Your avatar signature/forum name and layout name

I used to do this with my cousin in New Orleans with the streetcars. My dad and uncle told us that is what they used to do when they were kids back when the streetcars ran everywhere in the city. One time the driver saw us placing the coins on the track and stopped the car and told us to get the coins off the track. I had forgotten about that until I saw your post.

"EBT Jim" because my mother grew up in a company town built by East Broad Top RR's sister company ... Rockhill Iron & Coal.

 

At various times in my life, I've loosely modeled the interchange between the EBT and the PRR.

 

 

My present freelanced railroad, a work in progress, is loosely based on Conrail's Chemical Coast Secondary (Branch). A former CNJ line that runs through my home town of Linden NJ, serving heavy industry.

 

 

I placed my Avatar on a Coffee Mug. You can get his done at any big box store that has a photo lab. They have a lot of items that you can place your Avatar / Logo on. There are also on line photo labs that do the same procedures.

Gary • Cheers from The Detroit and Mackinac Railway

Gary,

I love it!!

RRDOC started with my first AOL email address back in the day when AOL was the web.  The RR is obvious;  I'm a family doctor. 

Avatar is photo with my grandson.  Doing some early imprinting with trains. 

Current layout is temporary due to a move, the 6x10 "Blue Foam Central"  

 

12x26 layout to be started this winter, to include PRR, North Shore Line, and Milwaukee trackage. No name yet:  Maybe "Pennsywaukee"?

Bob

 

Hi George, Yes, Thanks. Having grown up in the metropolitan Pittsburgh area, I became aware of the township's existence, even though it did not become a part of my adventures as a teenager, driving around exploring and looking for girls, but I never got that far.

FrankM.

The name is my real name, the layout being built will be the "South Philly and Western" it runs from South Philly to LA and all points in between. it's slogan, "Serving all America" also "home of the flying Scrapple Brick"  sorry can not insert photo of me, would scare off to many folks.

       
PSU1980, I was PSU class of 1988!  My screen name "joeyA" was what my friends and classmates at Penn State called me.  Pretty simple, too, as it's just a nickname version of my given first name (Joseph/Joe), and the first initial of my last name.

As for my layout, my 11-year-old son and I call it the WIHABL Railroad which stands for "Wish I Had A Bigger Layout"!  Our tiny basement layout measures only 4' X 5.5'. 

However, that's going to change in the near future as we just completed an addition to our home and the basement portion will become our new train room.

Yes, but I can well imagine how big it is to your son, an interest and time to play he shares with his father. What can compare?

FrankM.

SantaFeJim

 

Self-explanatory.

I grew up on Long Island in Glen Cove, NY. Back in the '50s and '60s Glen Cove was sort of country. There was a woods down the street where I played and a dairy farm around the corner. In 2000 I moved upstate to Poughkeepsie which is much like Glen Cove was back then, sort of country and sort of suburban. When I joined my first forum about 10 years ago I needed a name and Country Joe seemed natural. I'm Joe and I live in the country.

 

My layout is the Alma and Jupiter Bay Railway. I used my wife Anne and my initials, A&JB and looked on lists of town names for something that sounded real. There are lots of towns names Alma in the US. I couldn't find anything with JB that I liked but there's a Jupiter Florida and I imagined that my railroad started as a route from Alma, maybe in NY or maybe somewhere else in the northeast, to a big bay that the locals called Jupiter Bay. Eventually the A&JB was acquired by the New York Central System but remained independent like the P&LE or the B&A. My N scale layout was the A&JB and my O gauge layout has the same name. I don't see any reason to change something I like a lot.

It's a nickname given to me by one of my room-mates in college where I was a pretty decent computer hacker (and not even a computer science major). The IT dept. (at the time called MIS) thought their network was impenetrable. It wasn't. I could see exam questions before tests were issued, view grade results and change them, and do all sorts of other mischief if I felt like it, although seldom did since I was a pretty straight arrow. (OK, maybe to get a date with a pretty coed, but that was about it). To others it was like I had Superman-like powers, thus the handle.

 

Once, when registering at another forum somewhere, I tried to use the name with the correct spelling, but it was taken. So I spelled it out phonetically and used it that way ever since.

 

No name to the RR...don't see the need.

Just realized that I never provided the name of my railroad in my previous post.

 

This past August on another thread I posted that I finally gave my layout that's always under construction, a name.

 

It was the Brooklyn, Kingston, & South Florida Railroad (BKSF), which is derived from the three places that I’ve spent the majority of my life: Brooklyn, Kingston (Jamaica) and South Florida.  It unintentionally comes close to a real railroad name acronym (BNSF).

