Favorite Railroad and why?

Santa Fe   

Multiple railroads:

UP because of the Big Boys, Challengers, 9000 and other gigantic Locos they had that others didnt

Norfolk and Western because of the Hooter whistles and being the last Railroad to switch to diesel.

Norfolk Southern because of the Locos in how they are painted and different features they have compared to other railroads with their locos

BNSF Because that is all you see in San Diego.

Santa Fe because 3751 and the Warbonnet Fs 

The PRR, because we lived along the Pennyslvania's main line when I was a kid, and I used to watch PRR trains for hours.

But also the Reading, because I was born in a Pennsylvania coal town, where the Reading was king.

And third, the New York Central, although I never actually saw a NYC train in action.  For some reason, I'm fascinated by NYC equipment.

I grew up near Reading PA and my favorite railroads are the Reading Lines & Reading Company, along with the Reading & Northern. Also I like the information about the Philadelphia & Reading RR out of Philadelphia in the 1800's to early 1900's and who later became the Reading Railroad.

The Reading & Northern is putting up a new station north of Reading along route 61. I think the new station is located in Muhlenberg Township near Bellevue Ave.

Lee 

The Standard of the World! The PRR.

When I was a kid all the trains I saw were led by tuxedos.

Heritage Roads are the Pennsy, Reading , New York Central and Penn Central in that order. I was raised in the Philadelphia area so I would see lots of Pennsy and Reading trains.

Modern Roads are Amtrak, CSX and the NS in no specific order.

The New York Central, since the Hudsons are my favorite steam locomotives. The rest of the equipment like the Mohawks and Niagaras were also dazzling.

Though, being a Jersey guy, I also have a soft spot for Jersey Central, Erie Lackawanna and Conrail. I love all their paint schemes.

I suppose I like all railroads from the 1900's through the 1960's (the era when rail was king).

I do have a favorite and it was a narrow gauge. The Uintah Railway with its mallets, Gilsonite loads, and sharp curvature track.

NYC because that is the road I rode as a kid and I like the looks of NYC steam and lightning stripe diesels. Union Pacific  because I like monster size Diesel consist's and they always had operating steam power.

I like the Jersey Central. I was born and raised in Raritan, NJ and I still live there. Raritan is the end of the line for most trains. I have never lived more than 2 blocks from the Jersey Central tracks. 

Raritan River. Mainly because I live 10 minutes from the old mainline. They served the area in which I live. Also PRR and CNJ. PRR because New Brunswick. CNJ because they interchanged with the Raritan River. Also LV because across the Raritan River (Not the railroad) there used to be an LV spur running from Perth Amboy to some sort of factory. In fact out of all those railroads the LV was the closest to me.

Boston & Albany(NYC). As it ran through where I grew up in the Berkshire in Western Mass. my early memories were getting a cab ride when the Penn Central was still doing switching in Huntington Massachusetts around 1970 I would say

The Reading 1st. then the standard of the world PRR.  I grew up in anthracite country in Schuylkill Co.  Cheers Jim

I like the eastern railroads like Pennsylvania and Chesapeake and Ohio because they have the most powerful steamers. Now I like the Norfolk southern a lot. Western Maryland is a neat railroad too!

This answer has changed over time as it has probably for many people, but for me, it started out as the Santa Fe. No particular reason other than I like the color, advertising and the overall “attraction” that the Santa Fe presented.

As I got older and more into the history of our country, the Illinois Central started to consume more and more of my time in terms of history and modeling. I still feel this has got to be the be largest railroad with the least amount of manufacture support. Maybe because the road went north and south mostly through rural areas of this country.

I am now again in a transition to another smaller road, the Chicago & Eastern Illinois (C&EI). Maybe because the road basically a local line in Illinois or because it was so obscure, but I do find myself wanting to model more of this lines’ passenger trains.

The other line that still holds interest is the Chicago & Northwestern (C&NW); again, this is a more or less local road, not heavily modeled by the manufactures.

So for me it’s:

Santa Fe

Illinois Central

Chicago & Eastern Illinois

Chicago & Northwestern

Charlie

New Haven railroad. I grew up two blocks from the tracks. I still live in the same town.

Baltimore & Ohio,  my dad is from Baltimore, i live in Ohio, my initials are B O, one of my 1st train sets as a kid, they came into Toledo's Central Union Terminal where we would pick up me grandma coming in from Baltimore, neat looking trains...

New York Central & Pennsylvania. I'm from the NE, the short rail line(Black River & Western) here is on some of the tracks that the PRR used to own, my HO days were of the PRR, my uncle used to run the postwar S2 Turbine. My first O Scale engine was a gift from him(my uncle) and it was an old Commodore Vanderbilt 0-4-0, not sure who made it. I still have it, sort of had some issues with a little bit of rust, bit that is what happens when you're a kid and it gets tucked in the wet basement. I did sand down the rusty bits, sort of messed some of the plaques a bit that said NYC and Commodore Vanderbilt. I spray painted the shell black. That was over 20 years ago. I will have to get it looked at as it needs some mechanical work on the engine motor. Sort of runs.

