What do you model ?

[BentnoseWillie]

Cape Breton & Central Nova Scotia Railway, 1993 to present day. See my site for details:

http://www3.ns.sympatico.ca/sue.ellen/trains.html

The "layout" is a module in with 2 more planned, but I'm working on developing my roster and car fleet to populate the future layout. The goal is a layout I can move around in time between the mid-1980s (when CN owned the line) through the present; I currently can model operations from any point between 1997 and the present.

[Train 284]

We have had this before, but is always good to catch up, my railroad is a 4x8, soon to be 4x12 freelanced Shasta Central in HO. I model the mid 50's during the steam-diesel transition period.

[slotracer]

My wife has taken some interest and if we come back to the hobby down the road I think we narrowed it to one of two themes......

1. Freelance layout based on NYC and PRR branchlines from Elmira to Lake Ontario up the thru the finger lakes in the early fifties. A few steamers and diesel engines, great car to depict small towns of the day with scratchbuilt structures and rolling stock, hand laid track. A labor of love with no rush where nearly evry peice comes from ones own hands and takes us back to a place in our lives we moved from some time ago, in an era we never got to see.
Great layout for fun low traffic density with locals and switching, every piece a work of art.

2. N Scale layout about 1970 focused on the former DL&W Buffalo to Corning but based on the following assumptions.....
a. The EL had chosen the former lackawana over teh former erie line due to some plausable circumstance we could reasonably make up.....
b. Dereco had played a bit more cooperation between the D&H and EL allowing New England run through trains thus some D&H powered trains on the line
c. The LEhigh line from Sayre to Buffalo degrade to the point that it was abandonned and EL worked out a trackage rights agreement for overhead traffic, thus the remaining LV over the road trains to and from Buffalo utilize the line to add trains and variety. Great high density line including Bison Yard in Buffalo, an industrial secion of buffalo depicting it's rustbel heydey witht he lakefront terminal and a lake freighter tossed in, small towns with a variety of industrya nd the old Groveland tard from which to base locals from.

[waltersrails]

I model NS/Chessie"csx' and IC"CN" three railroads from 1986-2001.

[Rotorranch]

Another blast from the past! [:D]

My layout is set somewhere in the mid-America plains. ( OK....so it's on a couple of 4x8 tables right now, about to be connected by a 3x7 interchange, so it's pretty flat here! ). Could be anywhere between the mountains. Depending on what I want to run, with a quick change of a couple of structures and some automobiles, we can be most anywhere at most anytime! [;)]

I'm partial to Great Northern equipment, and The Kid likes Chessie. We both like Southern, as well as CSX, NS and any other Georgia railroads. I like the streamlined look of the E and F units, and my BL-2's, while he likes hood units, or "those square engines" as he calls em!

I like to run equipment of similar eras at the same time, but I'm not a stickler about it. You may find a steam freight running through the middle of modern diesel times. My excuse...it's a special for the railfanners! [:D]

If it looks good, and runs good, I'll run it. If it don't run good, I'll try to fix it!

Hopefully, one day The Kid and I will have an upper level on our layout, so we can have some mountains on the higher elevations of the layout!

Rotor

[Russorgan]

I started out with a 4 x 6 over my bed. Now, I'm in the benchwork building stage of
a 12 x 11 layout above my living room furniture and my piano. Hey, I live in a one-bedroom apartment. It's a freelanced, HO scale line called Rainbow Pacific and Santa Fe and the time will be circa 1970. I plan on representing several So. California locations: a small city, a little town, a citrus producing area, an oil refinery and a section along the beach. There will be interchanges with SP and ATSF. I'm still working out the details of my trackplan.

One of my best friends likes to run Amtrak more recently, so I may have to relax my
era once in a while and, I expect the Pioneer Zephyr to make some appearances.
If I can figure a way to post my trackplan for comments, I will post it.

[aloco]

As far as the serious modeling goes, I model CN and CP circa 1974. That was the year I had my first taste of railfanning and also the year I got my first train set. I've painted 32 diesels (half of which are yard switchers) in CN and CP colours and they run analog on my home layout. The home layout is a 3.5 X 6 foot oval with two sidings and the scenery is a very small town in the middle of nowhere on the Canadian prairies.

