trainman251well does anyone have a 4x8 either n or ho scale layout plan that has a freight line and a city along with it?
I'd suggest that you decide on scale first (a pretty fundamental decision), and then start looking for plans. HO 4X8s can be pretty limiting in terms of radii and so on, N scale of course much less so.
There are a number of HO 4X8s (and smaller) with city themes on this page from the Gateway Division of the NMRA.
Note that most plans may have city scenes added, even if the original track plan art doesn't include them. So you can probably choose a plan that has the track features you like and some empty space, then fill it that space with city structures arranged as you like.
For example, this HO 4X8 track plan with a small yard could easily be converted to more of a city theme by reducing the size of the industries and adding streets and city structures.
Designs with a central divider like this one offer the option of modeling some city buildings against the backdrop as flats or low-relief models.
Good luck.
Layout Design GalleryLayout Design Special Interest Group
"Many small railroads dreamed of being transcontinentals, so a number of midwestern railroads added "& Pacific" at the end of their name. Many never came close to the Pacific...in fact quite a few railroads didn't serve all the cities in their name. The "Frisco" (St.Louis - San Francisco) never got close to California, just as the Minneapolis & St.Louis never reached Missouri."
And the most famous of all , perhaps? The ATSF, albeit NOT a samllroad, never made it to Santa Fe.
Bear "It's all about having fun."
trainman251 well does anyone have a 4x8 either n or ho scale layout plan that has a freight line and a city along with it?
well does anyone have a 4x8 either n or ho scale layout plan that has a freight line and a city along with it?
I have a 5x9 HO layout plan that is IN a city, but does not quite include the big uptown district you are probably thinkling of.
There is a long drawn-out (and actually uncompleted) discussion of it from several weeks back listed in this layouts forum as 5x9 layout of Corpus Christi, Texas.
RE: DIVISION, SUBDIVISION ETC. AS PART OF A LAYOUT NAME...
Santa Fe absorbed several smaller railroads into its system. Some were chartered with the intent of becoming part of the Santa Fe. In some case, Texas had a law requiring railroads operating in Texas to be headquartered in Texas, so some widespread systems had affiliates operated as part of the system but for legal purposes, chartered in Texas. Two big ATSF affiliates were Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe, and Panhandle and Santa Fe.
GC&SF was headquartered in nthis office and station buildiong in Galveston, now the railroad museum...
I wanted to model Santa Fe in Texas but have some "leigh-way" (Leighant wants leigh-way) to model the characteristics of certain localities without having to make them exact replicas. Change them around to fit my druthers. So my "dream layout" based on the Santa Fe approximately from Temple through nHouston to Galveston, and with secondary main to East Texas and Louisiana, was the Santa Vaca and Santa Fe. I have used that name over 30 years.
Looking for a name for my model railroad and for the name of the big city I wanted to model. My favorite prototype is Santa Fe from the time I got my Lionel warbonnet streamliner set in 1950-something. The Lionel catalog had an artist's painting of the train going through what looked like Monument Valley. Romanticized Southwest. Southwest. A mission station like Albuquerque or San Diego or like SP's in San Antonio. So many Santa Fe stations and towns had names in Spanish with some kind of a religious connotation. Santa Fe = holy faith. San Diego = Saint James. Santa Cruz = holy cross. And so on. I thought of a real Santa Fe town in California-- Victorville in the desert. And that reminded me of Vacaville, where there was some kind of prison disturbance. Therefore: SANTA VACA- railroad of the Holy Cow.
What I once thought I might model in my dream layout...
This overly-ambititious scheme included representations of several parts of the real Santa Fe identified on the prototype as subdivisions, districts, etc. I have given up on the idea of building all this. I once modeled the line through Neola and called that layout the "East Texas District of the Santa Vaca and Santa Fe Rwy" (my version of the Santa Fe's actual Conroe District).
