Naming Your Model Railroad
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Really, it was named in exasperation after a couple of individuals found fault with my layout. It's real name is the Eat Crap & Bark at the Moon...
This can also work the other way. During the 1986 NMRA National Convention in Boston there were open house group tours visiting home layouts and clubs. One tour included a visit to a gentleman named Peter Arnott's home layout. A well done fairly completed layout with lots of little scenes to catch your eye. One that stands out was a small church and cemetary with each headstone having a name. When asked about the names he replied they were people who had either crossed him up at some point in life or people he did not like at all ( public figures, etc ). Noting them on a headstone was his way of settling the score so to speak. Peter had a bit of a tongue in cheek attitude regarding his various little scenes and most casual observers would miss them as it was his way not to point them out but wait to see if they were noticed.
Love that story....
I'm in the middle of picking a name, although I thought I had one. What I do know is that I want my freelance railroad to evoke the real railroads and landscape of the northern Wisconsin setting it will occupy. That has ended up being coupled with fine-tuning the concept. (Both the naming issue and the rumination about the theoretical prototype are outlined in recent posts on my layout construction thread, so I won't bore with repetition here.)
I agree that a cute, punny name loses its appeal in time. (A subtler take on that was John Olson's "Mescal Lines," which sounds plausible in a way that "Gorre and Daphetid" does not, while having a slightly subversive, double-entendre edge... but I wonder if by the time his kids were teenagers he was having second thoughts about that one... as I suspect many of us Baby Boomers my have had second thoughts about our own misspent youth by the time our kids were teens and seeking to mis-spend their youth...)-- well sorry about that digression.
However, all the locations on the road have fictional names, and as you may have guessed, they do tie in with family names. St. Matthew and Aaronsburgh are named for my kids, and Eagle Junction takes its name from the first names of me and DairyStateMom (whose real name is Judi). There will be other tie-ins to friends and family as well, especially with business names on buildings.
And I'm still tempted to include Sam 'n' Ella's Diner...
My first freelance railroad started in 1973. We had an assignment in English class to write a short story and I was lost. For some reason I recalled "RMC fantrip on the Virginian & Ohio" Railroad Model Craftsman March 1970. I decided that was the ticket. So suddenly I needed a railroad for which to write a Fantrip story for.
To start I needed topography to run the railroad through. I began by crumpling up a sheet of typing paper and then smoothed it out. I traced out where water would run and created the rivers, lakes, and streams. Then envisioned where people would have settled and spotted some towns of various sizes. I connected the Santa Fe on the south, the Burlington on the northeast, and the Rio Grande one the west and surveyed my railroad through the new landscape in between. I ended up with a branch to a plateau. Working up the mountain it paralleled the main line in the valley bottom. I decided the ridge was a tourist resort / ski area, and the plateau was a farming area. At the end of the line was another cluster of mountains where there was some heavy mining (uranium, coal, zinc, and copper)
I don't remember exactly where the name came from but I came up with "Pine Ridge".
The teacher hated the story, I think I got a B-, but my freelance was born. It evolved and became the Pine Ridge and North River. As I learned more the "Burlington" became the "Colorado Southern". I was amazed at how close my made up land was similar to the Wet Valley and San Luis Valley in southern Colorado / northern New Mexico. I used it for all sorts of projects in classes from shop to economics throughout the next 30 years of school.
What an awesome idea!
Oh, man, that hits me right in my soft spot... I am a sucker for cheap puns.
From the DairyStatePhone
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D&J RailRoad
Professor of HO
The D&J Railroad came about back in 1984 when I started building a layout for my son and I to work on. D&J is Dad and Jon Railroad.
mine is the ES&BM. I had to come up with a non-cussing alternative for the initials, in case a small child asked what it stood for. So, it is the East Smithfield & Blue Mountain railroad.
Really, it was named in exasperation after a couple of individuals found fault with my layout. It's real name is the Eat Crap & Bark at the Moon...
I would suggest using great care in naming your model railroad.
I've heard, time and again, that "cute" names grow old over time. One of the most famous was John Allens "Gorre and Daphetid" (Gory & Defeated) but at least it has the advantage of not being an obvious joke at first glance.
I'm all in favor of having fun on your model railroad, and I enjoy puns of all kinds. However, over the years I've read numerous articles by model railroaders who said "I sure wish I'd have picked a different name, but now all my rolling stock is lettered and it would be so hard to change it."
If you have a pun that you can't resist, maybe just make up a couple of cars for that line, rather than naming the whole railroad after it. I also enjoy naming buildings after friends and family, it's a nice tribute and doesn't seem like it would get old.
