What's Your Lake's Name ???

[sully57]

Hi all. A rather mundane topic, but kind of important to me, just the same. I am a 'freelancer', with a 5x9 HO layout. At 55 years old, my first layout - imagine that! Work in progress. Have a large mountain/tunnel at one end; and at the other, near the end, I have a lake/pond. Track goes over a piece of the lake, on a homemade bridge, with culvert, etc. Lake looks kinda cool, for a rookie. And I'm a freelancer because I'm not very creative, and could never copy a real place/location with any success, I think. Still, I am searching for a theme. I don't look at my layout (thus far), and see it as some sort of toy. It is hard work, and a sizeable investment. So, even though it ain't prototypical, I still take it seriously (and thoroughly enjoy doing it). So, I am looking for some ideas from anyone who cares to share. I am searching for a name for my lake, and associated town. My mountain has tons of rock outcroppings, so I thought of Granite Lake (maybe Granitville for town). I have gone through the usual "indian", "mirror", "echo" names, but nothing has struck me yet. Enuff with all the verbiage; the question:

What is the name of YOUR lake/pond? And is its name associated with your town or village?

[tstage]

How 'bout "Swill Lake"?

Tom

[CBQ_Guy]

Well this probably won't be of any use to use, but since you asked . . .

I am planning a small lake or pond area on the layout which I intend to call E. Louis lake as this was my grandfather's name (Erwin Louis) and he was an avid fisherman. I have an old wire recording of him from a family Christmas gathering about seven months before I was born. On it he expectantly states, "...and if everything goes all right, it looks like I'm gonna be a Grandpa!"

One month later he died.

[MAbruce]

Mine is a pond, called the "Belmar Pond" - name mainly because it's in the Belmar Valley. Not too original or inventive. But then again, it’s not a really big pond either.

[RMax1]

I have a small river with a saw mill and a dock for river barges. The river is the Paradise River and it runs as a branch of the Red River.between Texas and Oklahoma.

RMax1

[leighant]

"Hog" is sometimes a slang word for locomotive engineer, and I have heard of a "Hog Lake."
For a silly pun, "Veronica Lake" but how many people would catch it these days?
The Denver and Salt Lake line over Corona Pass before Moffat Tunnel was built ran 3/4 of the way around one lake while it climbed to gain altitude, and on both sides of another lake, I don't remember which lake was in which position. One lake was named Yankee Doodle Lake, and for political balance I guess, the railroad named a "Dixie Siding" nearby. The other lake was Jenny Lake and although the lake may have been named for a girl, there was also a girl named for the lake. A pregnant passenger in a train trapped in the snow beside Jenny Lake gave birth to a girl who was named Jenny Lake Whatever. (Whatever wasn't really her last name, I just don't remember what it was.)
Lost Lake, Lazy Lake, Holiday Lake, Moss Lake.
Ghost Lake, Mystic Lake, Miracle Lake, Lake Eerie.
Pocket Lake, Skyline Lake.
Gojampenna Lake.

All this is under false pretenses because I don't have a lake on my railroad.

I do have a little waterway with a name that came from a fellow worker's bad experience. He had expended days and days of work on a hard to satisfy customer to promote a town's shrimp festival, gave away several thousand dollars worth of free advertising and furnished a TV production crew for several days shooting--and only got about $100 worth of business out of the deal from the shrimp association. He adapted a vulgar expression and said he was "Up Shrimp Creek". That gave the name Shrimp Creek to my railroad.

I was driving Interstate 10 between Houston and Beaumont and crossed a bridge with a sign that read "Old and Lost Rivers". The other direction, the sign reads "Lost and Old Rivers". The two rivers flow together right around the bridge and because of periodic changes in currents, it is hard to tell exactly where one starts and the other stops, although they do claim to know which one is on which side of the other. I thought that would be a good pair of names to use for a hidden layover yard which is supposed to represent two ends of the visible railroad. Old River and Lost River. Lost River is a little reminiscent of Beaumont, located on what used to be lazy bayou before it was channeled and dredged. Lost River layover became "my railroad's version" of the unmodeled Beaumont/ Port Arthur/ Orange area.

But after a while, it was confusing running trains between Old River and Lost River since they sounded too much alike. Perhaps I could keep the idea but change Old River into Spanish. (Most of the rivers in Texas that run into the Gulf of Mexico have Spanish names-- San Jacinto, Brazos, Colorado, Lavaca, San Antonio, Aransas, Nueces, Rio Grande.) Rio Something. I was trying to think of a word in Spanish for old and passed a cantina named "El Viejo", "the old man". So Old River became RIO VIEJO, which means "Old Man River".

In my dream big railroad room, I want to have a causeway to a terminal based on Galveston. But since only loosely named, need a ficticious name for city and bay. I am thinking of Bacardi Bay like the rum but I need to find out what it means.
My dream rendering of the Bacardi Bay causeway section of layout.
http://www.railimages.com/albums/kennethanthony/abz.jpg

Bait-shack and stilt-house community on the estuary.
http://www.railimages.com/albums/kennethanthony/acb.jpg

A estuary is sort of a back bay. Maybe I could come up with name based on some word associated with the (human body) back. "Backside Bay"?

Perhaps some ideas here you could adapt.....

[HAZMAT9]

Silver Moon Lake
Lunar Lake
Blue Moon Lake

I just like moons!!! [:D]

[sully57]

Thanks to all very much. Esp Leighant for taking the time to type all of that! LOL!!

[Anonymous]

With all the rain we've had in SoCal lately, I guess my lake's name is "the backyard" LOL !!!

Sorry! I just couldn't help myself!

[Anonymous]

Depends on your locale. try Coyote lake for a southwestern theme. Or, if you model in the southeast, try Elm lake or something. If in the midwest, try Pine Tree Lake.

[siberianmo]

Anderson and Seton lakes are the names. I have two smaller ponds that are nameless and will remain so.

These lakes and ponds are located in a mountainous area of my "Can-Am" layout, featuring VIA Rail, BC Rail and Amtrak passenger operations.

The mountain run is a point-to-point run located in the middle of my layout - running about 35 ft from a mountain town to a depot in a hilly and wooded setting. I operate four LifeLike Proto 1000 RDC's - consists of two BC Rail RDC-3's and two VIA Rail RDC-2's.

The two lakes were named after Anderson and Seton lakes located in British Columbia. My wife and I first saw them on a round trip aboard BC Rail RDC's between N. Vancouver and Lilloeet. Perhaps the most stunning setting for lakes we have ever seen from a train.

My version of them just is in name only, for the real ones must be seen to be appreciated. Alas, that is no longer possible for scheduled passenger railroading, for BC Rail has bitten the dust and the RDC's have been sold off.

An interesting question, bringing back some great memories.