Your Favorite Railroads and..... Why

New Haven Railroad - Connecticut resident since 1980, interested in history of CT

Long Island Railroad - Grew up there, rode LIRR to NYC in 1950s and '60s

Boston & Maine, Boston & Albany - resident 15 years in Massachusetts

Metro-North Railroad and Amtrak - Have been traveling on both since 1980

Providence & Worcester Railroad - operates near my home

Sandy River & Rangely Lakes - interested in Maine 2-footers

New York Central - often ride on what once were parts of the NYCentral

MELGAR

If you ever saw one of these in action it would be your favorite, too  

Rob Leese posted:

If you ever saw one of these in action it would be your favorite, too  

I don't focus too much on the western railroads because I don't live out there. However, the CB&Q is one of my favorite of the western fallen flags. My favorite railroad practically copied their 2-10-4 Colorado type. 

Norfolk and Western. Many family members over the past 100+ years worked for them.

Milwaukee Road. The SDL39 is by far my favorite as it is quite unique. It has EMD 3 axle trucks but not equal distant.

Dick

BessemerSam posted:

I don't focus too much on the western railroads because I don't live out there.

Gee, I'm exactly the opposite, because I do live out there. Eastern roads hold no sentimental value to me.

I always loved the Cascade green of the BN. I'm lucky to live in an area where all the major western roads can be found, and I'm building my model railroad around that fact.

Santa Fe, all the way. My dad bought me the F-3 set, on his Navy paycheck when they first came out, and my first train trip was on the San Diegan, Warbonnets, Fullerton to San Diego.

The LIRR. As a child I lived across the street from the station and freight yard in Patchogue. End of steam and the first FM diesels. Rode the Budd cars when the replaced steam on the shuttle to Babylon. Also commuted for a about a year to NYC in the late 1960's. They ran an all heavy weight parlor train at one time with an open platform obs on each end because they didn't turn the cars at Montauk. Became all high hood Alco for a long time until the GP-38 arrived in a new paint scheme with a chopped nose.

Much to admire and almost all short trains making it easier to model.

Everybody is entitled to have an opinion on this topic, and I never snipe at anyone's choice of railroad on the Forum.  But I'll just sit and have a cold beer while reading the results that come up on this thread.  Regular Forumites already know where I stand.

MoPac, Frisco, MKT: I grew up 2 doors from a Missouri Pacific line.  We drove under/through a Frisco viaduct everyday when I was a kid.  And my uncle worked for MKT. 

I still drive past the old MoPac line.  It's now a rail trail for bikers and joggers.  The Frisco viaduct is still there with trains passing over.  And MKT eventually ended up part of UP where my uncle retired from.

SP.  Watched trains growing up at Chaney Yard/Jct. at the south end of Houston Heights.

Also SP followed US 90A, to Ragle Lake, FM 102 to near Columbus, and US 90 to Schulenburg.  So I got some urban and rural running.  

Saw some of the last black widows and F units.  As a young person in early gtade school, I did not know any better, and called them the "curved nose locomotives".

Thank You all for the responses so far. I hope that we can keep it going.

SP&S: they had a fair number of Alcos on their roster, and a fan of the 700.

Maine Central: same reason, plus I lived Down East for a couple of years.

Pennsylvania Railroad: 'cause they were awesome and I love the Pennsy in steam.

Mark in Oregon

New Haven....grew up in the northeast Bronx and the the lower east side of Westchester County watching McGinnis liveried engines fly by.

New York Central....grew up in the Bronx and when I went to Manhattan College I drove by the Hudson and Putnam Divisions each day.....then I went to school in Buffalo and followed the mainline in the Mohawk Valley.

Conrail......because I love how it rescued the railroads of the northeast.

New York, Ontario & Western......for its charm and tragic life trying to serve an underserved area.

Norfolk & Western.....I now have lived in Richmond for nearly 34 years and I own a 607 led N&W passenger set. I realize that to "play with the kids around here", you have to have a Barbie . 

Peter

Santa Fe ----All the Way.  Lived near Mainline in Oklahoma and Texas Panhandle and worked in the area most of my working days.

MKT, MP, KCS, and RI --  All railroads in Oklahoma as a kid.

A&M, BNSF, KCS and UP -- Home area (Northwest Arkansas) Railroads.

C&NW, used to run through my town on the cowboy line.

All of them, Katie.

Pennsy because my Grandpa was an Operator and because Dad&I rail-fanned The Hill.

B&O because I watched Covered Wagons yanking and shoving trains up from the Allegheny River crossing at Mosgrove through Gumtown where Grandma&Grandad lived and because we took The Capitol out of Pittsburgh and several excursions out of Pittsburgh.