 

Either way, there was dissension among the Board of Directors and the name of the railroad was flipped to the KBSF (Kingston, Brooklyn & South Florida).  This way when a logo/gif/image, etc is designed, the first letter of my first name (Kevin) is prominent.

 

The AUC (Always Under Construction) railroad that I just wrote above sounds good though

When I first enrolled on Prodigy back in the 1990s I had mistakenly put the city of my residence (Allentown) in the box for 'screen name'. I believe a box came up saying 'name already taken' and they suggested Alentown with one “L”. I'm sure I wondered why they were changing the name of the city in which I lived, and I'm also sure I didn't care. I must have checked the “OK” box and voila! I've used Alentown for a lot of online purposes ever since.

Note to Ben, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

I would guess most OGR Forumites who have been on the boards for a couple of year's know I used to be scherbear57. Then, there came that ill-fated day I was actually the engineer on the real 765 in Fort Wayne, Indiana. We went about 600 yards and the loco, tender, and first three freight cars all derailed. Rich Melvin was sitting right behind me and he threw on the brake and everyone jumped out. Rich said, "Eliot, from now on you are Scrapiron Scher." I actually was the engineer who derailed 765.

 

The Munoz Lines (now just a memory) was named for my late father-in-law, a hero at the Battle of Cassino in WWll. 

  S.I.R.T. STATEN SLAND RAPID TRANSIT, branch of the B&O until early 1970's.

When I joined the forum in 2003 I wasn't thinking too far ahead and used the sign-in name I was using for the Civil Air Patrol's (CAP) web site: CAPPILOT. I was an active Search and Rescue pilot back then.  However, I should have used a train related name and kept my CAP duties and train interests separated.  I may still change my Avatar name but then nobody on the forum would know who I am.

 

I do sign with my real first name, Ron, at the bottom of the post.  I do keep my email, phone and last name only in the member access area, although there is another topic going on now that indicates that isn't much more secure.  By the way, my Avatar is a current picture of me, not something from years ago. 

 

My last layout was named PRR, Southern Maryland Div (SOMD), where I live.  Not sure what my current one will be called if I ever finish it.

 

 

Hey Eliot, I had heard that about you but chalked it up to legend. So, now that I have read this account, I must ask you, how did you manage to derail such a locomotive?!!!!! I cannot picture how that is accomplished. Would you indulge me by telling that story here? (Totally acceptable thread-drift, IMHO.) WOW!

FrankM.

Frank,

You started the thread, so I think it is only fair for you to ask for a thread drift.  

 

Now that Eliot came out of the closet, I think it only fair if he decides whether he elaborates or lets the story stand as is.    Eliot, My opinion is that my hat is off to anyone who is deemed to be allowed to engineer such a locomotive.  Even Casey had a wreck.

Good thing you're not a fan of the trolleys along Lake Union in Seattle:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...Lake_Union_Streetcar

When it first opened, it went by the name South Lake Union Trolley (or transit).

Yep, the acronym didn't occur to anyone with the city until it was too late! They changed it pretty quick for obvious reasons...

Scrapiron Scher

 

Now that is a screen name!!!!!!!!!Wow what a story!!!!

 

Mine is just me. First forum I ever joined in my life. Still only belong to two.

 

Learned a whole lot here over the years.

 

Never tried to be hidden, just fair, open and friendly.

Larry

 

Heck, I forgot, my railroad name........ Larry's Fantasy Rail Road...... Pure imagination of a old guy.

Blame it on tie condition, Eliot.  Lay it right in the Roadmaster's lap and stick to your story.

I picked Rail, because it was short and simple, and it was available. Years ago when I joined, I just used part of my e mail, but I dropped off the face of the earth when my wife complained I was spending too much time on the computer. I belonged to several train forums, and several music forums. Now I'm getting the same flack as I did then, but my hearing isn't what it used to be, so I can selectively turn off certain sounds!

My layout is an outdoor double loop of Atlas track under a covered patio adjacent to our back yard pond. It is called the WWRR, (wrong way rail road), because I would usually have a switch thrown in the wrong direction, causing derailments, and one time

, a caboose took a 7 plus foot dive to the brick patio below. My son had a sign made for the rear of the shop form a piece of rough cut walnut. 

My AVATAR is my only selfie. I tried using a photo of me welding, but found out it had to be a recognizable pic.

Don 

Over years, a few nice folks have politely inquired if I took my name from the former Great Western 2-10-0, Number 90, which currently receives loving care and periodic exercise on the Strasburg RR.

