Layout Names (or not)

[brokemoto]

Uh... so does that mean to be accurate, a Deep South shortline needs to be the Pickup Truck and Cheating Girlfriend?

You forgot the rain, the mother-in-law, the dog and prison (apologies to Steve Goodman).

[nkalanaga]

As I said, there are at least two options for the Missoula-Kalispell line, and maybe three.  I haven't been down the east side of Flathead Lake in over 40 years, and don't remember it.

The west side, along US 93, wouldn't be too hard, although the road doesn't follow the lake shore much of the way.  It would take some cutting and filling, but would be doable.

The easy way would be to forget the NP branch to Polson and go up the Blackfoot River.  The MILW had a branch to Clearwater Junction, and a logging road went somewhere from there.  North from there, up the Seeley-Swan Valley, is mostly flat country, with a little work needed at the southern end.  It would be a very easy route for a railroad, and the MILW actually planned to build to Canada that way, ultimately going up the North Fork of the Flathead River, along the west side of what's now Glacier NP.  They bought the right-of-way, but never built past Clearwater Junction.  One of the railroad magazines had an article on the proposed line some years ago.  I also read once that they planned to build a line to the Drumlummon Mine that way, but I don't think anyone would be quite that crazy.

Yes, the MILW bought the ROW, not only here, but for most of their western lines.  Unlike many roads, they didn't like easements, and bought their land outright.  That made the abandonment even more fun, as they had this long narrow strip of land to sell, sandwiched between other landowners, most of it with a commercial powerline on it, alongside the tracks.

My BN line goes that way, from Helena to Kalispell, over Stemple Pass and through Lincoln.  With Helena the original end of the GN, and Kalispell on the original mainline to the coast, connecting the two seemed to make sense.  I don't model that portion, though, just the eastern end.   

If the MILW had built to the Drumlummon Mine, it would have had to go the same way, as the mine is at Marysville, north of Helena.  On my layout the MILW did reach the mine, but from Great Falls, avoiding crossing the Continental Divide.  So my BN "secondary main" interchanges with the MILW twice, at Canyon Creek, below Marysville, and at Clearwater Jct.  In theory the MILW has trackage rights over Stemple Pass, but they don't use them, not having any traffic from Great Falls to Missoula.

[mighalpern]

For me -  A non prototypical modeler I wanted to model certain things,  thankfully all my family  members names fit the bill
   CMMMD
Cascade -  C first daughter
Mountain-  M second daughter
Mine    -    M third child , son
Mill      -    M  me
Division -  D  wife

the only thing holding me back is making the logo and decals.
I do have 3 cats and a dog that can be added   

[jpwisc]

It is the Skally Line, that was the Northern Pacific name for the route. When the current short line owner started the St.Croix Valley Railroad, they kept the Skally Line moniker.

[peteski]

It is the Skally Line, that was the Northern Pacific name for the route. When the current short line owner started the St.Croix Valley Railroad, they kept the Skally Line moniker.

I assume that this ultra-realistic photo was taken in natural sunlight.  It is amazing how much difference that makes. The scenery also doesn't look out of scale at all (which is tough to achieve in N scale).

[MVW]

Yeah, at first I simply took that as a proto photo.

Can we get the lowdown on that scene, please? I still can't decide if those are real trees in the background, or if it's a backdrop, or if it was 'shopped in.

Jim

[delamaize]

Ok, so I'll chime in....

I had a few layouts planned, that got names, and a few that even were started....

The few that stands out in my mind are these:

"Tenino, Skookumchuck and Southern" TS&S was a fictitious line, set in the transition era, that split off from the NP/GN Main line, and headed to Rainier, Wa Via the Skookumchuck valley, with a Yard in Tenino, Wa, and Terminating in Yelm Wa. It was meant in my mind to be a small branch line, that contracted with the NP to provide service to several large farms, Logging operations, and some light passenger traffic, the idea never got past the Sketch book stage.

"Kitchen Table & Northern" KT&N was basicly the same idea as above, in the sense of opperation and puropse, but it was going to be built into aprox 18" square modules, that would be easy to move, Modular enough to have unlimited expantion abilities, and set up on the kitchen table. I had actually pinned down a inital track plan, and had actually started to build the modules, when my 2nd ex wife sprung the divorce on me. The whole point of having the layout built into small modules was for ease of packing and moving. With her military career, this was a must. The idea got scrapped. https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=23898

"Tenino & Southern" T&S was an early layout of mine, built on 2 4x8 sheets of plywood, I don't remember much about it, I know it was totally freelanced, and was ended by my first divorce.

I eventually decided I wanted to go with an actual prototype, and have an actual era. Given I grew up in Tenino, Wa. I decided to model the NP's Tacoma Division, 4th Sub, the "Prairie line," Which ran from Tenino, Wa, to Tacoma, Wa. Until the completetion of the Point Defiance line, this was the main North/South line for the NP, GN, and UP. I have not started much in the design of this one, a little here and there, I also wanna say I started a topic on here somewhere on a potential portion of this line in the extra bedroom of my house. Ultimatly, I'd like to be able to model the entire Sub division, given it's less than 50 miles, with some selective compression, this should be possible in the future, but for now, I'm thinking about only modeling Tenino area. I will end up calling this layout as a whole "The Prairie Line."

