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Whats in a name?

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#21 ·
Origional setting was the floor of my apartment/office where I lived separated from my raging, angry wife, hence "Asylum Valley N&D." Sounds like some place in the appalachians, so it has an eastern, 1930's theme.
 
#22 ·
Biblegrove is a tiny little town in the middle of Illinois that is not on most maps. This is where my father's side of the family originated from. His name was Louis Bible and it came from these close in proximity towns of Louisville and Biblegrove Il. He was born in 1913 and was 56 when I was born. I was his 7th son for he was married 5 times. His last marriage was the perfect one to my mother which gave birth to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John Bible (me). Anyone else with a weirder tale? lol
Anyways, I was fortunate enough to find Biblegrove last year on a family road trip to Chicago. Amidst miles of Corn and bean fields, it is a tiny little township with what looks like buildings still standing from 100 years ago. I found the old cemetary and remnents of an old R/R line running through town too. So, there you go.
Now I have to come up with names for area townships, villages and stops along the Garden route.
 
Discussion starter · #23 ·
Totally fascinating... what people come up with.
A big thank you to all who contributed.
The wheels are turning now.... I will let you know what I come up with.
 
#24 ·
The Kittatinny Mountain RR came from the mountain range i Live in. It is part of the Appalachain Mountains. Kittatinny is native american for endless mountains. The line is an extension of the old Sussex Railroad in my area. There was suppose to be an extension of the sussex line that would go through the Kittatinny mountains but it never happened. My line is that line that was never done. It allows me to creat my own backwoods railraod. The nickname is the Tin Kitty Line (thanks to Brian for coming up with that one) Here is a link of the Sussex RR http://www.newtonnj.net/Pages/railroad.htm
 
#25 ·
my layouts allways include an oldfashioned habor.
my first locos had "LGB" prominently written on them.
so i took a dictionary, looked up words with those three letters and made combinations.
out came the "Lost Gulf Branch".
when a later layout got bigger, with a second line meeting the first at the habor, i needed a second name.
living far to the south, the "Southern & Gulf RR" was borne.
 
#27 ·
Idraw4u,

We were looking for two things in a road name; 1. It identified us 2. The initials looked ok.


I created many logos on several themes and picked the ones that represented our hobbies.

I loved the way the color scheme ended up looking on our rolling stock.

Image



And the initials on the tenders. I use the original B&O font.

Image




Dave
 
#28 ·
Mine comes from the nickname for our neighborhood - the Banana Belt. Fitting as it portrays what might have been if a small logging and fruit-hauling railway was built here and the fact that it consists of two loops surrounding my front yard like belts.
 
#30 ·
When I got started in large scale in 1985, there was very little North American style equipment available. Most of what was available was lettered and styled for the Colorado narrow gauge railroads. I wanted to be able to use whatever was available without having to re-letter every piece of equipment I got.
I devised an imaginary railroad that served as a bridge line, interchanging with the other Colorado narrow gauge railroads. (later I learned what a feat that would have been) Since my family name is Swiss, my imaginary railroad was built by Swiss immigrants who had settled in the Rockies. The local mountains reminded them so much of their homeland that they named their two principal settlements Geneva and New Bern. When the silver boom started, so did the railroad, and it was named the Geneva & New Bern Railroad. It was also nicknamed "The Swiss Trail Route." A tall peak is prominent in the company crest.

Image


One of my other enthusiams is The Lord of the Rings, so my other imaginary railroad is the Brandywine & Gondor Railroad. Its nickname is "The Mainline of Middle Earth." It was completed about 18 years after the great War of the Rings. It also allows me free rein for my whimsical modelling pursuits.

Image


Sort of a way to have double the fun.

Best wishes,
David Meashey
 
#31 ·
Snowshoe & San Juan?

We primarily run a trainset based off of the D&RGW narrow gauge passenger train named; San Juan. And we're located in the Southwest San Juan mountains of Colorado. So that's where the San Juan comes from.

The property in Colorado is named Snowshoe Acres. Named after the many snowshoe hares that roam the property. So that's where Snowshoe comes from.


This winter the Snowshoe & San Juan sure lived up to the "snowshoe" part of the name
Image


Image
 
#32 ·
As many others, our name came from our subdivision that our property is located in....Heather Ridge...thus, Heather Ridge Railroad. Our previous line was called Scott Falls Railroad. When we started in large scale we were looking for a O Scale setup for our Christmas Display. We went into a hobby store and saw a magazine that had the picture of a larger scale train and waterfall on the front cover. This caught our eye as we had a pond and waterfall in our back yard. We purchased the magazine and took it home. You can figure out the rest! That was in 1993 and the beginning of the Scott Falls Railroad. Once we moved it just didn't seem right to keep the name so it was retired and we started building the Heather Ridge Railroad. Guess you could call it a merger! lol Oh by the way, the magazine was Garden Railways. Been a subscriber since that time.
 