NH my father worked for the New Haven, Penn Central and retired with Conrail.

He worked as a head end brakeman most of time and conductor or flagman on occasion.

I was 13/14 years old and would go to work with him a lot. He liked the night jobs with no

commuter trains. I can remember it like it was yesterday. Train BG1 Cedar Hill to Oak Point

or Bay Ridge depending on the manifest. Then turn GB2 Oak Point to Cedar Hill. The engineers

would let me sit in their seat and let me run a little.  The EF4's/E33's were my favorite units

along with the U25b's and rough riding Alco C425's. I'm the last of the railroaders  in my

family out of 4 (3 Uncles were railroaders also) I'm the only engineer of them all. Will retire

with CSX soon, I could have retired a while back but I took a buy in 85' rehired in 96'

GO NEW HAVEN !!!!! 

Reading Co.  I grew up outside Reading, which also gives me something of a soft spot for Conrail.  I also like the Reading as stubbornly independent road that considered the PRR Junita shops to be an "upstart, whipper snapper" since the Reading Co shops were built first.

After that Western Maryland, because who can resist a fireball logo and big steam loco's challenging eastern mountains?

I recently chanced upon this feature of the forum. Just move your cursor over each state to see the actual number of forum members from that particular state.

https://ogrforum.com/members?sort=VIEW_AS_MAP

Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey and then California have the highest numbers of members. And this reflects everything I've ever read about the train hobby from magazine subscriptions to dealer listings. Obviously then, it is could be an indicator as to what railroads are going to be popular, and as to why certain roads get more frequently produced by the train companies... and why some roads don't.

As a general rule, I think people tend to like what they see and for me this is also no exception. Being on the border of the two most popular states, Conrail, Norfolk Southern, Lehigh Valley, Penn Central, Reading, Erie Lackawanna, New Haven and the Jersey Central are all on my favorites list.

Despite the fact that the Penn Central / early Conrail years were not the most glorious times for railroading in the northeast US, this is one of my favorite time periods because of all the variety and mixed consists. Bad maintenance and roller jobs aside, it sure was an interesting period where a Lehigh Valley caboose at the end of a train with PC/EL/RDG engines at the lead was prototypical!

Growing up in western New York I am partial to, and still am to CP, CN, TH&B, South Buffalo and the Buffalo Creek..........Paul

B&O and Chessie System!!! Grew up by the old B&O mainline!!!

Norfolk and Western

I grew up in Roanoke, Va.

Family members worked there for close to 100 years. A compressed spine (L2 blown disc) Nov '75 ended any opportunity for me to follow in their footsteps.

The Big Little Railroad, Jersey Central.  4 track mainline that saw CNJ commuter trains, Reading passenger trains to somewhere else and lot of freight traffic until that day when they took away the trains.  

Primarily Santa Fe for the paint schemes and cars.  I love the warbonnet, the blue/yellow freight, and especially the SF/SP merger kodak color engine.  The map cars and other cars with advertising I think are some of the best looking rolling stock.  I also like Union Pacific and Southern Pacific, again due to the paint scheme, logos, etc. 

Pennsylvania - because my grandfather and father would take me Columbia to watch trains go down the Port Road.

Maryland and Pennsylvania - because they ran through Red Lion, which was near my boyhood home.

Northern Central (PRR) - because they are in my front yard now.

Gene Anstine

The Reading, It went past my front door, the Reading Ambler freight yard was across the street from my school, and when I moved - just one station up the tracks, my neighbor was the engineer on the Ambler switcher and the 2100 on the Rambles.  And don't forget the Reading Terminal with Horn & Hardocks automat.

I asked my dad why they called it the "Reading Railroad", he said, "look in the windows", the people were reading newspapers - hence the name.  Worked for a 6 year old kid.-

Although I must admit I liked the Pennsylvania GG1s that took my uncle to Chicago every other year.

The narrow-gauge East Tennessee & Western North Carolina.

My parents grew up just a few miles away from this line and were in their teens when the 3-footer folded up but retained some standard-gauge tracks. Neither recall ever seeing the narrow gauge trains, but both recall seeing steam in the nearest town, up until the early 60s when they left the area.

My folks always took my brother and me for trips to the area to visit all our relatives, usually once a year. I would see the ET&WNC diesels running around Elizabethton, Tennessee every now and then as well as the Porter fireless 0-6-0 that was running as late as the early 1990s. A few times, we even went to Tweetsie RR in Blowing Rock, NC, home to former ET&WNC 4-6-0 # 12.

My first cab ride on a locomotive ever (at the age of 11) was on Southern RR 630, which used to be ET&WNC 207.

Funny thing is unlike many of you, I have almost no interest or connection to the railroad that ran through my hometown, the Seaboard (SCL as a kid, CSX when I left Florida for good). I live a couple of miles from what on paper was a transcontinental RR (LA to Jacksonville, FL) but was treated like a branchline. The trains were sparsely ran and not very appealing. Passenger traffic ceased when I was 2 years old and didn’t start up until the 90s for a few years before I left the area for good (and died again, after hurricane Katrina). There was no running steam closer than a 5-hour drive in any direction (Disney or Atlanta was each the same distance) and Southern/NS steam hardly ever got detoured through there. In my lifetime, steam only came FOUR times: SRR 4501 on a ferry run to Jacksonville, 4449 with the Freedom Train, Clinchfield # 1 on a ferry move somewhere and S&A 750 detouring past a derailment on the SRR. I only ever saw 4501 and 4449. The other two moves were not announced until the day after they’d taken place.

So, other than seeing the Freedom Train just before my 7^th birthday, I have few fond memories of trains from where I grew up.

Dave NYC Hudson PRR K4 posted:

New York Central & Pennsylvania. I'm from the NE, the short rail line(Black River & Western) here is on some of the tracks that the PRR used to own, my HO days were of the PRR, my uncle used to run the postwar S2 Turbine. My first O Scale engine was a gift from him(my uncle) and it was an old Commodore Vanderbilt 0-4-0, not sure who made it.

Very likely it was Marx.  They made tons of Commodore Vanderbilts in several colors.

I still have it, sort of had some issues with a little bit of rust, bit that is what happens when you're a kid and it gets tucked in the wet basement. I did sand down the rusty bits, sort of messed some of the plaques a bit that said NYC and Commodore Vanderbilt.

Those plaques are being remanufactured and are available from several suppliers.  Personally,  I recommend Robert Grossman.

I spray painted the shell black. That was over 20 years ago. I will have to get it looked at as it needs some mechanical work on the engine motor. Sort of runs.

Restoring a Marx motor (assuming it is Marx) isn't difficult and there are a lot of online references to help.  I recently redid two Commodore Vanderbilts myself, and they run like fine watches, now.

Since l had close relatives that worked for the Southern and L&N, and lived on Depot Rd. to one Southern station, and in other towns with both roads, l should be their fan.  Instead l am a fan of assorted Colorado roads, wide and narrow. Following that is the Little River 2-4-4-2, and C&O Mikados.

The MA & PA ran through my grandfathers dairy farms with a station next to the one farm that he shipped milk from.

Way too many to list!!!!! If I have to pick one...........

While I like the real railroad for a number of reasons......paint schemes, location in American SW.....I like it for another reason.

Back in my early days of HO scale I wanted to do like some of the famous model rail guys......a fantasy road that follows prototype practice. (like the V&O) I could not afford custom decals so I needed something I could buy. When driving from Charlotte NC to Columbus Ohio one year it hit me. 'Denver NC and Rio Grande Ohio.....the D&RGW located in Appalachia. Decals were easy....and a mountain railroad just further East than the real one.   So I have a double love of the D&RGW real and model. 

Union Pacific. Because they have stayed consistent in their branding, run through some great scenery and maintain a great heritage fleet.

CBQ Burlington Route

Great Northern

Northern Pacific

Milwaukee Road

$ooline

Rock Island

Chicago Great Western

North Western

these are the railroads I grew up with during 1950's back when one could walk the right of way as long as we didn't get in harms way and no one said you could not do so. those were the good old days of being a kid and creating ones own fun times.

I grew up in Baltimore, so: B&O, C&O, PRR.

Also the NH just because I like the McGuiness paint jobs.

"Also the NH just because I like the McGuiness paint jobs"

- ditto to that!  Got vintage F7s in both O and HO scale, and an old NH lantern I painted in orange and black.

My favorite road is "New Jersey's Streak of Rust", the super-short shortline Rahway Valley Railroad.  Its flag fell two decades before I discovered it, but its colorful history and small size make it feasible to selectively model the entire thing in my basement (er, once I get the wife's approval, that is).

I don't really have a "favorite".

I try to keep my collection to "local" (Montgomery County, MD) equipment. As a result, this is lots of B&O, Chessie, CSX. I have some C&O and Pennsy as well as Amtrak. I have "cheated" a bit with some Lionel Lines and western equipment.

I guess if I had to pick a favorite, it would be the B&O. I do and always have lived a stone's throw from the B&O's Metropolitan Branch and have long studied it's history and operations.

What truly interests and fascinates me in the B&O's Georgetown Branch. This was the branch line from the Metropolitan Branch down through Bethesda, along the C&O Canal into Georgeown in DC. It was formally abandoned in 1985 and the tracks pulled up in the early 1990s. There are still lots of old reminders of the railroad along the ROW, now a trail.

While the B&O has been gone for decades, there are lots of reminders of the B&O's impact on Montgomery County. The Georgetown Branch still has rail in some areas. One bridge, over a major 4 lane roadway has B&O Capitol Dome emblems cast into the concrete pillars. The pillars are painted a stale gray color and the emblems blend in. I will admit to debating several times to putting up with a "vandalism" charge from the county police to go over with a can of yellow and blue paint and "correct" them.....

Terriffic photo tours of the Metropolitan Branch and Georgetown Branch can be found HERE and HERE

The BEST guide to the Georgetown Branch, along with historical photos can be found on Ben Sullivan's website HERE

I also agree with the one poster on the Santa Fe - really like that allure to the West they created years ago.