Choosing A Name for Your Railroad

[CBCNSfan]

Kind of a spin off from another thread. What was your choice of name for your model railroad, and why did you choose that particular name??

I choose the " Cape Breton & Central Nova Scotia Railway" Sometimes CB&CNS and shortened more to CBNS.
Prior to the incorporation of this railway all we had around here was the CN so when something different came along that was my choice. However the loco's and lettering were not available at the time and I didn't really have any incentive to start modelling the CN.
A little later CB&CNS decals became available from Micro Scale and a timely article on how to kitbash a reasonable representation of the locomotives the railway were using got me started on my layout which is still being constructed.
Short version answer Decals for the road name and other materials were available :)

Cheers Willis

[kenw]

well, the Knippa, Lytle and Western is the name of my railroad. KLW is of course my initials....

Knippa is a small South Texas town, Lytle is where my grandfather was station agent until he retired (on the MP main San Antonio to Laredo, Texas). And Western just sounded good......

The layout makes no pretentions about replicating these towns in the least. They just conveniently had names that started with my initials.

[Lady_Railfan]

Kenw, I always thought that "Knippa, Lytle..." had something to do with what you're doing while you work on your pike. :D

Mine evolved from consideration of several "typical" RR names that seem to follow the XX&X pattern. Then we incorporated the initials of our first names (Frank & Claudia), and later changed that to reflect what we grow, Ferns & Cycads, (when they're not overrun by weeds). Thus, the F&CGR.

For now, our line is visited by a Rio Grande Royal Gorge / Moffat Tunnel loco.

[kenw]

"Kenw, I always thought that "Knippa, Lytle..." had something to do with what you're doing while you work on your pike. "

....pronounced "Kah-NIP-pa" and "LIE'-tuhl"

:0

not "nip a little"....... nothing stronger than Dr Pepper on this railroad......

[galt904]

And Western just sounded good......

Here in Southwestern Ontario, when a lot of the shorter railways were built in the late 1800's, many of the railways had "Pacific" in the name, even though though the Pacific Ocean is 5000 km away. Two specific names are the "Tillsonburg, Lake Erie & Pacific" and the "Western Ontario & Pacific". The latter was just a name on paper used to extend a line of the Ontario & Quebec railway, which became part of the CPR. Perhaps they had Pacific in the name just to build off positive connotations of the Canadian Pacific transcon which was in the planning stages at that time.

As for me, I'll be modelling the Galt and St. Thomas subs of the CPR west of Woodstock ON, but I have no idea yet what I'll call it. Perhaps the Woodstock & Western? Woodstock & Pacific? :)

[Lady_Railfan]

not "nip a little"....... nothing stronger than Dr Pepper on this railroad...... Thanks for the clarification, Ken! I sure don't want to give the impression that "the world's greatest hobby" might drive one to drink. Although there have been days....... :)

[HaggisKennedy]

Currently, mine is CLTR (Clutter), which is how cluttered the layout is, with all the stuff sitting on it.

Have not assigned a location to each letter yet; the first go was Crater Lake and Tucumcari, but that sounded too Narrow-Gauge-ish.....

Kennedy

[Isambard]

The Grizzly Northern Railway, a steam era CPR subsidiary running between Rocky Mountain House, Alberta and Kamloops, B.C., takes its name from the town of Grizzly B.C. and the Grizzly bear territory through which the railway runs.

[Kitbash]

My layout is the Chesapeake and Ohio "Albemarle Division". The division does not exist nor did it ever on the C&O.

I wanted badly to model the C&O and especially in the Virginia mountains. But I knew if I modeled it based out of Charlottesville, it would take more time, energy, research, kitbashing, etc. to correctly replicate the C'Ville area and the C&O tracks west towards West Virginia.

"Albemarle" comes from "Albemarle" County which is where Charlottesville is located. My main city is "Albemarle City". Currently, I am building the second layout of this "created" division and haven't looked back. I have had much pleasure doing it. It allows me to research and run prototypically correct C&O equipment, allows me to freelance model Blueridge Mountain Range scenery, without the added pressure of duplicating a very specific town, track arrangement, etc.

[Roger Hensley]

My East Central Indiana Railroad told me what it's name was. Strange? Yes, but true. It went nameless for several years until I suddenly realized that I had built a line through East Central Indiana into a town in southern Indiana using old Big 4/NYC trackage. The same is true of the colors and logo. Gradually as I built and operated, the colors came to me and the logo jumped out at me from a decal set I was looking at.

Oh, well...
http://cid.railfan.net/eci_new.html

[modelbob]

Since I like PRR and certainly don't have the time, energy and skill to repaint everything, my layout will simply be a generic place on the PRR in Pennsylvania.

