Does your homeroad/proto freelance line have a back story?


malletman

malletman

Alcohaulic
Do you, when building a home road or proto freelance line, develope a back story, for the railroad or where various engines came from? Mine is proto freelanced off an excursion line I rode as a young boy. The Logansport & Eel River owned what was left of the PRR Butler Branch in Logansport, Indiana(about 1.5 miles of track) and ran excursions each summer for the towns "Iron Horse Festival" using ex BC&G 2-8-0 #13 remade into a PRR looking engine. The freelance part comes from modeling the Butler Branch as if it had survived long enough to be reborn as a small shortline, serving grain elevator in Columbia City. The excursion and old No1 is factored into my back story, but with the addition of a struggling freight service. The steamer has its back story as it really did exhist(she is now at the age of steam roundhouse in Ohio). For my lines single diesel, via contacts thru the TP&W(where the excursions were run) we aquired a ratty GP35 from the Cleburn shops dead line, delived DIC(dead in consist) by the TP&W. She went thru one rebuilt while on the ATSF, sporting roof top AC, 3 chime horn above the headlight and Prime 8901 beacon above the firemans number board. Wearing more rust than blue bonnet color, she was shoved into our pole barn style engine house with old No1 and for a few weeks, our pride and joy has to sit outdoors(single stall shop) while shop forces did a crash coarse on the GP35, with a quick dark tuscan paint job and yellow stripe(like the L&I engines sport today). The year is 1988, so no ditch lights yet. And you should have seen the railfan crowds as the first 2 weeks freight service had to be run with steam as the shop struggled to get the diesel thru FRA inspections. The shop manage is stil not happy about the crap in the rafters and the black stain on the ceiling from the crap that came out of the stack when the prime move was first started. Both models are older Overland Models brass, the diesel will be the first into my paint shop, then the steamer(much more to take apart to paint(sprung drivers, side rods and valve gear ect).
 
My layout, Cheshire Rail, is a fictional pike based on the real-life Cheshire Railroad, which once served parts of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont. The original Cheshire Railroad was chartered in 1844. It merged into the Fitchburg Railroad in 1890, becoming the Cheshire Branch. In the real world, the New Hampshire and Vermont portions of the line were abandoned in 1970, while the Massachusetts section persisted until 1984.

I’m modeling a small portion of the Cheshire Branch that served the Troy and Keene, New Hampshire, area. I lived in Troy for many years, hence my interest in the area. I’m departing from reality by assuming that the Cheshire Branch was still carrying freight into the 1970’s and calling itself Cheshire Rail, known locally as “The C.R.”

In my scenario, the C.R. remains a part of the B&M/Guilford system – and interchanges with it – so one might expect to see rolling stock and motive power on the C.R. from the B&M.

The biggest local customer for the C.R. is Troy Mills, a sprawling textile mill in the small town of Troy, New Hampshire. Troy Blanket Mills began in the 1850s as a maker of fitted horse blankets but in more modern times made synthetic textile products for the automotive industry. The real Troy Mills remained in operation well into the 21st century. I drove past it on my way to work every day for more than 15 years. It consisted of a hodgepodge of buildings of many styles cascading down a hillside and constructed over a period of 150 years.

For the purposes of my layout, circa 1975, Troy Mills still receives raw materials and ships finished products by rail. The raw materials include dyes and other chemicals produced in the nearby town of Keene. Other materials arrive by rail from “off the layout.” Troy Mills is a large enough complex to have its own small industrial switcher.

The C.R. has a small yard and engine facility in Keene. The yard is conveniently close to the chemical plant, which shares a spur with a small freight depot. Freight arriving at the depot is distributed to the town of Keene by delivery trucks and sent on to Troy Mills by rail. There is an as yet undefined industry in the front left corner. In the real world, many Cheshire Railroad buildings in Keene are still in use today as commercial retail and office space. The turntable pit in Keene has become a public green space.

You may recognize the track plan as being inspired by John Allen's famed Gorre & Daphetid (gory & defeated).

- Jeff

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Most of the prototype stuff really requires a relatively large area, so I don't do that. However, I've chosen a time period and rough geographical location for my modular set up because if you don't do that, you run the risk of having something that looks like garbage because nothing goes together.