 

But, no, pretty as that little engine is, I was thinking of a Number 90 that was somewhat larger, faster, and more colorful -- Santa Fe's one and only 3-unit Fairbanks-Morse Erie-Built passenger diesel of 1947. I was absolutely stunned by the real Number 90 in 1956.  I was riding with my cousins, in the bed of another cousin's brand-new Ford pickup, on a 2-lane road paralleling the Santa Fe Third District main line.  I heard a Nathan M5 behind us, and watched as Number 90, on the head end of the eastward Grand Canyon, came out of the 50 MPH curve at Placentia and quickly overtook and passed us with the opposed-piston engines roaring in Run-8.  It looked and sounded like it was taking care of business.  I wanted to run that engine!

 

Well, I was only 10 at that time, and I missed being able to run Number 90 by 8 years, as I hired out on Santa Fe in 1970.  However, after getting to know people, many old-head Engineers shared stories of their experiences with Number 90.  I'll say this:  It was a real hot-rod of a passenger diesel, and everybody who ran it remembered it fondly.  I think it is a worthy name to use.

 

Now -- my railroad . . . I made up a Division name that might have been used if the original Santa Fe survey from Brownwood, Texas, to Texico, New Mexico had been built up through Abilene, across ranch country, and coming up onto the caprock near Crosbyton.  The grade up onto the caprock would have been a helper district.  (Instead, C.W.Post had a survey done on a lighter grade route through Sweetwater, which was built.)  My railroad includes the fictional town of Caprock, Texas, which would have sat on the rolling plains east of Crosbyton and would have been a crew change point.  The scenery is west Texas high plains.

 

My first avatar photo was a vintage one of me, along with one of my sons, standing beside Santa Fe 4-8-4 3751 at Barstow, as I was getting ready to board the engine and head for Bakersfield.  But it was too much photo for the space allotted.  Rich tweaked it a bit, but it still wasn't too good.  So I set up my camera on a tripod on the patio, and used a hand-held remote to take the head shot that shows how I actually look.

The story, alas, is true. I will let Rich Melvin, who sat right behind me the entire time, chime in if he wants to. In the opening footage, I am the fireman but we switched seats a short time later. I will also add the video documentation you will see below. There are very few railroaders who get into the cab of #765, fewer still who get a cab ride, fewer still who get to be engineer, and probably only one (ME) who derailed it. Strange, but true !! I have a story for a lifetime.

 

Way way way back in the early days of the internet you where never ever suppose to give away your true identity 

A combination of names and numbers was the order of the day

 

My name is Joe Sadorf --- My wife's name is Annamae 

We both like the number 2 and the two of us make a great couple ---

so we came up with

 

dorfj2 and dorfa2 for our email accounts, etc

Seems a little silly today --- however it still works

 

 

Never named my railroad

 

Thx

Joe S   

 

 

I got the name rustyrail from friends because I'm always weathering or laying rust on something. Then the O scale came from me being in O scale all these years. Here's the last build I laid a little rust and soot to.

Avatar name:  It's the one on my birth certificate.  Ectually, the first name is Michael, but since my dad was Michael M. Marmel (middle initial stood for Morris or Moishe, depending on who you talk to), they called him Mike and me Mitch, which worked out better all around.  Except for Reggie, an elderly gent in my old Center City neighborhood, who cheerfully called me "Mike", and, since it was technically accurate, I politely answered to the same...

 

Lessee...railroad names.  I still have a couple of streetcars in a fictional "Madison Rapid Transit" paint scheme from my high school days, now some 35 years past, as well as some HO equipment for the "Madison, Birmingham and Aurora", a fictional interurban. 

 

"Razorback Traction Co." came about when I was putting a trolley pole on a Lehigh Valley 627 center cab.  I'd been mulling over names like "Ozark Electric Railway" and the like, when it occurred to me that the red of the LV plastic was a good match for the University of Arkansas mascot.  I hied me off to Walleyworld for some Razorbacks stickers, and things went downhill from there.   I do get the occasional razzing when I go to shows out of state, with locals enquiring where THEIR university's train is...

 

The Gi-raffe Express is pretty self-explanatory, except for the "Gi-raffe" spelling.  That traces back to the Bugs Bunny cartoon, "A Hare Grows In Manhattan":

 

My Avatar name is a derivative of my name and my nick name which was given to me by Ice hockey coach.  My name is James M, nick name is Magoo.  I have had it with me since grade school.  My road name I would say have to be Long Island wannabe.  I live on Long Island, yet my layout is not from any Long Island routes.  I just like the one railroad i have only known my whole life.

MNCW is for the reporting marks of Metro-North Railroad. I wrote a book a few years ago on Metro-North's history, so this is a nod to the railroad.

 

It could have just as easily been something Pennsy-related due to my love of the Pennsylvania Railroad...or the New York Central's Putnam Division, as Peter mentioned. I grew up in Westchester County when the Put was still running.