I've heard, time and again, that "cute" names grow old over time. One of the most famous was John Allens "Gorre and Daphetid" (Gory & Defeated) but at least it has the advantage of not being an obvious joke at first glance.
I'm all in favor of having fun on your model railroad, and I enjoy puns of all kinds. However, over the years I've read numerous articles by model railroaders who said "I sure wish I'd have picked a different name, but now all my rolling stock is lettered and it would be so hard to change it."
If you have a pun that you can't resist, maybe just make up a couple of cars for that line, rather than naming the whole railroad after it. I also enjoy naming buildings after friends and family, it's a nice tribute and doesn't seem like it would get old.
D&J RailRoad
Professor of HO
Good point on naming highlights on the railroad after family members or friends who have passed away. My previous layout had mountains and sidings named after people. I intend to do the same with the new layout as the scenery starts to fill in.
This can also work the other way. During the 1986 NMRA National Convention in Boston there were open house group tours visiting home layouts and clubs. One tour included a visit to a gentleman named Peter Arnott's home layout. A well done fairly completed layout with lots of little scenes to catch your eye. One that stands out was a small church and cemetary with each headstone having a name. When asked about the names he replied they were people who had either crossed him up at some point in life or people he did not like at all ( public figures, etc ). Noting them on a headstone was his way of settling the score so to speak. Peter had a bit of a tongue in cheek attitude regarding his various little scenes and most casual observers would miss them as it was his way not to point them out but wait to see if they were noticed.
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My BC&W or Blue Creek and Warrior is named after a favorite camping spot, not far from me. Blue creek is a beautiful creek with crystal clean water, rapids, and towering rocky bluffs and it flows into the Warrior River at the camp. Besides ...........I couldn't think of anything else at the time.
DairyStateDad
Mumbling in the corner
Love that story....
I'm in the middle of picking a name, although I thought I had one. What I do know is that I want my freelance railroad to evoke the real railroads and landscape of the northern Wisconsin setting it will occupy. That has ended up being coupled with fine-tuning the concept. (Both the naming issue and the rumination about the theoretical prototype are outlined in recent posts on my layout construction thread, so I won't bore with repetition here.)
I agree that a cute, punny name loses its appeal in time. (A subtler take on that was John Olson's "Mescal Lines," which sounds plausible in a way that "Gorre and Daphetid" does not, while having a slightly subversive, double-entendre edge... but I wonder if by the time his kids were teenagers he was having second thoughts about that one... as I suspect many of us Baby Boomers my have had second thoughts about our own misspent youth by the time our kids were teens and seeking to mis-spend their youth...)-- well sorry about that digression.
However, all the locations on the road have fictional names, and as you may have guessed, they do tie in with family names. St. Matthew and Aaronsburgh are named for my kids, and Eagle Junction takes its name from the first names of me and DairyStateMom (whose real name is Judi). There will be other tie-ins to friends and family as well, especially with business names on buildings.
And I'm still tempted to include Sam 'n' Ella's Diner...
Rico
BNSF Modeller
Well mine is fairly simple I guess, "The Burlington Northern, Lake Winifred subdivision"
Lake Winifred is named after my Grandmother and you "stand" in it while viewing the layout from lakeside.
"Spencer", the main city and home yard, is named after my grandfather.
The main industry "Fuerst Matthes Pulp & Paper" is named after two friends, one who's still around and another who has passed away.
They both used to kid each other about being two "old Krauts" and yakked back and forth in very bad German accents. (remember "Sergeant Schultz"?)
A couple of towns like "Longhurst" and "Gibson" are named after good friends whose names just happen to sound like railroad town names.
There's also a few locations with generic names that sounded good, Grand Coulee and Mallory for example.
Lastly a few businesses are named after various influences, "Vandalay Industries" is a good example. Guess what they make?
Lake Winifred is named after my Grandmother and you "stand" in it while viewing the layout from lakeside.
"Spencer", the main city and home yard, is named after my grandfather.
The main industry "Fuerst Matthes Pulp & Paper" is named after two friends, one who's still around and another who has passed away.
They both used to kid each other about being two "old Krauts" and yakked back and forth in very bad German accents. (remember "Sergeant Schultz"?)
A couple of towns like "Longhurst" and "Gibson" are named after good friends whose names just happen to sound like railroad town names.
There's also a few locations with generic names that sounded good, Grand Coulee and Mallory for example.
Lastly a few businesses are named after various influences, "Vandalay Industries" is a good example. Guess what they make?
Iron Horseman
Well-Known Member
Wow. Such a simple question for which I could write a book.
