Does your fictional or proto-freelanced railroad have a back story?


malletman

Alcohaulic
To those of you doing a fictional railroad or proto-freelance, do you have a back story to your railroad? The how and why it came into exhistance, where the motive power came from ect. I know I have quite the detailed back story. It keeps getting rewritten a bit as I fine tune as I shift motive power a bit to what works better on my small layout along with what year its set in. With many hours doing mindless assembly line work each night, I have plenty of time to think and develop the hows and whys for my railroad. Some of that might be my autism spectrum disorder coming thru as well, the need for it all to make sense......to me that is. Mike the Aspie
 
Chicago, Milwaukee & Northern Railroad
You’ll never track down the Chicago, Milwaukee & Northern Railroad (CM&N) on any prototype railroad map since the CM&N is a fictional, short line railroad having links to the real-life Milwaukee Road and Chicago & Northwestern Railroads. The railroad covers territory north of Chicago to the northern most tip of Wisconsin. Set in the late 1960’s to the 1980’s, the CM&N emerged after local entrepreneurs convinced officials of the Milwaukee Road to release seemly unprofitable spur line trackage serving local Saxeville industries plus established limited main line trackage rights for the new CM&N Many reasoned this to be a fool hearty endeavor which never stood a chance to succeed.

The Milwaukee Road was more than comfortable to enter into negotiations to peddle this segment of their business and within a short time a binding deal was struck and the CM&N became a reality. The venture offered reliable rail service to a coal mine, junk yard and several other smaller industries and hopefully a profitable journey for the new owners.

The new CM&N now had the responsibility to do the shuffling of loaded coal hoppers from the New River Mine as well as freight cars from industries on the route and then spotting the rolling stock at yard staging areas to be sorted later for pick up into trains and be sent onto their final destination. This saved the Milwaukee from using switching locomotives which traveled some distance from the road’s fleet to perform this work that the Milwaukee Road deemed a nuisance.

The railroad began as the Milwaukee Northern Railroad, but soon changed its name to the Chicago, Milwaukee & Northern Railroad once it obtained trackage rights to areas of northern Chicago. The addition of “Chicago” to the railroad’s name provided the impression that the railroad was grander in size rather than being just a lessor regional railroad.

The layout’s time period does not realistically shadow the Milwaukee Road’s departure from the railroad industry via bankruptcy nor does the CM&N attempt to replicate the exact timing of other authentic railroad events.

By the 1970’s major rail carriers were becoming stagnant and overburdened in the economic distress of the times. Well-known rail lines that comprised the collective group of the Milwaukee Road, SOO Line and Chicago & Northwestern were in financial disarray. Characterizing the demise of the Milwaukee Road, the SOO Line operated several patched “Bandit” Milwaukee locomotives that the SOO attained at rock-bottom prices prior to the Milwaukee Road’s bankruptcy.

To be Continued....

Greg

CM&NR Logo November 26, 2018.jpg
 
The Butler North & Ivywood RR, began as the Thorn Creek & Ivywood back in 1985. It was a short line with 150 miles of track and a centralized yard, shops and offices near Butler PA. It was basically a iron ore and coal commodities carrier with some lumber, petroleum, machinery and general freight mixed in. It thrived until the mid-90's, when steel and coal production became almost non-existent. The TC&I filed for bankruptcy in 1999 with all of it's inventory and holdings being sold.
In 2001, the former TC&I owner, not being a sit on his ass type, began plans to build a new road. After securing all the legal and financial necessities, obtaining customers and employees, he began purchasing power and rolling stock. In 2003, the new road opened as the Butler North & Ivywood RR.
It is a short line with WV & KY coal, grain and mixed commodities as it's source of revenue. Trackage is about 150 miles,
with offices and yard based in Maxxburgh, PA (fictitious). Major customers are: West Penn Coal Co. (a rail/truck coal transfer facility) and McCormicks Grain & Farm Supply (silos & warehouse).
The BN&I has grown since its inception and has been comfortably operating in the black. Future plans include obtaining new customers, power, rolling stock and equipment.
 
I really enjoyed the back story on the SLRG. When it was a Rail America property, I spent 2 months running trains on the SLRG, going over LaVeta pass. I can picture what your talking about.
 
I really enjoyed the back story on the SLRG. When it was a Rail America property, I spent 2 months running trains on the SLRG, going over LaVeta pass. I can picture what your talking about.
WOW -- thats really cool -- I've not yet made it out there, but I would really like to one of these days -- ive managed to grab some pics off the Rio Grande Scenic site and google etc. hopefully enough to give me a flavor of the area -- this will be an operations layout, not a scenery one, it will have scenery, but that wont be the focus point

TIM
 
In some of the grade crossings in Alamosa, you can still see the dual gauge. By the way, if you ever go to Creede, and the sign says four wheel drive required, they mean what it says, just saying.
 
My rail road, the Nebraska Central Railroad, (NCRC), is loosely is based on the northeast Nebraska railroad of the same name, it is an amalgamation, of my experiences both on and off the railroad. My Nebraska Central, is part of the transportation division of Gaspers Land & Cattle. The railroad is one of the companies, under the Nebraska Central Industries, (NCI) umbrella, and is run by AJ Gaspers, who is a bit of a curmudgeon, and even though he would vehemently deny it, a closet foamer, which kinda explains some of the things the railroad does. Under the Nebraska Central Industries umbrella, is a locomotive leasing company, which leases out mostly EMD/GE locomotives, but oddly, includes some old Baldwin, and ALCo locomotives, mostly with eastern railroad heritage, (part of the closet foamer thing). NCI runs a large shop at Norfolk, for not only its leasing business, but for the NCRC as well. On the NCRC, there are 21 grain elevators, 11 of which are 100+ car load out facilities. There four ethanol plants on the line, two scrap dealers, popcorn plant, fertilizer terminal, Nucor steel mill, Vulcraft cold finishing plant, and numerous other industries. The newest one, being Preferred Sands, which harvest the dredged sands of the Loup power canal, for use in fracking operations, this new industry, generates 30,000 cars a year. Mr Gaspers, is close friends with the owners of the KYLE RR, IAIS RR, and the Utah Belt, with power from these railroads showing up on occasion.
 



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