Naming the towns on your layout


Jim 68cuda

Jim 68cuda

Well-Known Member
I know if you're modeling is based on a prototype, naming the communities on your layout is easy, as you're representing actual cities and towns with your modeling. But what about a layout that doesn't actually represent a real place. How do you come up with names for the communities.
Back when I originally built my layout in the 90's, I had one rather large town on the layout, and didn't make it as far as completing a second village on the layout. I operated that layout for years without a name for the town. Now I'm rebuilding and expanding the layout, and there are four separate and distinct communities on the layout. I find its now necessary to name the towns.

I'm kind of at a loss. To a degree, a couple of real towns did start the inspiration of the arrangement of streets and buildings in two of the towns. But I don't want to use those town names as most visitors would know the real towns and recognize that my towns look nothing like the places that inspired them. A third town was inspired by a section in the old Atlas King Size Book of Track Plans, and mostly features structure kits that were available in the 60's and 70's. The fourth place that needs a name on my layout is a small coastal community that was inspired by (but looks nothing like) the Maggy's Cove layout that was featured in Model Railroader magazine many years ago.

So how do you come up with names for the places on your layouts. I'm guessing there may be some interesting place names and stories behind them.
 
I use names of friends who have passed on as well as names of places and towns I knew as a kid.
Dad's Hardware.
Mom's Furniture.
Hawke Summit.
Summerfield flats.
Tyler town.
Carolyn Rd.
Wendy Rd.
Zeaman Diesel Facility
Pete's curve
 
While I currently use real place names on my layout, I made no effort to model them "correctly". On past layouts, it was just what hit me at the time, and like Ken, friends/family etc. The way I would choose a name, like for that coastal community would go something like this. OK, coastal community, what's on the coast, beaches, that's too obvious, so change spelling to Beech. Now what else is on or close to the coast, generally forests, called "woods" so now the town would be known as "Beechwood".
 
My layout will be a bit whimsical so I will be coming up with appropriate names for things. I don't know what that is yet but I am just going to wing it when I get the towns and businesses laid out.

The two towns that inspired you, think of something in each town that has meaning for you. For the third town you haven't given much info except it was inspired by the Atlas book. If you took a few letters from the beginning of the words ATlas KINg Size Book - I know this is a stretch, but how about Atkinsburg? Maybe that will inspire you who knows. The last one is easy. Maggies Inlet. Same name, but different.
 
My town is called Cason Point, TX.It is set in the early 1980's with Cotton Belt and SP running through. It is also a connecting point for the Blacklands RR out of Sulpher Springs. It is located in the Piney Woods of East Texas. It was founded in the early 1900's by Dr. Philip Hertitz, a traveling OB/GYN and his family. They chose the spot because that is where the horse pulling their wagon from Tennessee died. He built a house and a general store and office at first. The town grew through the war years and then died off as so many have. Today it is in a revival period with a grain elevator as the main industry. Several "Mom & Pop" shops and artists have moved into the older buildings having gotten fed up with city life. There is also small community theater in the round featuring "Fargo: The Musical".
At least that is how it looks on paper...now I gotta build the thing
 
D&J RailRoad said:
I use ... names of places and towns I knew as a kid.
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That part got me thinking. As a kid, we would go to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina for vacation every summer. The coastal village that was originally inspired by the Maggie's Cove layout in Model Railroader, could be "Myrtle's Cove".



Cjcrescent said:
The way I would choose a name, like for that coastal community would go something like this. OK, coastal community, what's on the coast, beaches, that's too obvious, so change spelling to Beech. Now what else is on or close to the coast, generally forests, called "woods" so now the town would be known as "Beechwood".
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That's a possibility. I did think a bit along those lines for my coastal village. Since there is a stone arch bridge and a stone mill in the village, I was thinking of "Stonemill Cove" or "Stonebridge Cove".

NScaler said:
The two towns that inspired you, think of something in each town that has meaning for you. For the third town you haven't given much info except it was inspired by the Atlas book. If you took a few letters from the beginning of the words ATlas KINg Size Book - I know this is a stretch, but how about Atkinsburg? Maybe that will inspire you who knows. The last one is easy. Maggies Inlet. Same name, but different.
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The two towns that inspired but don't resemble the two towns on my layout, are Front Royal, Virginia, and Luray, Virginia.
Front Royal is at the northern end of Skyline Drive, and is where the north and south forks of the Shenandoah River come together. I guess I could call it "North Fork", but I'm not real fond of that name for a fairly large town. I don't want to call it "Shenandoah" as there is a town in the area with that name, and it doesn't resemble that town either.
Luray is a place where my family has a cabin on the Shenandoah River where we go canoeing and tubing. Its the county seat for Page County, located in Page Valley just west of Skyline Drive. Hawksbill Creek crosses under Main Street. Just past the passenger station a block off Main Street is the spot where O. Winston Link took the well known photo of a Norfolk and Western steam engine crossing a bridge that had the RT 340 highway bridge curve and cross underneath, with both bridges crossing over Hawksbill Creek. The picture is titled "Hawksbill Swimming Hole" and may be familiar to some here. I like the name of Hawksbill, but not sure if I like it for a town name.
Can't get my head around "Atkinsburg" for the third town. It just doesn't mean anything other than making me think of a well known diet program. So far the best I can do for that town is "Retroville" since it's mostly made of vintage structure kits.