My first freelance railroad started in 1973. We had an assignment in English class to write a short story and I was lost. For some reason I recalled "RMC fantrip on the Virginian & Ohio" Railroad Model Craftsman March 1970. I decided that was the ticket. So suddenly I needed a railroad for which to write a Fantrip story for.
To start I needed topography to run the railroad through. I began by crumpling up a sheet of typing paper and then smoothed it out. I traced out where water would run and created the rivers, lakes, and streams. Then envisioned where people would have settled and spotted some towns of various sizes. I connected the Santa Fe on the south, the Burlington on the northeast, and the Rio Grande one the west and surveyed my railroad through the new landscape in between. I ended up with a branch to a plateau. Working up the mountain it paralleled the main line in the valley bottom. I decided the ridge was a tourist resort / ski area, and the plateau was a farming area. At the end of the line was another cluster of mountains where there was some heavy mining (uranium, coal, zinc, and copper)
I don't remember exactly where the name came from but I came up with "Pine Ridge".
The teacher hated the story, I think I got a B-, but my freelance was born. It evolved and became the Pine Ridge and North River. As I learned more the "Burlington" became the "Colorado Southern". I was amazed at how close my made up land was similar to the Wet Valley and San Luis Valley in southern Colorado / northern New Mexico. I used it for all sorts of projects in classes from shop to economics throughout the next 30 years of school.
Cjcrescent
Master Mechanic
I took the name for my railroad when I read a short history in a Kalmbach book about the Alabama Central, when I was a teenager. I took the name at that time and started developing a "history" of my own. I did decide that instead of it being a true shortline, I would allow the Railroad to prosper instead of being a money losing venture that led to abandonment. I moved the location to my hometown, and used the locations on the SRR north of the main town.
Although my main interest in the SRR under steam, by having another "railroad" within that, I can have locos on the layout, that the SRR never had. Prototypes from N&W Y3's to a C&O H8 Allegheny, and a couple of freelances that look surprisingly like T&NO tenwheelers. These engines are painted into the AC colors & numbers.
Although my main interest in the SRR under steam, by having another "railroad" within that, I can have locos on the layout, that the SRR never had. Prototypes from N&W Y3's to a C&O H8 Allegheny, and a couple of freelances that look surprisingly like T&NO tenwheelers. These engines are painted into the AC colors & numbers.
trailrider
Well-Known Member
When I was a little kid, my grandfather (Mom's father) used to joke about going to Grashhook, Wisconsin, to go fishing. Well, so far as I know, there is no such place, and Wisconsin didn't fit in my locale. Galesburg, IL, exists, but I don't have room for the full-sized yard that's there. As I used to ride the old C.B.&Q through that town, to visit my grandparents further south in Illinois, including riding #9900, the Pioneer Zephyr, I named my layout the "Grashhook, Galesburg & Western Division of the "Q". Most of the rolling stock is Burlington, plus some Great Northern and Northern Pacific, and we are stuck in the 1950's, so there is steam and diesel motive power.
I did a layout plan for my garage some time ago which employed a helix and while the layout itself never got a name, there was a mine on the "mountain" covering the helix. It was an abandoned mine set in about the thirties (the layout being modern) and was owned by a partnership of two mismatched individuals. There was Farnham Oliver Ohgilvy (Ollie to his friends, 'cause Farnham was too much of a mouthfull and he wasn't keen on being called Farnzy). His partner was simply Larry Smith. He was a surly fellow without friends and was not liked by the miners he controlled (his job).
Anyway the story (passed down by word of mouth) goes that at the saloon in the town across the river that seperated it from the hill with their mine on it(and mining railway of course) there worked this gorgeous singer (and otherwise entertainer) whose name was Sadie. Unfortunately, both of our partners fell for her charms. Ollie, being the gent that he was, wanted to take the beautiful Sadie away from her lowly life and make her his wife and shower her with gifts.
Larry was jealously angry that he might lose out on Sadies charms and schemed to take control of the mine. So consumed by hate, he engineered a mining accident to kill Ollie, but it went wrong, Ollie wasn't dead, so he shot him. He thought they would never retrieve his body from the depths of the shaft he fell into, but they did. When the bullet wound was revealed and it was known that Larry was the last to be with Ollie, he was arrested and subsequently hanged.
Shortly after, the seam the miners had been following petered out and the mine was abandoned.
But that was not the end of the story.
The town continued on as it was not totally reliant on the mine and eventually Sadie, as her charms faded, became the cleaner at the saloon, and although the Saloon is long gone (is a casino now)it is reported that her ghost haunts the area because of her unrequited love.
Several decades later an up and coming young balladeer, heard the story and a song was written about Sadie and her job, but even he could not have forseen how that song would haunt him to the end of his career, every time he performed a live show, the cry would go up from the audience, "Sing us the song about Sadie" and he couldn't refuse.