I also have my own railroad, a short line with three diesels in PRR Brunswick green that are all weatherbeaten and rusty. The railroad is called the LBSS&G (Lopsided, Backwards, Smeared, Smudged, and Gouged). The name is dedicated to some of the hazards that go with painting and detailing locomotives.

For 'fun' modeling I've been acquiring a bunch of factory -painted locomotives (Life-Like Proto or Atlas) and dumping decoders in them so I can run them DCC on the model railroad club layout. The club layout is sitting in some empty store space in a shopping mall and members go there to run trains on weekends and try and promote the hobby. The club also has an N scale layout in the works, and I'm worrking on getting some equipment to run on that layout too. So far it looks like my N scale fleet will be strictly CN circa 1955.

Locomotives are my prime area of interest, so nearly all of the money I spend on my hobby is on locomotives. To some modelers that may seem narrow-minded, but I can't help it. Locomotives are where it's at!

[Anonymous]

I'm also in the stare off in the distance with Atlas track program on the keyboard stage... but I will model the Southern railroad circa 1955 in northern Alabama. This will be done in HO. I do have enough basic rolling stock to recreate the Southern Crescent... which, at 12 feet long in HO... means half my garage will no longer be an idle storage spot for lawn cutting implements of mass destruction. I want to model a small Alabama town that has a lumber yard, and of course a mid sized city... that I have named "Beaux Weavel"... with a textile plant.

Erik

[Anonymous]

An independent shortline in Pennsylvania Anthracite Country, circa 1910 - The Grey Mountain & Dalton RR. It runs from Dalton (just west of Carbondale) to a connection at Port Jervis.

Camelbacks rule... Diesels drool! [:D]

[Anonymous]

Trains! (Betcha thought I was gonna say underwear!)

[Anonymous]

The Archer Grain Railroad, with interchanges with the Santa fe

[Anonymous]

I model freelanced modern Amtrak. Mostly the northeast corridor, with the trains from the west mixed in. The era I model is from 2000-present.

[tsgtbob]

Chessie in the 70-75 time period. "O" scale.
Calling it the Stonycreek Valley, the fourth partner in the C&O-B&O-WM merger was the SVR. They LOVED alcos, kinda like the SP&S in BN.
SVR ran from Meyersdale Pa. to Altoona, and from Rockwood Pa. to Morgantown W.Va. Lots of north south bridge traffic!
A Weaver C-630 in Chessie looks AWESOME!!!

[Anonymous]

I'm still in the "printed paper modeling" phase (read armchair modeling [:D]) but, eventually, my layout should depict a portion of the freelanced "Ft Madison & Omaha RR" across Southern Iowa, in the 50's

The rationale would be to work interchange with the NKP in Peoria, UP in Omaha, and forward as much freigth as possible in between.
Given the rural nature of the country traversed by the FtM&O RR and it's bridge road concept, there would be few industries on line but country elevators, stock, farm implement, lumber and oil dealers,etc...

I'm also thinking of having some coal mining still running in Southern Iowa (coal mines closed in the 20's actually ) to let a coal branch bring further traffic (I love coal gondolas, beside grain elevators [8D] )

The layout should be centered around a small division point, with two branchs radiating (one to the coal mining area, the other to Des Moines), a small yard, and an interchange with any midwestern road (could change depending the mood, RI, CNW, CB&Q, MStP,etc...)
All this is designed to be modelled on a 10' by 1 1/2' shelf layout (in Nscale) not counting unmodelled staging area (retractable hinged shelf)

BTW, Trainboy, in 50's Western OK, you should have plenty of stock extras, grain and carbon black traffic to operate !!! [^]

marc

France

[Anonymous]

I model the Frisco during the transition-era of 1948-1952 (with a couple of "cheats" included). If I had room, I would like to add the Rock Island and the Kansas, Oklahoma, and Gulf to the layout in a small way, as lines that interchanged with the Frisco at Holdenville, OK for the Rock Island, and at Henrietta, OK for the KO&G--but that is a pipe dream right now.

I call my RR the Money Pit Lines, since it sucks in money like a black hole.
[;)][C):-)]

[Anonymous]

As of this moment, my railroad is in the planning stages. The idea is to model a freelance shortline (Taylortown & Port Olivia Railway) that has interchanges with the BNSF, UP, & CN. It will be an HO scale, around the room shelf layout. I'm not sure about the location yet as I'm torn between the pacific northwest and the upper midwest. The time period is present-day.
--------------------------
Geo.

