What is your Freelance Idea???

Well of Souls.

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Gordon

The Great Northern and CB&Q were allowed to merge if the Northern Pacific was dropped. GN agreed and 10 years later the NP and the Milwaukee Road merged. So in my world, the Milwaukee Road lives on. The Montana rail Link was still formed out of "excess" trackage spun off from the NP/MILW merger.

A fictional museum based on the IRM, though with other influences. This gives you the freedom to run almost anything as your museum has built a collection of various locos from various roads, so you can run that SF Warbonnet F7A alongside Milwaukee Road FP7s during your "Carbody Collection Weekend", or even have stock from other countries - one US museum had a British 4-4-0 "Schools" Class loco for a few years (now repatriated), so the precedent is there.

Fictional Deere Valley & Western Railroad History

Here is a quick run-down of my layout theme and era....

Deere Valley & Western, without motive power or rolling stock of its own enters lease and trackage rights agreements with ATSF, SP, WP and UP after purchasing some little used and abandoned right-of-ways in California with financial backing of the John Deere Company. John Deere uses its own motive power and rolling stock on the DV&W tracks and is a financial contributor in construction and rehabilitation of the rail lines. The line serves the agricultural areas of California from Sacramento to Los Angeles and sees a tremendous variety of freight and passenger equipment on its trackage.

The ficticious town of Deere Valley is located in the rural outskirts near Stockton, CA. A new John Deere Part Distribution Center and Warehouse is under construction in Deere Valley.

The era is 1959/1960. A variety of soon to be retired steam and 1st generation diesels are common sights including the occasional UP Big Boy which is routed from Wyoming for special fast heavy produce freights to the East. A couple of times a Big Boy was even seen hauling a passenger consist when the diesel power broke down and no other engines were available to continue the run.

Photos of the current 4x8 (scheduled for demolition and replacement this spring) can be seen at Webshots. Just click on the link in my signature.

My short line Aughwick Valley RR. They serve a Quarry , lumber supply, and a heavy equipment assembly plant. They interchange with Conrail and the newly formed CSX.
Current roster:
GP30
GP38
Working on a GP 15-1
10 Ortner Hoppers
2 Box cars
6 Cement service hoppers

In the 1800’s the legg family discovered a large ore deposit on family owned property, futher development of this find produced a need for reliable transportation system to bring the ore to market .In it inception the CHARTERS TOWERS MT ISA AND CLONCURRY railroad was the means to do this .In the beginning steam powered engines of its own, design most notably the monstrous 2-10-6’s would be double and some times triple headed to accompli***he trip from the mine at MT ISA in the interior thru such places as Cloncurry Julia creek Hughenden across the Great Dividing Range onto Charters Towers and then to port in Townsville. It also provided a means of transportation to many isolated communities that were a direct result of the mining in the region. The GT as it is nicknamed has taken on many different rolls over the years but has always remained a major supporter of economic development for the betterment of the people of the region.
Long after the lights dimmed on the steam era those beautiful giants could still be found on the lead of some of the GT’s most respected varnishes such as the Broken Arrower. With express service and stop at all stations they provided the people of this beautiful mountainous region a reliable mode of transportation to and from with its connections with the Queensland Rail in the east at Townsville, and Austrak in the west at Charters Towers. And every once in a while on the mighty grades of the Flinders Division they can still be heard with their mighty stack talk, all their power and glory like a Banshee wind that beckons to all.