The locale will generally be inspired by Western Pennsylvania, but nothing specific. However, even that isn't certain, as I'm considering using CMR's model of the PRR station in Baltimore. I really like it, but I'm going to have to create a mock-up and see if it's so big it overwhelms the rest of the layout. (It's a 'sometime maybe' project, since the price will also overwhelm my model RR budget for a while.)

[abcraghead]

My last one was the Tualatin Electric, and the name was blatantly stolen from an electrician's truck. (Tualatin is a small town in Western Oregon.) It sounded much like the real Oregon Electric, and so it stuck.

[modelbob]

> My last one was the Tualatin Electric

I've worked with the real (electrician, not railroad) company on a few projects down in Oregon.

[KenKzak]

I'm building the Greentop & Oberon Railway in Nscale [currently].
It's a fictional shortline railway in the Adirondack Mtns., upstate NY. It has connections with the Delaware & Hudson which I grew up around, and the New York Central, which still exists because I currently have some NYC equipment.
Greentop is a fictional mountain covered with mtn blueberry bushes and a modest "Grand Hotel" from the turn of the last century. These will provide freight, passenger [guests & tourists] and commuter traffic between Greentop and the town of Oberon [also fictional] which is the interchange point with the D&H.
In Shakespeare's Midsummer Nights Dream, Oberon is married to Titania.
The GT&O is also involved in mining Titanium bearing ore which do exist in the Adirondacks.
I love Pontiac GTO's so I realized I had a winner and as a final side benefit, I may eventually patch some "used" GTW cars into GT&O.
I've written at least half a dozen pages of "history" for the GT&O and that's been a lot of fun. I hadn't written any fiction to speak of since college.
I've also drawn more track diagrams than I'll ever be likely to build, some of which I probably wouldn't even build in Nscale, like the early narrow guage sections.
This topic finally convinced me to join the forum, been drifting over from RRF for a while now.

Ken

[CBCNSfan]

Hi Ken we'll be looking foreward to your posts on the GT&O as you progress along with it. If you have questions this is the place to get them answered.
Welcome aboard
Cheers Willis

[KenKzak]

Thanks Willis.
It's nice to be able to share some of this with folks who probably won't start yawning.
I do have some digital pics that my brother took for me, I plan to post them once they can be resized [current upload time would make me yawn].
Just a while back, I caught some Cape Breton loco pics at North East Rails. I didn't know it was in Nova Scotia till now. There are more Canadian railroads than I thought. Or are new shortlines being spawned as they do in the US?

Ken

[CBCNSfan]

Hi Ken, like in the USA, the short lines are spawned by the major railways divesting themselves of trackage that they in their wisdom caused loss of customers and made such trackage to become non or marginaly profitable. In our case up here it was either CN or CP. It's a pity they run these sections down first, because now the shortlines have a difficult time getting the customers back. Some are succeeding and some are not. CB&CNS has applied to abandon 98 miles of track on Cape Breton Island however they are still trying to get some new customers to save it.
Cheers Willis

[catt]

My Grande Valley RR.is located in the Grand River valley hence the name.Interestingly enough the real Grand Valley RR was on the other side of the state a long ways from the Grand river valley.(never turned a wheel either,as soon as it was completed the NYC bought it).

[up_santafe]

My railroad got its name when I bought a John Deere Train set and decided to name one of my station stops on my layout Deere Valley Junction. Since I like to model the western roads, SP, ATSF, UP, WP, the ficticious road became the Deere Valley & Western. I have since added another JD set and will be adding more JD rolling stock as $$$ allow.

[Red Oak & Western]

I grew up in Sioux City, Iowa just as they were shutting down the trolleys and converting to buses. When it can time to go to high school, I would always walk the (abandoned) private right of way because it was a short cut. So when I started my model railroad (the current layout is the 6th incarnation), I wanted trolleys and interurbans patterned after the FtDDM&S and the CRANDIC.

Red Oak is a small (by any standard) town in south west Iowa. But it did, at one time, have a trolley system! Being in the heart of granger country, it seemed logical to pick up grain, cattle, and dairy and fast track them to the yards in Omaha and Sioux City and the river barge ports in Omaha, River Sioux, and Sioux City. Hence --- the Red Oak and Western Railway Company was formed.

[Chris UK]

Hi Chaps

My new HO layout is called 'Cobblers Creek'.

It is based on the Union Pacific in the modern day somewhere...

The name comes from my geography. We live near a town in the UK called Northampton which grew up around the shoe industry. The local soccer team was made up of 'cobblers' playing and now is a proper full time league team nicknamed 'The Cobblers' ( Northampton Town Footbal Club ) which my son and I have season tickets for. We just decided to mix the two interests together and 'Cobblers Creek' was born.

I am now working on names for my industries as the layout is the end of a shortline with lots of switching in a cramped urban area. I had thought of using names of past great players, what do you think?

Chris :confused: