Naming Your Railroad

I've always called mine the Allegheny and Susquehanna Railroad. Picked it out back in my HO days for a layout that never got off the ground. It was supposed to be a railroad that went from western Maryland to Cecil County.

Jerry

While my layout doesn't have a name, I always thought "Allegheny & Ohio" had a nice ring to it for a railroad based in my general area. At one time I planned to use that name for a freelanced HO shortline...

Ours is the Cornfields & Coalfields Railroad ™ which is an homage to the midwest and northeastern Pennsylvania.

My new pike will be named the "WV & Ma&Pa Fireball" as it will follow the Western Maryland RR from rural West Virginia thru Pennsylvania into Maryland during the post war transition period.  About 95% of it will be rural.

The name of my railroad came about because of our location.  We are located between two of the largest man-made lakes in the U.S.....  Lake Norfork and Bull Shoals Lake.  Because of this, our area is known as the "Twin Lakes" area.  So...because we are centrally located between the two lakes, I decided to name the railroad the..."Twin Lakes Central".  In addition, this worked well since I am a fan of those railroads that have "Central" in their name.  Thus, the Twin Lakes Central was born.  Below is my hand drawn logo design I did about 20 plus years ago.  It depicts the state of Arkansas and our headquarters location of Mountain Home.

 

Alan

The two model railroaders i most admired when i returned to the hobby in 1978 were John Allen (the Gorre & Daphetid) and Lorell Joiner (the Great Southern). i was particularly interested in the Great Southern as it included many urban scenes, but i also knew i'd never achieve the quality of modeling that these men had (although i could try).

My own interests were the PRR, NH, LV and NYC, having grown up (and now living again) only 4 miles from the NYC's  main line, the "Water Level Route"; the Pennsy as i love all electrics and remember riding the "clockers" behind the GG1's from Philadelphia to New York in the mid 1960's; The LV and NH just because. What i tend to model is sort of the generic northeastern area circa 1945 - 1956. Finally i live less than ten miles from the southern boundary of the six million plus acre Adirondack Park.

Hence borrowing from Lorell Joiner's Great Southern my railroad is the Not-So-Great Eastern aka the Never Done Line, a division of the Southern Adirondack Railway Cartel.

jackson

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...&feature=channel

Mine is a fictional Division of a real railroad that existed in the early 1950's - the time period in which my railroad is frozen.

I used my kids initials to name my RR, the M&GL.  M-Mady, G-Gabi and L-Lucas.

 

I mixed them all around until I came up with Michigan and Great Lakes Railroad.

 

Maybe I subconsciously named my kids that way for my railroad! 

So many real railroads used a geographical location as part of their name, sometimes along with a major city. I was thinking of naming mine: North & Western.

Then I could run engines and rolling stock that had the N&W logo, just changing the Norfolk to North in the name. Speaking of this, how many out there get tired of trying to stick with one or two road names, then along comes a new steam or diesel in a totally different road name that you would like to have? I think that's why some modelers just rename every piece to their own private name, then they can collect and run any type engine, rolling stock made. Just like John Allen did.

We too have been stuck trying to come up with a name for ours since its inception.

Custom is for you to describe the inspiration for your railroad, we suggest names, and you pick a name you like, either from our suggestions or ideas you get from our suggestions.

 

 

 

 

What, me worry?  

Mine is the Chicago, Milwaukee, and Southwestern. I wanted something that would bring together the Milwaukee Road, which is my main focus, with the Southwest and with the Southern Pacific, the railroad that runs through Tucson, where I live. (In my steam-era world, the SP/UP merger hasn't happened yet.) The alternate history is that the CM&SW is a joint venture between the Milwaukee Road and the Southern Pacific to run passenger and freight traffic between Chicago and Southern California. The routing is from Chicago to Kansas City on the Milwaukee, then across Oklahoma and Texas on the Cotton Belt, an SP subsidiary. Traffic rolls onto the SP proper at El Paso, then west through Tucson to Los Angeles and San Diego. The flagship passenger train is, of course, the Southwest Hiawatha. 

I named my railroad J&A Junction. Initials of my girlfriend and I. 

I got really creative with mine. I named it the Lionel Lines, sine I have a lot of their locomotives. The difference is that I have a back story.

 

The Lionel Lines Railroad was founded in 1900. Since then, it has operated on several gauges, but focuses mainly on O Gauge. It services the local town of Plasticville, and the surrounding areas. Times have been good for this town and the railroad serving it, so good that they have had to rent rolling stock and locomotives from anywhere they could, including railroads such as the Union Pacific and the Pennsylvania Railroad.

 

Recently, things have been so good that a rival company, the American Flyer Lines, has started servicing the town of Plasticville. They have been doing okay, but have a long way to go to catch the Lionel Lines.

I like many of the railroads that ran/run through Michigan and/or Ohio.  My favorites being C&O, Pere Marquette, and Hocking Valley.  Add to that a favorite in Lionel Lines livery.  So I came up with "Michigan & Ohio Valley Lines".

  The Eastern Kentucky & Ohio R.R.

 

 Mythical railroad based on two real railroads that bordered  the Ohio River in the 1800's until the 1930's.The Eastern Kentucky railroad which started in Greenup Co. to Carter Co. Ky.,and the Scioto Valley railway that ran from Columbus to South Point,Ohio.

 

 The two railroads had talked merger before the S.V. was taken over by the N&W.The E.K. fell into bankruptcy numerous times before it's demise . There was plans for the merged railroad to bridge the Ohio River at Riverton(Greenup) Ky.  .The idea of the merger came from the thought that the coal fields of Kentucky would be shipped to the Great Lakes over the Scioto Valley tracks,that the financiers of the S.V. visioned would reach the Great Lakes.

 

 And that is where my idea of naming my layout originated.

My railroad, named the UET&W, which stands for Union Eastern Thomaston and Williamstown Railroad.

 

Thomaston CT and Williamstown VT are real places and a railroad quite possibly could have connected them.  I have a map on the wall showing the route.

 

Where did the name come from? One of my grand nephew's name is Thomas, the other is named William.  And they call me Uncle Ed (UE).  hmmmmmmm.

 

ed

Mine is the Brisbane & Bushong Railroad.  The town I live in and our family name.  Matt

Mine is the Sueme Valley RR actually named for my Fianace Sue and Me lol. 

The Bellevue and Schenectady is a fictitious subdivision of the NYCRR representing the best of the NYCRR. GE, ALCO, Schenectady, NY and Wildwood, NJ have to offer. And we connect for a westward connection with Jim Policastro's Central New York RR.

 

The Bellevue and Schenectady is a great RR on a beautiful layout, and that is no BS.

 

Jack

Seldom used, mine is called the North Branch & Lamington, for two rivers that run near my home.

I haven't named the railroad, since I just model UP and ATSF stuff I figure they named it.  However, the small town I have on my layout I named Sn Beattadaise,  because, like many small towns in American, it has seen better days.

I named my railroad after the abandoned Kettle Valley RR in British Columbia Canada. I have driven the roadbed at some places and visited some of the towns. The most difficult and expensive railroad ever built in Canada, if not North America. Owned by Canadian Pacific. Closed down due to high maintenance from regular avalanches and landslides. I have named the towns on my layout based on the Kettle Valley. However I use CP, Ontario Northland and Toronto Hamilton & Buffalo engines. You are allowed some flexibility in how you run your railroad. Since most people have never heard of the Kettle Valley towns (some are abandoned or are just a siding) I have yet to be corrected on my variations.

 

Joe K

Ours is named the WIHABL Railroad, which stands for "Wish I had a Bigger Layout". Not sure if that name is totally original to us, but my 9-yr. old son sure thinks it's funny, so we will stick with that name until we build the next (and hopefully bigger!!) one.

I guess a number of us tend to model what we've seen, whether they are "growing up" memories, or our present day situation. And some of us like to have a little fun and not take things too seriously. I've kind of combined them both. Growing up in eastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey, it was all about coal, steel, cement, and too many roads becoming fallen flags. And so, the Passaic, Raritan, Neshaminy, Delaware and Lehigh Railroad seems to cover it all. "On the PRND&L, good service is automatic."

This is a very interesting post/thread to read. We all love our railroads and spend a lot of our spare time with them. I think it would me something to see a list of all the model railroad names we have in the OGR magazine. You know that there is always a story behind each and every name we all come up with.

 

I named my model railroad after the hard work I had to do to dig out my crawl space. Only thing, here in Missouri, we have more limestone than dirt. So my railroad is literally mounted on the solid rock of Missouri limestone. So it is apply named the Solid Rock Railroad.

 

See my railroad logo below my signature.

I've long felt that every model railroad should have a name, but I've found that relatively few in O gauge actually give their railroads a name, and fewer yet go to the extent of adorning their motive power and/or rolling stock with that name.

 

For some reason, the naming of model railroads seems to be far more prevalent in other scales.

