Best railroad to Model in HO Scale?

I'm partial to the ATSF, (also BNSF), UP, WP, and SP in the deserts of the southwestern US. I like the BN/GN/NP/BNSF in the Pacific Northwest, too.

Most of the well-known locomotives on US RRs have been made, so finding models of your chosen RR should be pretty easy.

What era are you thinking about modeling? Also, think about what location(s) you would like to model.

Western US scenery is mostly mountains and deserts. The midwest is mostly flat praries with a few hills and sparce vegetation. Trees get very expensive, so you might want to go with the southwest or midwest, rather than the northeast or northwest, or southeast. An urban layout with tall buildings would be a lot of work, but I've seen some really detailed big cities on layouts.

You could also customize your own locomotives and rolling stock and do a fictional railroad. For example, there's a guy on Youtube, Tim, who is a real-life locomotive engineer for Norfolk Southern. He is working on his fictional Seaboard Central RR HO-Scale layout. He has a lot of locomotives that he has had repainted into SCRR liveries. Check out Tim's layout (Seaboard Central on Youtube). It's pretty awesome, and he goes into how he operates his layout just like a real railroad.

In HO I suspect more locomotive prototypes have been done for Southern Pacific than any other. I can attest to over 100 different steam locomotives alone have been done.

Pete

Ahh... the Achilles Heel to those of us that did not live near any of the railroads manufacturers put road names on.  Make life interesting, model Central of Georgia, Florida East Coast or the SAL.  They are easier to find today, but were aliens from another planet back when I started.

@The-576-Guy posted:

Candidates for Railroads - New York Central Railroad / Central Railroad of New Jersey / Pennsylvania Railroad / Baltimore & Ohio Railroad/ Chesapeake & Ohio Railway / Norfolk & Western / Canadian Pacific Railway / Santa Fe Railroad / Southern Pacific

In HO you will find plenty of motive power and rolling stock in any of those road names you listed. It's only a matter of you selecting what appeals to you most based on a variety of factors, including geographic region, era, type of industries typically served, and so forth. Nobody else can tell you what is "best" in any aspect of this hobby or in any scale you choose.

You have described a variety of "interests" from the north, the east, the south and the west.  This is a hobby, and nobody says you have to choose only one of your options.  Maybe model a big city terminal where many of those roads might have met like St Louis or Chicago?  Heck, in our fantasy worlds, you can have any train you like pull into your yard or station, and if somebody gives you are hard time, just tell them "My layout, my rules."

Chuck