Which may not be an issue for those that just want to run trains, but if you're going to do any modeling, you might as well have a theme.

Personally, I'm basing mine primarily on early Chinese railroads with some tasteful nods to their culture and mythology because hardly anybody seems to be interested in such things.
 
When I was starting my layout, I would have liked to have modeled either the Northern Pacific or the Milwaukee Road, but with my limited space, even part of a subdivision wouldn't have worked. I was also helping a friend with his layout and we both decided to model the area righrt here where we live in southwestern Montana.

My Logan Valley ran from Logan, MT where it connected to the Northern Pacific and ran south to Gallatin Gateway, MT where it connected to the Milwaukee Road. Real towns were used. My friends railroad was named the Gallatin Canyon & Western and ran from Gallatin Gateway where it connected with my Logan Valley south to West Yellowstone, MT where it connected to the Union Pacific. In out ficticuious history, the FTC would not allow the Northern Pacific to run this rout south so out railroads came into existance. My Logan Valley is a short line/branch line which serves four town and industries that either did exist or could have existed if there was a railroad to service them. My friends GC&W was partially owned by the NP to get around regulations.

Unfortunately, my friend passed away before we could complete his layout, but I kept the operating theme. The only difference that in time the Logan Valley bought out the GC&W and its rails.

I custom painted locomotives and rolling stock for both railroads.
 
My scheme is the Philadelphia & Scranton-a paper holding company of sorts. It was organized after WWII, to electrify a route between its name sake cities, and revitalize the Northeastern portion of Pennsylvania, by improving the rail transport of anthracite coal from all the major fields, to the Port of Philadelphia. The route selected included the Reading mainline and PRR Schulkyll Division, plus portions of the LV, CNJ, and DL&W, + The Laurel Line & Wilkes Barre & Hazleton Traction Company. I model in the 1975-1995 period. The Reading stayed out of Conrail, as did its CNJ subsidiary. A stripped down PC became Conrail. During the period I model, the NYS&W had previously bought out the L&NE (in 1961), and perhaps jointly owns the NYO&W with the New Haven. The New Haven never invested in trolleys or the NYW&B, and put its money instead into the NYO&W, its western connection. EL is still around, and it and the New Haven have considered merging, abandoning the NYO&W in favor of the former Erie Delaware Division. The NYS&W currently operates the D&H. As for the LV, its current ownership I haven't decided, however it might have been sold when Conrail was formed.

As of the 1970's and onward, the Philly & Scranton is operated as a branch of the North East Corridor. You can take an Amtrak train from Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, Hazelton, Tamaqua, Schuylkill Haven, and Reading to Philly and DC, directly. I model mostly the Reading to Scranton portion of the line. It is a major route from the southern US to eastern Canada. Motive power is an assortment of hold over electrics, such as E33s, EF-3s, EP-5s, and some GG-1s. Newer power is E44s, E60's, and AEM-7s. Reading bought some unique CC-1 streamlined engines, which look like a shorter version of the GG-1 on 3 axle trucks, which have currently been mothballed.

I'm currently changing scales from HO to O, as my wife likes the larger scale, better, and we've got a large basement. You can check out my earlier postings about the HO Philly & Scranton on the Layout Construction page.
 
My layout is loosely modeled after the Bessemer & Lake Erie, which was owned by U.S. Steel until the Canadian National bought it, about 10 years ago. For those who don't know, North Bessemer is a northeast suburb of Pittsburgh. It travels north through western PA up to the ore boat docks at Conneaut, OH. The B&LE goes through the towns of Butler and Ivywood, PA. This is where my RR's title is derived. I always wanted to model the entire B&LE system, but the usual roadblocks always came into play - money, space, time, life's priorities. The B&LE was the main artery of U.S. Steel. Feeding this behemoth of a company, was a monumental task. Not just bringing iron ore down from Lake Erie, it had a branch north of Butler that turned east to Boyers. They hollowed out a mountain filled with limestone. Today the tracks are gone. The shell of a mountain is owned by the Iron Mountain company. It's a huge underground storage facility. From what I understand, it's the largest of it's kind.
A little further south, the B&LE had another branch that turned east to Brady's Bend, this was U.S. Steel's coal supply, until they started bringing it up from W. V.
My BN&I is a tiny HO 4x8. The only entity that closely resembles the B&LE, will be the coal truck/rail transfer facility, as I haven't even started building the facility!
Well, there's my story of the Butler North & Ivywood Railroad.
 