mstraus2002 said:
My town is called Cason Point, TX.It is set in the early 1980's with Cotton Belt and SP running through. It is also a connecting point for the Blacklands RR out of Sulpher Springs. It is located in the Piney Woods of East Texas. It was founded in the early 1900's by Dr. Philip Hertitz, a traveling OB/GYN and his family. They chose the spot because that is where the horse pulling their wagon from Tennessee died. He built a house and a general store and office at first. The town grew through the war years and then died off as so many have. Today it is in a revival period with a grain elevator as the main industry. Several "Mom & Pop" shops and artists have moved into the older buildings having gotten fed up with city life. There is also small community theater in the round featuring "Fargo: The Musical".
At least that is how it looks on paper...now I gotta build the thing
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You've put a lot of thought into this. You not only named the town, but have become the local historian for the town. Nice to have a town on your layout with so much history.
 
When yours truly in HO modular club years back, t'was a no-brainer on names. We were modeling defunct 40s-50s branch line; just used actual town station names. Then, when I started home, HO shelf layout, used list of 10 members of the old club. Some industries were named from list and some town stations. Remember an old mrr article from years back, where modeler simply went alphabetically along his r-o-w for town station names. My 2 cents. .....Old Tom
 
Jim 68cuda said:
How do you come up with names for the communities.
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In high school I did one layout where the names of the towns were named after famous scientists. However, I found out another person had already done that. So my next layout the town names were girl classmates that I was interested in. That got really old really quick. Straight people names get old after just 3 or 4 of them. Even with adding suffixes of ville, ton, borough, etc. they are so ordinary.

Next railroad is going to have real town names. I exhausted my creative efforts with the Platte Valley & Western club layout. Cañon City, Florence, Pueblo, Fowler, Manzanola, Rocky Ford, Swink, maybe La Junta, and Los Animas. If I get really ambitious would like to do the 2nd division as well with Cheraw, Hasty, etc.
 
You could always use Presidents' names -- not too many states DON'T have a town named Washington or Lincoln. Other politicans (Franklin), military heroes or sites of battles (Yorktown), people of importance in railroad hstory (Harriman), etc. Small towns often have names of local "important" people, or local geographic features (Bluffton, Beech Grove, Riverton, etc.). There is actually a small village in my state (Indiana) who wanted to name the town after its founder (Calvert), only to find that name was already in use in Indiana... so they spelled the name backwards and "Trevlac" was born. True story... :)

Regards,
Tom Stockton
 
Around here in AZ, we have a wide variety of names from Presidents, local politicians, trees, Native American Tribes and Spanish words.

In Flagstaff, the streets north of Route 66 have tree names in alphabetical order; Ash, Birch, Cherry, etc.

In Phoenix, the streets are in Presidential order, starting downtown.

There are names like Cholla, Palo Verde, Sinagua, Hohokam, Tuzigoot, Wupatki, Maricopa, etc.

The ones I like the best are the obscure ones; Bumblebee, Horse Thief Basin, Cotton Gin Loop, Fountain Hills, Star Valley....


I haven't decided on names for my streets or my city, but I'm hoping I can come up with a unique name by myself.
 
Stoker, I used to work at a rehab facility on Van Buren. It was a trip!

You're up in the part of town with all the cool street names. Carefree Highway, for one.

I also like Sleepy Ranch, Asher Hills and Thunder Hawk


The only ones near me that are kind of cool are Sweetwater and Captain Dreyfus.
 
I model the area where I live, set in the transition era. The towns area named after actual towns. Some of the industries are actual industries, but some are industries that "could" have exited in that time, and did use the names of acquaintances for businesses. For instance, a friend, whose family made their livelyhood in the oil business got "thchache" Oil (pronounced shocky) named after him. I have quite a few more also. IMAG0297.jpgIMAG0497.jpg I even custom painted a couple of tank cars and trucks for the business.
 
elsner203 said:
Around here in AZ, we have a wide variety of names from Presidents, .., trees, .
In Flagstaff, the streets north of Route 66 have tree names in alphabetical order; Ash, Birch, Cherry, etc.
In Phoenix, the streets are in Presidential order, starting downtown.
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Yes, one can usually spot a town that was planned in the 1880s-1910s. Roads will have president names, state names, or tree names on one axis with numbered streets on the other.

Denver has a very elaborate street grid. State streets running east and west south of the city, numbered avenues running east and west to the north, presidents streets are on the east side running north and south but not every street (they knew the city would be bigger than the number of presidents so the president named streets are only every 3rd?). Also the non-president north south streets every 5th? street is something green "vine", "ivy", "garden". Streets west of town continue the green theme but also has the last names of important people "Logan", "Sheridan", "Wadsworth", "Kipling", etc. Groan :eek:

For the longest time the most common intersection in the United states was 2nd and Elm. For those younger folks, the government used to have a huge program to provide elm trees to cities to line the streets with. In the 1940s it was almost impossible to find a town that did not have Elm trees lining both sides of the main road(s) into town.
 
