Bruette Grand Railroad. Borrowing from his idea I change it to The Bruette Goofy Railroad, thanks again Tony! :)

It is mostly dismantled now, but after I move and set it back up I will post some pictures to illustrate why I call it that. In the meantime imagine steam engines and modern diesels. Billboard boxcars, MPC era colorful rolling stock along side hi-end Lionel scale O locomotives and equipment. Post war replica 75th anniversary Lionel gatemen, plasticville and other accessories. All sorts cars and other vehicles from the early 1900s to the present. If that's not goofy, I don't know what is, but I love it!
 
I haven't given mine a "Name" as yet but it will most likely be named after my wife (again). The beauty of being completely 110% fictional is not being obligated to any real railroad or name. Maybe something like "Procrastination Pass" :)

Louis, no problem and my pleasure to have been able to help and give you an idea.
 
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My wife actually named my railroad. As the house we bought had a bar pre-built in the basement, and that's where the layout was starting, she combined Train Whistles and "Wet your Whistle" to come up with the Whistle Stop Rail Road.
 
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