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My layout is set in Northern Wisconsin in the 1930s. It's a shortline that runs between Wausau and Ashland, with another branch to Green Bay.

I am still developing parts of the backstory, to be honest. I have some thoughts that I have been playing with, but I am not sure how plausible they are.

The name went through a variety of iterations before I finally settled on the current one, Wolf River Valley Ry. (ADDED: At one point, I toyed with Wausau, Tomahawk, and Flambeau, just so I could use the reporting mark WTF. Propriety got the better of me.)

Wolf River Valley was an actual short-lived line up there that was bought up by the CNW before my time period. So my premise is that either the WRV was never bought out, or else that CNW kept it as a separate entity instead of simply absorbing it, and in either case, it expanded considerably. CNW has trackage rights, and I think there will be a CNW through passenger train that makes one stop on the layout.

The towns on the layout have fictional names; two are for my adult sons, the third is for my wife's and my first name initials. But they're to be based loosely on actual towns along the route: Eagle Junction, on Eagle River; Aaronsburgh, on Hurley or Iron River, Mich.; and St. Matthew, on some of the smaller communities in the area.

Like the layout itself, details are still in development...
 
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Here's a brief story about the Chicago, Milwauke & Northern Railroad.....

Don’t try searching for the Chicago, Milwaukee & Northern Railroad (C.M.&N.R.) on any railroad map, you’ll never find it. The C.M.& N.R. is a fictional railroad with links to the Milwaukee Road and Chicago & Northwestern Railroads and covers territory north of Chicago to northern Wisconsin. Set in the late 1950’s to the 1980’s, the C.M.& N.R. emerged after local entrepreneurs decided to approach the Milwaukee Road brass to sell largely unprofitable spur line trackage which served local Saxeville industries, along with granting main line trackage rights to the C.M.& N.R. Many deemed this endeavor as fool hearty and never stood a chance to succeed.

The Milwaukee Road was more than pleased to negotiate and within a short time a binding deal was struck and the new C.M.& N.R. was born. As part of the agreement, the fledgling C.M.& N.R. now had ownership of industrial spurs as well as trackage rights on the Milwaukee Road mainline. The venture offered reliable rail service to a coal mine, junk yard and several other smaller industries.

The new C.M.& N.R. now had the obligation to do the shuffling of loaded hoppers and freight cars and then spotting them at staging areas to be sorted for pick up into trains to be sent to their final destinations. This saved the Milwaukee from using switching locomotives from the road’s fleet to perform work that the Milwaukee deemed to be unprofitable most of the time.

The railroad started out as being known as the Milwaukee Northern Railroad, but soon changed its name to the Chicago, Milwaukee & Northern Railroad after gaining trackage rights to areas just north of Chicago. The addition of “Chicago” to its name, gave the impression that the railroad was larger than being just a small regional line.

The layout’s time period does not faithfully follow the Milwaukee Road’s departure via bankruptcy nor does the C.M.& N.R. attempt to replicate the exact timing of other actual railroad events.


-Greg
 
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DairyStateDad said:
serious question... was the town named for the steel mfg machine, the Bessemer convertor, or was the machine named for the town?
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Erik, I don't know how Bessemer got it's name. If I remember right the Bessemer converter, was invented in England. You got me interested, so I'm going to do some research.
 
I'll take a wild guess that both the town and the machine were named for Henry Bessemer, who invented the steel processing technique utilized up until the late 1960's (in the U.S., at least).

- Jeff
 
My layout is named for a branch of the B&O that runs from Sterling, OH to Cleveland: the Cleveland, Lorain & Wheeling subdivision. My main yard is named for Clark Avenue Yard, and the smaller towns my main line passes thru are named after towns on the prototype CL&W. That is where the similarity ends; none of the crossings, sidings or industries are based on any photos of the above-named locations. My limited layout space (a two-car garage) prevents that level of replication.