#33 ·
My Little Worth RR has a long history starting back about 35 years when I really had little money. Its gone through one N scale and two HO scale iterations and is now 1:24 scale(with some 1:20 scale). It fit back then and just seems to have stuck.
Dave
 
#34 ·
The Port Orford Coast was named such to give a sense of place to the railroad; something I've always considered important for an outdoor model RR. When modeling indoors you can easily replicate any geography you want but outdoors you've got what you've got. Kind of hard to convince anyone that your RR is set in the Arizona desert when you live in the forested northwest for example.

The parent Old Mill Lumber Co. was named for the county road that I live on. Geography as well as historic precedence for the area helped define the railroad's purpose as well as provide names. This made for a much more realistic over all theme that fit well with the surroundings.

I deviate from geographic and historic reality in my choice of names for characters and local businesses on the line because I love satire and a bit of casual whimsy and these things don't take away from the realistic location theme.
 
#36 ·
That question generated a neat thread.

I been down with the flu, but perhaps better late than never.

I named my SL the 'Pig River RR'. When I was a young man, farming, I had a big feeder pig operation down in the St. Francois Mtns. (Ozarks, MO). When I was a kid (8th grade) I'd walk home through our main pasture, rush the chores a tad sometimes and take the pickup (fishing gear already loaded) and beat it for the Black River. I had many a pleasant, quiet evening watching the sun set and catching Fall bass. I always took my pal, Tip the dog. A guy only gets one of those kinda dogs per lifetime.

So Pig River RR it was. It is a feeder line for the Iron Mtn RR (a real one) ca 1875.

I like the idea earlier about abbreviating 'railroad' as 'RY'. It'd fit the era better too.

Les
 
#37 ·
The Winter Valley Regional Railway started out as an, indoor, about mid-January, N scale time waster in northern Alberta in which I invested $16.00. The colours come from my favourate football team and the name came from a short story I read about the Lehigh Valley in my first Railfan magazine. The prairie branch line theme came from watching the local CN movements between Bonnyville and Grande Center and Cold Lake AB. The logo grew from the CN wet noodle scheme and has lasted through all of the 37 years the railway has been running. Twenty five in N and 12 in G scale.

Not going to change now I guess.

Dave
 
#38 ·
Browns Country RR I am afraid is not as interesting of a story as most of yours but here goes it.

I am in the Canadian Navy as an electrician but I have been woodworking for over 18 years now and I have my own business that I ran out of my basement for several year but shut down recently Called Browns Country Woodworking. Most of my wood projects had an old country look and I tend to enjoy the feel of a nice country home. Therefore is was a no brainer to choose Browns Country RR. Not to mention that BCRR looks good and could be mistaken for British Columbia RR.
 
#39 ·
When I got back into model trains after a long hiatus to play with muscle cars we were living in a little bump in the woods (forget the road, lol) called Conneration, which was right up over the hill from a place called Catfish (from whence came my now defunct business' name) anyway, it was also right up over the hill from the Conrail line, ex Pennsy, ex Allegheny Valley. I liked the area (plenty of coal and oil company towns in the area), liked the name so I used it. At the time I was playing in n scale.... anyway, while searching for motive power I found a bunch of B'mann Great Northern consuls on half off clearance and bought 4. (wimpy things)... The Glacier Green colors looked good, but were WAAAAY too bright for an eastern road, so they got toned down, and now I had a color scheme as well.

Habits are hard things to break, the line's name and color scheme has been kept through 4 moves and a divorce.

As for the place names. They aren't my fault. My daughters decided the town's name was "Kimberly" since my current GF's name is Kim, and the junction was named "Eli" because my son was coming home for Christmas, and it needed some sort of name anyway... Towns around here tend to have indian names, or in honor of some dead rich guy, but there is an Eli in Nevada, and a Kimberly in South Africa, so i didn't argue too much.

Do watch cute names, I named the Watts-Myniss Mine, because I like to play with words. . Kim thought it was funny. My ex and my older kids read it. read it a second time, and each made a face kind of like they had swallowed a frog. The youngest didn't get it, and when we explained just said "oh" and wandered off.
 
#40 ·
I too, love puns.

My elevated line runs over the Eyeshudmowsoon Jungle.

I have played with several names for Mines on the periphery of my pike... Dissis Mine, Datt's Mine, Nauchors Ore Mine, No Fawlta Mine.

When I retired, I went around to say goodbye to several co-workers/friends. Many asked what I was going to do in retirement and actually had some of them convinced (for a few minutes, anyway) that I was going to go back to school to become an Opthamologist as I wanted to open an Eye Clinic, but I would have to change my name to Sanjay Oman Wadu. If I ever get around to making a small village on my pike I am sure I will have a sign over a second story walk-up office that reads:

S O WADU EYE CARE
 
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