Iron,
I never knew that about Denver. Phoenix, most of Scottsdale and the entire west valley all work on the same grid. The SE valley is where it gets all screwy.

Phoenix's grid makes it one of the easiest places to find where you need to go.
Central (north and south) is zero. For the most part, it's streets to the east and avenues to the west. Washington crosses Central and forms zero/zero.
Even numbered addresses on the north and west sides of the street, odd across the way. Need to go to an address at 3223 East Cactus Road? Well, that will be just East of 32nd Street on the South side of Cactus. Super easy.

Have you ever been to Salt Lake City? Fining your way around in that city is a NIGHTMARE

Since my other hobby is Vintage Motocross, I think I might name my alpha streets after famous motocross tracks and legends.
 
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My layout is the Grashhook, Galesburg & Western Division of the Burlington Route, c. mid-late 1950's. I basically have three main towns/cities: Grashhook is really just the station and some industrial areas that are close to the tracks. With the background, the city of Grashhook proper is beyond the wall, but you can "see" it. Grashhook was the name of a ficticious town my grandfather used to talk about going to to fish. In my fevered mind, the town on the layout really represents West Quincy, MO, across the Mississippi river (which you can't see), where my gramps would pick us up at the train station. Galesburg, of course, is a real city in Illinois. With the space limitations, there is no way to model the big yard, let alone the town, so I sellectively compressed it into a fair-size yard, surrounded by the return loop, which also encompasses Downtown Galesburg. Around the other side of the layout is a big city (mostly background), with a station, some yard tracks, an overpass that hides the return loop(s) on that side, and also has an as yet unnamed commuter passneger stop (the station being a retired streamline combine, which has been place atop a concrete base after the trucks were removed. Between the two sides of the layout there is a river that the two legs of the main cross, as well as a semi-hidden siding that connects a branch line to a coal-fired power plant. At first, I called the second big city "Denver", but as I sometimes run trains from both Northern Pacific and Great Northern, I'm tempted to call it "Minneapolis" or "St. Paul", which has been a major connecting point for the "Hill Lines". (The C.B&Q, or just the "Q" was jointly owned by the NP & GN, and even before the 1960 merger, interchanged equipment from Chicago north and west.) The branchline that connects up both sides of the layout, but mostly hidden, I currently call "The Coalton Branch", but since it is adjacent to Galesburg, and I run coal trains on the main, with the empties coming back via the hidden track, I may rename Coalton, "Beardstown", an actual place where heavy coal traffic roamed.

You just have to use your imagination!

Green board all the way!
 
Most of you seem to have a favorite Railroad based on your hometown or something like that. Well in Chicago you just take your pick. I wanted not be limited to one road and I wanted a large city or at least the look of one on my layout. I also wanted something other than flat terrain. So I decided I was in a ficticious Wisconsin city. It just so happens I live on Neenah Ave. and there is a Neenah Wisconsin. So there it was. My smaller town is Fox River from the Walter's water tower decal, which works because there is a Fox river by Neenah Wis. My N Scale suggestion of a town on top of the hill is Summit, of course. Also the name of the next town over here in real life. The remaining town on top of a dropoff? Clifton! That's my story.
 
I believe I've posted this before.

My railroad in progress is set in 1930s Northern Wisconsin, a fictional short line. Somewhere along the line I decided to use fictional names for the communities on the layout and decided to name them for my immediate family, while also keeping in mind the locale. Eagle Junction has the same initials as my first name and my wife's first name. The other two on-layout communities are named for my teenage son (St. Matthew) and his older brother (Aaronsburgh). St. Matthew, I decided, was originally founded by French and Belgian immigrants. It's more of a rural-flavored community. Aaronsburgh, founded by German immigrants, is to be more gritty and industrial. And Eagle Junction is more or less imagined to be about where the real Wisconsin community of Eagle River is. I am also planning to name certain industries for friends -- specifically, a small lumber mill in St. Matthew will be named for the two guys who let me use their power tools when I needed to cut a lot of benchwork parts.

The off-layout locations represented by the hidden staging tracks are named for real places -- Ashland and Superior, Wis., to the west, and Green Bay to the east.
 
elsner203 said:
Have you ever been to Salt Lake City? Fining your way around in that city is a NIGHTMARE
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Yes, but I have never tried to find an address there. To me the nightmare is Seattle. The North-South streets are street name NE. The East-West are NE Street name. I once spent over an hour driving only to get there and find out I had just scribbled them down but in the opposite order (normally it doesn't matter right?). I didn't want 9340 SE 140th, I wanted 9340 140th SE. So it was another hour and a half to get there.

Motocross might be interesting. Not a lot of people are going to know the names.
 
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