However, I do have the same types of major industries - a steel mill and auto assembly plant - that existed in & around 1970-era Cleveland. I also aim to make my locomotives and cabooses as rivet-counting accurate as possible, and use the same type of signals (color-position light) that the B&O used before being swallowed into the CSX 'Borg.' So any visitor who never lived in Cleveland might think my layout really is Cleveland in miniature.

My fictional railroad, the Iron Belt, is supposed to simulate an industrial terminal connecting line serving the steel mills. It came into existence because I impulse-bought a trio of Kato SD38-2's that were painted in the bright orange Elgin, Joliet & Eastern scheme. B&O never had any SD38's - and the EJ&E never served the Cleveland area - so I just rubbed-off the big 'J' logo and applied home-printed decals for my private road. Voila, problem solved!

You may be wondering why I chose to base my layout on Cleveland rather than the coal mines and mountains of West Virginia? It's because I grew up in southeast Michigan and always wanted to model a Great Lakes steel mill with a giant ore boat at the dock. My original dream was to model the Ford River Rouge complex in Dearborn, MI; but I had already accumulated a good-sized roster of B&O locos when Walthers announced their series of steel mill Cornerstone kits in 1995. And Cleveland was the only city I knew of that had lakefront steel mills and was served by the B&O...
 
This WhistleStop Railroad is completely fictional. I like making up the story. ;)

The back story is that the area was once a huge mining center with lots of tracks and trains. Some of the rails eventually got connected to main line service, but the mines slowly dried up and shut down. Now there is a little left of the mines other than a deep pit left by one of the last operators.

But worry not, the good people of the town did not want it all to go to seed. A museum has been erected in the old mining village (or will be... some day... when I get that far) as a tribute to the area's mining heritage and they still have one of the old 0-6-0 that used to steam there on display as visitors drive in to visit. My Hudson does regular excursion service out of the old village and main line traffic still crosses the old wooden trestle in front of the falls.
 
malletman said:
Do you, when building a home road or proto freelance line, develope a back story, for the railroad or where various engines came from?
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In highschool sophomore year English project we had to write a short story. I copied a concept from a Model Railroad Craftsman Magazine and wrote "A Fan Trip on the Pine Ridge Railroad". Since the story had to be a minimum of so many pages long(20 or 30), I filled in lots of the items as the riders of the train move across the line. It outlines all the historical points from the railroad's history including origins, finance, topography, natural disasters, routing, industries served, motive power, passenger service now and then, and rolling stock. The teacher was furious because she wanted some fictional romance, drama, or something, not a pronouncement of "facts" type documentary, but she had to admit that she had not specified such and had to accept it. She found every nit picky thing wrong with it she could (including too messy of a typo eraser) and I got a B-. One of these days I'm going to have to find that story and convert it to an electronic format. I did do a summary on another forum, but I can't find that posting either.
 
max diyer said:
Ken
Very interesting story on how the Iron Belt came into existence. Good choice on the Cleveland industrial area. I know it well.
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Jim, I sure wish I could've visited Cleveland in its glory days - but I was too young to drive back then. Although I did see a lot of awesome photos of the Flats, with the pea-green Cleveland Cliffs ore boats on the Cuyahoga River and blast furnaces towering in the background. Not much left there now from what I've been hearing...
 
Iron Horseman....

I'd love to see that...

I wrote a fake history of the layout I was building in high school for some 10th grade English writing assignment. I photocopied a map of Wyoming (where that RR was set) and drew its imaginary route through the mountains.

When the teacher gave it back, he'd marked a little airplane symbol for an airport on the map.;)
 
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Ken
I hauled in and out of the Republic and J&L mills for 30 years. GE had 3 plants in the area. As did Ford, Chevrolet and Alcoa. The list goes on and on. Cleveland was a huge industrial area, second only to Pittsburgh. Since the 80's, it's been part of the rust belt - Pittsburgh, Youngstown & Cleveland. Where there were steel mills, there are shopping centers now.

Erik
He just didn't get it. I had 2 teachers, with similar scenarios.
 
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