[Ibflattop]

Lake Erie and Western!!!!!!!!!!! :-) Kevin

[TomDiehl]

I model in HO scale and have made up my own railroad name, with paint scheme and lettering based on the Reading Railroad. All my operation currently is on a club layout, having no home layout, which also doesn't restrict me to an era. I have a lot of steam, some Amtrak P42DC's, and everything in between that strikes my fancy. With the club layout, I've favored locomotives with great pulling power, since we can run long trains and have a 5 loop 2% grade helix. I have many vintage Mantua steam, a couple Bowser's, a few Hobbytown of Boston, and several Athearn locos. i've also started to branch out into HOn3 with some equipment based on and lettered for the East Broad Top. Unfortunately, the club has no HOn3 track.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by orsonroy

I'm modeling the NKP between Bloomington and Peoria, Illinois, circa 1949-1950. My layout is a three-level layout designed around moving freight from staging (Bloomington) to the yards in Peoria (the end of that line), and picking up trains from Peoria to move them to points East. Mostly, operating mainline trains and yard switchers, with a little way freight thrown in. I'm "mostly" a prototype modeler, wanting to stay as accurate to the prototype as my time, budget, skills and patience will allow!

We may have to interchange some cars [:D] I am modeling a freelance route from Villa Grove IL (UP) to Prairie City IL BNSF with a trackage right agreement with NS into Bloomington, then using the old Conrail/ITC line into Peoria, got to hit the P&PU [:p]

I figured since TP&W sold the west end from Peoria, there was a need for a new bridge route east to west, of course having a SD80Mac showing up in the 50's may look a little strange, I am sure your enginers would want to gander at it too long [;)]

[Anonymous]

currently working on BNSF merger to present, will eventually regress to mid 60's CB&Q layout will probably feature a fictional small town (a condensed version of several MO and IL farm towns), and the Miss. river and assoc. bluffs

[Todd McWilliam]

My mainline is the Rock Island/bankruptcy blue, Iowa Northern and Iowa Interstate are my branchlines

[twhite]

I model a fictional California extension of the Rio Grande over Yuba Summit in the Sierra Nevada, circa WWII, midway between the SP Donner Pass line and the WP Feather River Canyon. SP has trackage rights, WP also, in case Donner Pass is closed by heavy snow, or Feather River has one of their VERY frequent mudslides. It's 100% steam, lots of heavy articulateds.

[Anonymous]

similar layout to PistolPete's (Maravich?)...

freelance HO, a CR and CP interchange with my own little mining railroad.

No mainline running yet......just mining switching, interchange switching, and yard work. Somewhere in Pennsylvania, 1970's maybe

Jim

[Anonymous]

i model the Southern Pacific line over Beaumont Hill, from West Colton yard to Indio. my railroad is set around 1993-1995. in that time frame, i can run just about everything that the SP owned, along with Rio Grande. and the SP was leasing locomotives from just abut every other railroad in the country so i can have some pretty colorful consists.

[on30francisco]

I model in On30 and HO. I'm modeling a freelanced logging railroad that is set in the eastern part of the country around the turn of the century (1920s). This railroad shares a track with another narrow gauge like that runs freight and passenger service ( an excuse to run passenger cars and other old time rolling stock).

[METRO]

Ok here's the data:

Name: Toronto and Selene

Location: The Greater Toronto Metro Area and a fictional metropolis called Selene, both in southern Ontario along the shore of Lake Ontario

Lines: GO Transit, Toronto Transit Commission, Seleneian Lines Commission, Canadian National, Canadian Pacific, Ontarion Northland, VIA, Amtrak

Time Period: Modern

Scale: HO

Control: DDC, with computer assistance

[mikebonellisr]

Freelance version of N.Y.Central's putnam division.1958 but I still have steam.

[greatn]

Out here where I live in western Washingtion, about 110 years ago, there was a branch line called the Everett and Monte Cristo RR. Hauled gold, copper, zinc, and of course lumber. Line got bought out by the Northern Pacific about 1900. Then two brothers bought the line to haul lumber and they renamed it the Hartford RR. Last time any traffic on line was a Goose about 1932. Of course, not on my RR. Its 1950 and still going strong!!!

[MAbruce]

Wow Ken, very nice work all around! I loved the kit-bashed structures and those old photographs are very interesting. Thanks for sharing! [tup]