The Reading because Reading Rambles.

Santa Fe because I rode in the cab of a GP9 from Grand Canyon to Williams Junctio and return and because several trips on The Chief and The Grand Canyon.

The UP because rode and watched many trains.

That's a start. More later.

Lew

geysergazer posted:

All of them, Katie.

   

That's a start. More later.

Lew

 

All great photos, Lew. I look forward to seeing more.

My older brother (who still lives in Maine and has zero interest in trains) once said he thought that locomotives like the ones in the photo above "look like the way engines are supposed to look".

Mark in Oregon

Frankly, anything that moved through the Pittsburgh area of the 40's and 50's of my childhood were my favorites. Trains were omnipresent, servicing the mills, some of which passed right through downtown areas on their way into and out of the mills. McKeesport, PA's Fifth Avenue and its neighboring (and lifeblood) National Tube, U.S. Steel, was a prime example.

So, that would mean my favorites became, at least: PRR; P≤ B&O; Erie; Erie&Lackawanna.

FrankM

I grew up in Floral Park, New York (1946-1965) just up Tyson Avenue (AKA 260th Street) from the Long Island Rail Road. I also have a fascination with Long Island trolley lines. So my favorite railroads of the steam era are:

Long Island Rail Road;

New York & North Shore Traction Company;

New York & Long Island Traction Company;

New York & Queens Traction Company;

Steinway Lines.

I also favor some out-of-town railroads in the steam era for the great steam engines such as:

New York Central;

Norfolk & Western;

Nickle Plate;

New York, Ontario & Western;

Jersey Central;

Southern;

Boston & Maine.

For over 6 decades I have pondered "which railroad do I love the best." Growing up in the deep South, South Jersey that is, we did not have but on line. Oddly I do not even think of that line. Just a small town freight with a couple cars. So which railroad do I like? I guess any of them. The real thing to this day still makes me sit up straight and I get all giddy just watching them. Still feel the same as when I was a small toddler. UP holds a special place in my heart though because I loved the war bonnet ( one of my first sets ) and because they do so much to keep the history alive. Norfolk Southern for the same reason although they have since stopped their steam heritage but still continue painting heritage diesels. I just had a couple stents put in (unexpected as it was due to a knee replacement last August with the stress test showing what everyone thought was a false positive) and when on the operating table for the heart catherization last week and the doctor came to my head and said we have a problem. I honestly expected him to tell me that I did not have blood but trains flowing through my body. I just LOVE trains.

Frisco, MoPac, and T&P, with subsidiaries and predecessors (e.g. Mississippi River & Bonne Terre, Sligo & Eastern, St. Louis & Iron Mountain).  I am an Ozarker by inclination and location. 

The Pennsylvania R.R. I grew up alongside the mainline and saw a lot of varied action from mainline freight and passenger, to locals switching the Ford plant.

Later the DLW, because it was the companion to the PRR on the Bel-Del line, which is my modeling locale

1) gets you to where you're going for a few $.
2) no frills seating.
3) panoramic city views.
4) onboard entertainment.

I like the New Hope and Ivyland.

I live about 1 mile away from the track, close enough to hear the whistle blow. It has a tourist operation with occasional steam at the New Hope end and a smallish industrial park at the Warminster end which I see every day, and nothing much else in between. It reminds me of "The Little Engine That Could" story. I hope it keeps going.

John

Am a original Baby Boomer born, raised and matured in a town with the second largest steel production back in the day.  Town was served by 5-class one roads.

Pennsy, New York Central, B&O, Erie and "The Little Giant" the P&LE.  Plus about a dozen of there subs.  And Dad was from Conway Pa road/drove by the Conway Yard about once a month visiting family.

So the Pennsy is first.  The P&LE terminated in town and hauled mega-tons of steel and steel product between Pittsburgh and home.  And they had the somewhat infamous Berk A-2's. Road the B&O round trip to DC and later round trip to Chicago at night in the Dome Car (the only Dome east of the Mississippi River).   The Erie was ever present serving the mills but most of all I road it to Cleveland to see the Indians play.  The Erie dumped a load of molten metal at a road crossing in town once. Parents road the New York Central round trip to NYC.

Ron

Central Railroad of New Jersey ….. because I'm from Joisey, and it ran through my home town.  An ornery, beat-up little railroad

And, East Broad Top RR ….. my Mother is from one of their company towns. All the men in the family worked in the coal mines and on the railroad.

I grew up about ten miles north of Boston less than two blocks from the Boston & Maine Rail Road line to Portland, Maine. When I married about forty years ago, we lived about thirty miles north of Boston within two miles (hearing distance) of the same B&M RR line and we now live in a condo near the New Hampshire border but still within two miles of the same B&M RR line.

