What's on your layout..

[dmirguy]

... I will always have passenger service by B&O with a F3 engine as thats the HO scale train my brother had on his layout when I was a toddler and the train that sparked my interest in model railroading...

I agree! I wonder, at the end of the day, how many of us allow sentimentality to have a place on our layouts. Among my favorite trains to run is the one my dad gave me 55 years ago (and the one he gave my older brother as well). All the little prizes well meaning friends have given me also find a way onto the layout.

 

[blownoutcylinder]

Voted Canadian but more specifically, Canadian proto-freelance set in the prairies.

Mine is more of border region..that way it ends up being CP/CN/own line/BNSF

 

[Boris]

I'm am gradually re-focusing my model railroad to resemble the Reading line that passed two blocks from my childhood home, as well as the adjacent PRR line. Both roads served the same industries and frequently shared trackage within a densely urban industrial area, paralleling the Delaware River.

Joe

 

[railfan]

I'm trying to model fictitious old rustic, dark, dirt encrusted industrial scenes, crumbling ancient yet endlessly complex and creepy semi-abandoned switchyards with soot and cinders everywhere, old brickwork and spiderwebs, grimey ghostly aging faded yellow union pacific F3's dragging dozens of rusty coal cars through the surreal grey bentonite wastelands of the forgotten utah outback......like some kind of a bad dream that keeps repeating. Spoooky trains!

 

[Selector]

I can't answer your poll accurately. I like American steam immensely, but I also have a strong interest in Canadian steam. The choices presented don't allow for a response for someone with my interest.

 

[TH&B'er]

Voted for Canadian only, but I do have some interest in some US railroads (mainly NYC) as they interchanged with the Canadian railway I'm modelling.

 

[marriedshades]

Just getting started planning on 50 ara freelance.

 

[justn2trains]

I only have BN, BNSF, a few UP and just one SP(DCC&Sound) loco(soon to be selling..lol).

 

[Pacodutaco]

American backwoods railroads and small towns are my favorite.

 

[PEIR]

Prototype Canadian with a dab of U.S. plus freelanced Canadian.

 

[WinonaRail]

I model transition rural Indiana and Michigan. An amalgamation of steam, first gen diesel, gas and electric. It's way before my time, which is probably why I like it. I occasionally mix things up and throw in some 80s-era diesels and rolling stock WITH cabeese. No freight train should ever be without one.

Gary

 

[Borntman]

I plan 2 layouts
a german marklin layout and a Pennsylvania rr layout. Both are about the same era 1950s.

 

[bnsf971]

I model everything from UP to NS to KCSdeM to CN to Conrail.

 

[A2TwrOpr]

I'm currently in the process of building my layout but will be modeling the Milwaukee road in the late 1970s in either Illinois or Iowa. It's a freelance layout but I'm using photos and info to create a small town feel in either of those states. Living in Illinois, I know generally how small towns are made up and have a better understanding of the geography, than say Colorado.

 

[Bruette]

I voted for American railroads, but I have it in my mind to do the orient express because I have the Corgi 1:50 scale the Chevy stake truck from the James Bond movie "From Russia with Love" Now all I need is the O scale train, preferably from Lionel. I know about the MTH version, but I refuse to buy or run MTH. What can I say? Its my little world in my train room and I am happy in it!

 

[AJKFFD]

I have CSX, NS, and Aberdeen and Rockfish.

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk

 

[rodney mcgiveron]

G'day.....A slight addition if I may....I voted for American Modelling...I love it , the BNSF ...ATSF of course and a bit of CSX, NS ..a tiny bit of UP...etc...The availability of affordable items , loco's, rolling stock , buildings and everything else is AMAZING and DIVERSE.... I live in a country with a huge rail tradition also (Australia) and like the USA we absolutely rely on rail and have been built on rail in many instances....I'd love to one day ALSO not INSTEAD OF...build an Aussie layout but the cost of everything really prevents me from doing it...especially with locomotives..BLI do a nice BHP Billiton one or two..but the range is limited ..One day we might come somewhere to having a lot more choice in Aussie modelling but despite that wait I still love every second of doing USA...It's great.... Cheers Rod

 

[mikekc.reedjefferson8]

I am building a new layout (three years worth now) based on the Ontario & Western . Some from actual historical pictures and some from memory.

 

[Zack A]

Canadian National x2, Conrail x1, and NCDOT x1 Will add some local flavor as funds permit down the road.

 

[Santa Fe Jack]

I am freelancing in terms of road names, at least. I run the rolling stock I have, which is all over the place. Well, it is all North American, I suppose. Just turned out that way, since most of what was available to me as a kid was North American.

As for the layout scene -- it is small town America. A bit dated and run down, like a lot of small towns are today.

But the vehicles are what set the time, really. I have a thing for air-cooled Volkswagens, especially Bay Window (1970's-era) buses. One of my other hobbies is restoring those buses, and I have owned about 16 of them over the years. So, most vehicles on the layout are buses (including panel vans and my favorites: pickups), most non-buses are the many varieties of air-cooled VWs -- bug, squareback, notchback, fastback, etc. I even have a VW dealership in the works (Walthers car repair place). I've got campers in the campground, and other cars and buses around town.

But I am not stuck on making it all coherent. I have a modern New Mexico RailRunner on the tracks, so that would not be 1970s, of course.

I'm just having fun.

Some of you may find this amusing: Having a geology background, I have been much more concerned about having a coherent geological history of the layout, evidenced by rocks seen in outcroppings, than I have about the railroad. You can't just have a light-colored rock here at one angle and a dark one over there at another angle. Are these part of a transgressive sequence from the mesozoic? Limestones to shales to sandstones? How about faults? How about a really big fault that exposes some uplifted metamorphics? Ahh! It's too much! I hate to admit it, but getting the geology right has become a hurdle to my scenery work! I just need to move past it and have a rock here and there...