Although long gone are the whistles of the many classes of steam powered locomotives from regular service, today’s railroad has never forgotten its somewhat humble beginnings. The Black and Silver of the flagship engines are a constant reminder of pride and strength that are a trademark of the massive Black and Silver ore hauler of the North-East. Its economic might has forged a long and lasting tradition with reliable service & innovations that have kept it on the leading edge of tech. While staying friendly to the earth and its native people who share the land. Look quick when you see the Black and Silver stallions bearing the Broken Arrow passing for it no doubt is headed into History.
The layout will be a double decked L shape layout along two walls in my bedroom. There will be two yards at either end of the layout decks depicting Townsville Transfer/Dock Yard on the top and Mt Isa Mine Yard on the bottom. The layout depicts the entire CT,Mt.I&C system in the current times and will feature GDRMB GT series locomotives and nothing else. At the end of the bottom level just after Hugenden there s a backdrop and then a 1 1/4 turn helix. Townsville Yard is the only yard on the layout that has a servicing facility. Between Charters Towers and Townsville there is a 3% both side mountain that the trans must conquer if they are to succeed in making it to Townsville or back again.
Mitchell

My little Dog and Pony Show of a layout has a long backstory involving illegally imported Blue Agave plants, a Distillery, Gold Mines and Molly Orr, who opened Madame Orr's House....

Welcome to Borracho, Baby!

Green Day Railroad!!!!They would run green and red or Black and Red locos hauling lots of odd stuff like new CDs of muscle cars!lol it would be funny to see that!

QUOTE: Originally posted by Railroading_Brit A fictional museum based on the IRM, though with other influences. This gives you the freedom to run almost anything as your museum has built a collection of various locos from various roads, so you can run that SF Warbonnet F7A alongside Milwaukee Road FP7s during your "Carbody Collection Weekend", or even have stock from other countries - one US museum had a British 4-4-0 "Schools" Class loco for a few years (now repatriated), so the precedent is there.

Greetings Matt.

The IRM is north of me SEVERAL miles. Did you know they have a discussion group on Yahoo?

Maybe it would be helpful to your modeling if you joined and asked some questions and got answers "straight from the horses mouth, as they say. Go to:

http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/IRMlist/

Hope this helps.

Regards,

This is not a freelance idea but a CONDENSED prototype layout plan from actual movie studio lot. MGM between 1930-1950. See the European railroad station in the Greta Garbo version of Anna Karenina and in the background of "That's Entertainment." Or see the great book, The Movie Railroads.

http://www.railimages.com/albums/kennethanthony/abs.jpg

I am freelanceing the PB&Y my own nonexistent railline between Pittsburgh and Youngstown Mainly hauling scrap steel to the areas mills that are left also going to have a couple of ore trains coming from the mines might even throw in a tank farm As a added bonus might even include passenger traffic with an occasional express. As for expansion i am going to run tracks to Lake Erie but that is in the future

Dark

Southcross & Western:
Freelance regional line running in the NE U.S. Shares the mains with CSX and Amtrak.

Current Roster:
GP-35
3 100 Ton Hoppers
2 40' Boxcars
2 50' Boxcars
1 50' Hi-Cube
1 36' covered hopper

Many more are still in the paint shop

My Class 2 railroad competes for business on the eastcoast.
The competitors are Amtrak, CSX, NS, and FEC, these are Class 1
systems. The ECR is in market of passenger and freight traffic and
doing well thus far. ECR and AMTRAK are in negotiations of a merge
to be renamed and privatized to bail out the ailing govt' railroads.

To run like the run from Philadelpia to New York back in the 1950's

Well one of the ideas that I've been thinking through for the last couple of weeks for my first layout has to deal with the old west before the turn of the 20th century. A small western/mountain type railroad. Main customer would be a underground mine of some kind (silver, gold, copper, etc). Ore out and timber and other mining and town supplies back in. Would have a small mining town for the miners. The town would include a few houses, a saloon, a depot, general store, and whatever else they had back than. Maybe a small corral for those cattle drives. So far its gonna be in HO. I like history and have said numerous times, if I could go back in time it would be back in the days of Lewis and Clark, the western expansion, and the Civil War.

Steve

A virtual basement to go under my slab-on-grade house (what was I thinking when I bought this thing?) to house my freelance railroad based on the remains of the NYC and PRR that CSX & NS spin-off when they discover how much money they lose in absorbing Conrail. Maybe I'll paint the engines blue and call it.....Conrail?