My model railroad uses B&M locomotives, passenger cars, and MOW equipment. The freight cars are typical of what has been used for the last hundred years in New England.

Always LIRR and NYC. About 2 years ago I pulled up my grandfathers Draft record from 1918  from Ancestry,,and where it reads Occupation....Railroad Man LIRR... so I guess its LIRR DNA.

rat

My primary interest is narrow gauge railroads (especially Hawaiian narrow gauge lines, the RGS, SP's Laws-Keeler branch, the Pacific Coast Railroad, and Mexican narrow gauge lines), but my standard gauge interests are:

1. SP's branchline operations in Texas and Louisiana, especially the Gonzales-Harwood branch
2. Branchline operations on other major RR's in Texas (ATSF, KCS, MKT, T&NO, Frisco, Cotton Belt, T&P)
3. Texas shortline railroads
4. Virginia and Truckee
5. Many other shortline rr's in the US during the 1940's-1950's. (Bath & Hammondsport, Dardanelle and Russelville, Bellefonte Central, Ma and Pa, etc)
6. Port, terminal, and dockside operations

ALL of the above would be from the 1940's -1950's. I have ZERO interest in contemporary mainline operations or modern motive power.

Memories which inspire me:

1. Riding the Sunset Limited from Beaumont to Houston on the last night of SP's operation, before Amtrak took over.  
2. Riding the KCS local passenger train from Beaumont to Mauriceville, then catching a caboose ride on the Sabine River & Northern for a few miles.
3. Riding the Reader RR's mixed train in Arkansas in the summer of '70, in a former KCS combine behind a steam loco.
4. Seeing the remains of equipment on the Red River and Gulf RR's logging operation in Long Leaf, LA.
5. Railfanning the Moscow, Camden, and San Augustine RR with my dad.
6. Visiting the Milby Street, Hardy Street, and Englewood yards as a kid in Houston.

Kyle Evans

Houston, Texas

Although I model the CB&Q, GN, NP and Santa Fe and a couple of other western roads, the 2 railroad that I found to be the most interesting are the Virginia & Truckee and the Colorado Midland.

I have several books on these railroads and found them fascinating. I guess there was something about building a broad gauge railroad in the Rockies when others were running narrow gauge. Morris Cafky's book is outstanding and makes for great reading. He tells the history or the CM and all the difficulties encountered in building a rail line in the Rockies.

And the Silver Short Line, what a history it had. I'm so glad that parts of it exist today, along with several of their engines and cars.

Ray

LIRR and the GREAT New York City Subway and El System. Rode these and the other Northeast railroads from 1942-1962.

Simple, the ET&WNC.

It was a 3-footer that ran near where my parents grew up, they have amazing scenery, vestibuled passenger cars, TOFC as early as the 1930s and commuter wartime service.

Once the 3-footer was a memory, they still ran steam until 1967, interchanging with other steam (a rayon mill fireless loco that ran into the late 80s).

Well, as something of a contrarian, l should be interested in the Southern that my dad fired Mikados and Consols for, or the L&N that ran through my great aunts' farm, to which my mother rode to visits in an L&N Jim Crow combine (which may be the one displayed at the Kentucky Railroad Museum).  Nor is it the Frankfort and Cincinnati, which ran the Brill gas electric displayed at same museum.  (I rode the EBT's gas electric..what is its fate?) Nope...it was my devouring my grandfather's picture book on Colorado railroads, with big articulateds huffing the loads "through the Rockies, not around them", and all those nifty little 3 ft. teakettles, which on vacation camping trips became my first train rides, behind steam up to Silverton on the real D&RGW narrow gauge.  Too lazy to lay On3 track, l model a marriage of Colorado's Colorado Midland, and Great Western, in three rail.

 The N and W. Grandfather born in Roanoke, worked for RR. Moved to Suffolk, VA and became traffic manager for Planters Peanuts where he dealt with the N and W. 

I was born in Bluefield, W Va (N and W coal country), moved to Suffolk, and lived a block from the main line going to Norfolk. Went to college in Blacksburg, an hour from Roanoke. Almost my entire life has been along the N and W tracks from the mountains to the sea.

A secondary one for me is not a real railroad:  REA.  A passenger train was, before the 1960's, not complete without one.

I really don't want to advertise what my favorite railroad is, I prefer to keep it a secret.  Even when I drive my "street rod" around town, I keep it fairly clandestine. 

New York Central: it had some of the best steam locomotives (Hudsons, Mohawks, Niagaras, oh my!) and the 20th Centrury.

Milwaukee Road: I live along the old mainline, and the Hiawathas are beautiful.