The other thing I have planned is a N-trak module representing a slightly americanized version of Neubrucke (nahe) Bahnhof in Neubrucke Germany. This module will be called "New bridge station" Which is the english translation.

[Denver Road Doug]

On the subject of "cutesy" names, I will offer my unsolicited and irrelevant opinion...

To me, a cutesy name, whether a pun, a forced acronym, or the names of all the grandchildren, has the effect of diminishing the work.

I completely agree.

A lot of modelers do that around here and it secretly (well not any more, sorry Jeff) drives me nuts.  It's the old adage...it's their model railroad.  But it's a shame when a really great scene is blasphemed like that.   I'll concede that one or two jokes/punny names that are sufficiently shielded from the focus of normal viewing would be fine.

Guess I just don't like my family that much.  lol   It's probably mutual.

[Denver Road Doug]

Regarding actual layout names, well I've named a few, but I'm not notorious for finishing layouts so I really should just call them all "plywood central".  Or I guess updated would be "styrofoam central".   

In N, I've mostly modeled north Texas area railroading, and a lot focused on a specific line from Fort Worth to Amarillo.   So the various iterations have had names related to that or the locale.   The line is the former Fort Worth & Denver Railway line, and many railroaders--even BNSF guys 30+ years after the line was officially aborbed into BN--still refer to the line as the FW&D.  It also had the nickname "The Denver Road" since it was originally built to connect Fort Worth and Denver. (along with sister Colorado & Southern)   That is somewhat confusing to most, since I've had people think I model the D&RGW.   But regardless, I still generically refer to my layouts as "The Denver Road xx" with xx being the iteration which currently would officially be 3 I think.   Could probably say 4 or 5 but 3 since I started that naming convention.   I also have had sort of "subtitle" names like currently my N layout is "Decatur Hill" which describes the segment of the line being modeled.   Previous was the Saginaw Transfer.

I have also modeled the Trinity Railway Express in N, and now in Z.   I called the N layout the "TREiN" (TRE in N-Scale) although the TREiZ just doesn't have the same ring to it.  I decided to call it "Trinity Rail Link" since the focus was more on the freight side than the commuter line.   I'm not crazy about that so I'll probably come up with something else when I get it finished.

[altohorn25]

My layout is based on a prototype, so I called it what the real railroad did:  Chicago, Milwaukee, St.Paul & Pacific - Madison Division - West End.

Set in 1952 - Madison to Prairie du Chien.

Nate

[nkalanaga]

A real punny name?  The Waco, Beaumont, Trinity and Sabine was commonly called the Wobble, Bobble, Turnover and Stop.  Try that one on a model...

Doug:  Some roads, especially in the 1800s, actually did name their stations after family and friends of the management, track gangs, surveyors, or whatever.  Today, of course, the names sound natural, because people have lived there for generations.  But there's still a long tradition of family-themed railroad names. 

And, of course, there's Two Dot, MT, on the old MILW mainline.  I've been there, not much of a town, and the only open business was the saloon.  Apparently it was once larger, but the entire town burned in 1935 when the MILW substation exploded.  It was named for a ranch, which in turn was named for it's brand - two large dots.  My fictional MILW/BN junction is Fourdot, even smaller, no town at all, so it got twice the dots.  And, yes, the MILW's is two words, while mine is one.

There are a lot of "joke" names on my layout, but most are obscure enough that viewers won't notice them, or they fit the area well enough that, even if the source is known, it seems natural.

One example:  Narvi Welding and Fabricating. in Jefferson.  It is a real Scandinavian name, and folks from that area aren't uncommon in central Montana, but that's not where I got it.  The business does fit the name.

[jpwisc]

Yeah, at first I simply took that as a proto photo.

Can we get the lowdown on that scene, please? I still can't decide if those are real trees in the background, or if it's a backdrop, or if it was 'shopped in.

Jim

Thanks guys, I did take that section out to photograph in natural light. Here is a shot before I added the Silfor grass and put the fascia on. I made all the foreground trees myself, the track is Atlas code 55 and the backdrop is a photograph I took at the prototype location. Not to shabby for N Scale.



You will see a more recent photo in an upcoming N Scale Railroading.

[MVW]

Very cool. Thanks, Karl. I was fairly convinced the module had no backdrop, that you had positioned it so real-life trees were visible in background. All the more impressive.

Jim

[mmagliaro]

I think the trick to working family names into the layout naming scheme is to do so the names still sound
believable.  For example, I had a yard on my old PRR themed layout named after my son (Sam).
But I didn't name it "Sam's Yard"... I named it "East Samson Yard" because that sounds more like
a real "railroady" name.

[nkalanaga]

Yes, the name has to be worked in, not just stuck on, if it's to be believable.  Unless one is modeling directly from a prototype, names are as much scenery as the rocks and buildings.