Oh, and the name of the mining railway... the F O O & L S Gold Mining Railway of course.
Anyway the story (passed down by word of mouth) goes that at the saloon in the town across the river that seperated it from the hill with their mine on it(and mining railway of course) there worked this gorgeous singer (and otherwise entertainer) whose name was Sadie. Unfortunately, both of our partners fell for her charms. Ollie, being the gent that he was, wanted to take the beautiful Sadie away from her lowly life and make her his wife and shower her with gifts.
Larry was jealously angry that he might lose out on Sadies charms and schemed to take control of the mine. So consumed by hate, he engineered a mining accident to kill Ollie, but it went wrong, Ollie wasn't dead, so he shot him. He thought they would never retrieve his body from the depths of the shaft he fell into, but they did. When the bullet wound was revealed and it was known that Larry was the last to be with Ollie, he was arrested and subsequently hanged.
Shortly after, the seam the miners had been following petered out and the mine was abandoned.
But that was not the end of the story.
The town continued on as it was not totally reliant on the mine and eventually Sadie, as her charms faded, became the cleaner at the saloon, and although the Saloon is long gone (is a casino now)it is reported that her ghost haunts the area because of her unrequited love.
Several decades later an up and coming young balladeer, heard the story and a song was written about Sadie and her job, but even he could not have forseen how that song would haunt him to the end of his career, every time he performed a live show, the cry would go up from the audience, "Sing us the song about Sadie" and he couldn't refuse.
Oh, and the name of the mining railway... the F O O & L S Gold Mining Railway of course.
C
catt
Guest
My Grande Valley Railway is so named because (1) I live in Grand Rapids,Mich which (2) just happens to be in the Grand River valley and (3) is split in to by the Grand River so (4) the name just seemed to be a natural fit.
The GVR's parent company is the Midwest Transportation Services company which is derived from the fact that my re-entry into model railroading in 1978 was with a TYCO trainset and MTS actually stood for (M)y (T)rain (S)et.
The GVR enity has officially existed since 1980 proper in many scales.Infact today it is a Z,N,HO,On30,and 1:32 scales railroad.
The GVR's parent company is the Midwest Transportation Services company which is derived from the fact that my re-entry into model railroading in 1978 was with a TYCO trainset and MTS actually stood for (M)y (T)rain (S)et.
The GVR enity has officially existed since 1980 proper in many scales.Infact today it is a Z,N,HO,On30,and 1:32 scales railroad.
Davidfd85
Member
Mine was easy enough to name. I am thinking that I mostly am building it for the enjoyment by my two grandson so thats how the name came about. PP&LE- Pawpaw & Leon, Evan Railroad Co.
I should have added this when I first posted.
This is Leon, 3YO, at his spot on the layout helping Pawpaw and on the bottom is Evan's, 18 MOs, little hand getting into something he shouldn't.
I should have added this when I first posted.
This is Leon, 3YO, at his spot on the layout helping Pawpaw and on the bottom is Evan's, 18 MOs, little hand getting into something he shouldn't.
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Sirfoldalot
Days Gone Bye!
What an awesome idea!
DairyStateDad
Mumbling in the corner
After a hearty dinner at Sam & Ella's they might stop and get some new skins on their ride, you know, get "Sicken Tire'd"
Oh, man, that hits me right in my soft spot... I am a sucker for cheap puns.
From the DairyStatePhone
PNKFLOYD
Mikey
for my first layout, I wanted a whimsical name and came up with a shortline, the Southern Eclectic Xpress.
Things progessed well until the CEO saw a billboard I was making for the layout.
"Southern
Eclectic
Xpress
What a wonderful experience !"
There was a negotiation and SEX was not to be public any longer.
I have not found an interesting name for a layout since.
Things progessed well until the CEO saw a billboard I was making for the layout.
"Southern
Eclectic
Xpress
What a wonderful experience !"
There was a negotiation and SEX was not to be public any longer.
I have not found an interesting name for a layout since.
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fireman93514
Member
Since I live in Nevada I wanted something that was related to our state. About two hours east of me is Austin.
This was and old mining community along highway 50. There was a railroad that ran from there to the Southern Pacific
main line in Battle Mountain. This was the Nevada Central. It was never a real successful railroad and is long gone, but
it lives on in my family room as a 7x14 ft. ho layout.
This was and old mining community along highway 50. There was a railroad that ran from there to the Southern Pacific
main line in Battle Mountain. This was the Nevada Central. It was never a real successful railroad and is long gone, but
it lives on in my family room as a 7x14 ft. ho layout.
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