 

For the Jeep lovers, my favorite vehicle that I ever owned was a white 1983 Jeep CJ-7 Renegade (with blue stripes). 

 

My layout is just an oval on my workbench for now. When I was in Peekskill, NY it was the Peekskill Connecting Railroad. When I build something here, it will be the Yonkers Connecting Railroad...anything to connect my Pennsy steam switchers to the outside world.

 

Tom

Neighbor kid quite some years ago dubbed me Farmer Bill since I was always putzing around in the yard he figured I must be a farmer and the name just stuck.   

 

Back in the early days of the internet, we had dial-up through our school district in which I taught.  They gave out screen names using the first five letters of your last name with the first letter of your given name.  Hence the "poniaj".  I haven't seen any reason to change it.  As far as my avatar, I went without one for a LONG time, since I don't have a lot of photos of myself, being the chief photographer in my family.  The guy behind the camera doesn't appear in the photos!  But I found a nice shot of my and my lovely wife taken at our 40th anniversary party given at the Gandy Dancer, a high end restaurant in Ann Arbor, Michigan.  The restaurant is a converted Michigan Central Railroad depot built in 1886, used by Amtrak until around 1972, when it was abandoned.  Chuck Muir, a restauranteur in the area, converted it to the place it is today.  The depot is being modeled on the layout, by the way. 

 

 

My railroad has no name since I run whatever I like.  Ostensibly, it's set in 1957, but you can see almost anything running on its rails, including Thomas and the Polar Express.  A hole in the space/time continuum perhaps???  There's also an X-wing fighter in a field outside of  town for the sharp-eyed to spot along with the shuttle craft from the Enterprise on a roof top... 

 

My signature is my real name done in Chesapeake and Ohio font thanks to a company that makes railroad fonts, called "Railfonts"...  Simple, but clever name for a company.

 

Great thread!

 

 

 

 

I was one of the "Gang of 8" (John Pignatelli, the late Jack Whitmeyer, the late Lowell Jeans, the late Fred D'Aguilar, Ramon Garcia, Don Lewis, Howard "AGHRHowie" Packer and myself) that founded Angels Gate Hi-Railers. When the OGR Forum started, we had been working on the layout about 4 1/2 years and I took the acronym of the club as I thought it would make a nice reporting mark and combined it with my short name. As we come up on 20 years since we were first given access to the building, we're still Moving Freight an Passengers from Point A to Point A.

Interesting! I always thought you were an actual farmer, which merits its own special respect, in any society, and that you were rightly proud to state so.

 

It's nice betting these little glimpses into each active forumite's presence here on OGR. Every one of these replies has brought a smile to my face as we become a tiny bit further acquainted with so many pleasant fellow hobbyists.

FrankM.

I grew up in Lewistown, PA in the heart of the Juniata River Valley.  My grandparents had a summer cottage right on the river at a location called Horningford, about 11-12 miles west of town.  I would stay with them several weeks each summer, particularly those weeks my grandfather was working a graveyard shift and my grandmother didn't want to be at the cottage all by herself. I'd spend the better part of each day swimming, fishing or boating in the Juniata River hence, my forum name Juniata Guy.

My layout is named the Harrisburg, Horningford and Western.  As mentioned above, the cottage was at Horningford on the PRR Middle Division running from the Harrisburg area west to Altoona.  I have very loosely modeled aspects of this area on my layout.

And, as an aside, I've known Ranger Rick for close to ten years and this is the first time I've heard how he got both his forum name and that of his old railroad here in Atlanta.  Rick; we miss you down here!

Curt

That's easy......  MY TRAINS.....LOL

 

FREDSTRAINS

Curt,

 

    I knew part of your story as you still venture north and pass my way at least once a year. Nice story about keeping your grandmother company. Miss all of you too! Say, if I get along a little further with this new layout, do you want and come up and do some ballasting for me......  :-)   (Curt often took on the tedious and repetitive task of ballasting our club layout at HobbyTown USA in Kennesaw, Ga. Might as well seek help from the experts!!!!)

 

Rick 

Rick; I'd be happy to help ballast.  Can't be any snow on the ground outside though!

Curt

My forum name, Berra, is the normal Swedish short for Bertil, my real name.

My layout is named "The Beer Line" because,

• I like the Milwaukee road
• I like Beer
• I like switching

 

 

Handle is my name.

Avatar is cropped shot out Flying Hi Power Amateur Rockets, The flight I got my Level 1 Cert on actually.

 

Layout has no name yet.

 

Growing up learned to drive in a 48 Willy Jeep. Awesome Transport.

Wish the family still had it, was sold while I was away in the AF.