 

I've used various names in the past for different layouts:  Pacific Consolidated Rail Lines (when I lived in Hawaii), Cohasset & Slippery Rock for a logging pike, Mahoning Valley Rapid Transit for a trolley operation, etc.  No name yet for my current layout, although there eventually will be one.

One thing my Dad had told me when I was little and wanted to make a name for my railroad was to look at an area of the country on the map that you like, find a couple of towns or locations on it, and name it that.  So I had things like Wolf Point and Fort Peck, Perth Amboy and Albany (which always sounded like a NYC subsidiary), etc.

 

My current one, since I run PRR and B&O mainly, is the Ohio-Penn Interconnecting Railway.  It's based on a fictional line that would transfer from the B&O to the PRR and vice versa on a short line run on the border of PA and MD.  The town is a small hamlet called...Hamlet, PA.

I will have to give some thought to a name, but it is one of the CB&L System.

 

 

Allan,

 

"...and fewer yet go to the extent of adorning their motive power and/or rolling stock with that name."

 

 

 

and logo

 

 

Is there a Millersville in Alaska? That would make for a long ride on the A&M RR, from All(a)ntown PA to Millersville AK!

 

Ed

Due to my location, I've named my eventually-to-be-built railroad the Pittsburgh and Western Railroad Company. It is a division of Pittsburgh and Western Holdings, Inc, a company that specializes in express mail and passenger train services, but also owns a few short line and regional railroads, like the Wolverine Northern and several lines in the Annapolis area. The P&W RR connects with the Grizzly Mtn. Logging Company and the Tessburgh industrial Railroad, which is owned by several Tessburgh industries including the Army and Nintendo. A coal railroad called the Coal Run railroad has trackage rights over the P&W from it's entry onto the main north of Tessburgh to the interchange yard with Norfolk Southern. The Allegheny Scenic Railroad also has trackage rights on the whole division except to the interchange yard.

I never thought of my railroad as being called anything other than what it actually represents, that being a branchline of the PRR located on the eastern shore of Maryland. Therefore it is the Delmarva branch of the PRR.

 

Bob

When I got my my first Marx train set (actually a layout with track screwed to a 4"x8"

sheet of plywood by my grandfather), after paging through his copy of Kalmbach's circa 1940 photo book on Colorado railroads, I named it the "Silver Creek Railroad", which, I, with no knowledge of Colorado geography then placed in NE Colorado.  That name held until I got into HO in my teens.  Coincidentally, a later railroad I have an interest in, the "Great Western" sugar beet railroad, actually operated in that area.

However, I have moved this freelance effort farther south, to connect with the Joint Line of Santa Fe and D&RGW, and named it the Denver and Front Range, for the spectacular view of the Rockies you get driving across the eastern Colorado prairie from Kansas.  I have decals and logos printed, the logo being an aspen leaf, in yellow,

and in silver green for yellow cars including cabooses. Those decals have been seen

on some of my rolling stock photos presented here in the past.

Well not a specific railroad, but my layout is in a fictional town of Peach Hollow, VA, and the surrounding countryside. It is a conglomeration of my memories of different aspects of the MD, VA area of my youth. I have had folks from the Forum email and ask where Peach Hollow is as they can't find it on the map lol!

My O gauge railroad name, the "Armadillo, Texas & Southwest RR, came about in a very unusual way.  I posted description of my railroad "theme" of Texas and MKT and had a layout name contest where I would choose the winner and that forum member received a prize.  I was very happy with the name.

 

This fall, my layout will be a changing........big surprise in store for the layout and a new name.

 

TEX

Steve

I call mine the "Hickory Creek Division" of the NYC.  Hickory is the street that we live on, and when I build a layout the "creek" will run through it (more like a river), and is named for my ficticious division point on the Water Level Route, where engine and crew swaps took place, much like Syracuse.  Funny thing is Nail Creek runs under the NYC main just outside of Utica, and the Hickory Creek was a NYC observation car!

 

Thanks,

Mario

I grew up with The Milwaukee Road. They had a branch known as the Wisconsin Valley Line which in part went through Wausau up to and through Tomahawk. The passenger service was known as the North Woods Hiawatha. So my railroad is the Milwaukee Road operating on the Wisconsin Valley Line branch with the North Woods Hiawatha as my passenger consist name.

I finally decided after a year or so of deliberation to call my railroad the Norfolk and Western. It's always been my favorite class 1 road. I used to have an uncle who worked at the Columbus, Ohio yard.

I am not really modeling the N&W, just using the name for my old Marx and Lionel layout. I'm just looking to have fun with old trains and remember Uncle Tommy.