Big Piney was on a shortline chartered for legal purposes as a common carrier but actually owned by Big Piney Lumber Co. The common carrier was the Johnston and East Texas (abbreviated as JET)
The logging operation also ran its directly-owned logging trams over the JET and by trackage rights, a short distance on the SV&SF to Neola Reload. (similar to the operation of Kirby Lumber Co. logging trams over ATSF track near Silsbee, Texas)
The Cane Belt line, actually just a staging track on my dream scheme, represented the Santa Fe's Matagorda District, originally built as the Cane Belt Railroad.
The green circle labeled Blimp Base represented Navy-owned tracks "aboard" (Navy-talk for "located on") the U S Naval Air Station Hitchcock LTA, where LTA means Lighter than Air. O planned to make this part of a huge railroad, but I built a 2x3 foot portable version of it called facetitiously the "Lighter than Air Railroad."
My current layout under construction, dreams pared down to fit in a spare bedroom, is my version of Galveston, called Karankawa for the Indians that inhabited the island 200 years ago.
The real Santa Fe in Galveston:
My twist-
This layout would be formally called "Karankawa Terminal District of the Santa Vaca and Santa Fe," in parallel with the real Santa Fe's "Galveston Terminal District." So I follow real railroad names but with a twist.
bearmanAnd the most famous of all , perhaps? The ATSF, albeit NOT a samllroad, never made it to Santa Fe.
Yes, it did. Santa Fe wasn't served by the ATSF mainline, but rather by a branch from Lamy completed in 1880. In Santa Fe, the ATSF shared a dual gauge yard with the D&RGW's 3' gauge Santa Fe Branch (better known as the Chili Line) until that line's abandonment in 1941. Today the old ATSF branch is an independent shortline, the Santa Fe Southern.
SPV bearmanAnd the most famous of all , perhaps? The ATSF, albeit NOT a samllroad, never made it to Santa Fe. Yes, it did. Santa Fe wasn't served by the ATSF mainline, but rather by a branch from Lamy completed in 1880. In Santa Fe, the ATSF shared a dual gauge yard with the D&RGW's 3' gauge Santa Fe Branch (better known as the Chili Line) until that line's abandonment in 1941. Today the old ATSF branch is an independent shortline, the Santa Fe Southern.
I stand corrected.
A lot of research and thought might preceed any naming of your road related to the area. Where did your motive power come from? Is there a need for the road that fits a current or past reality? Will your road connect with a real railroad at a single point? Could it have ever been real and justified based on history? A small road is easy to name and justify provided a good bit of research is done ahead of time.
Here is the story of the PUP (Paradox, Uravan and Placerville).....Named after real places, in a real area in Colorado that had and supplied a lot of valuable mineral ores and coal during its period of operation. All of its history and material supplies are based on historical realities of the period and reasonable assumptions. You will see how your railroad's story can be woven to an amazing tale related to world and local history and how any one living in the area who knows its history might say "yes, it could have happened."
This entire scenario was studied, researched and "noodled out" before I laid the first piece of HOn3 track.
This 58 mile long road with 81 miles of track was created in 1938 to extend railroad hauling of mined mineral ore and coal traffic out to the west of the Rio Grande Southern’s western most territory at Placerville. It was formed by a consortium of large mining corporations and mineral investors to handle pre-WWII increases in traffic and new mineral discovery’s of vanadium, copper and other strategic minerals stretching out to the paradox valley on the Colorado plateau.
Investment money was saved in the startup by purchasing 4 engines that were used on the D&RGW. These were found at the scrapper yards, just before scrapping. Likewise, rail and other basics were also obtained from the RGS, C&S and D&RGW when they were tearing up disused or non-profitable branch lines and spurs in the late 30’s. This P.U.&P expansion got a real boost just before the war when the D&RGW pulled up its track and operations on its “Chili line” connecting Antonito with Santa Fe in 1941. The surplus rail and ties, purchased at scrap prices, allowed for a surplus of rail on the “PUP”. This would enable it to branch off the “main” with spurs and short branch connections to new mines both to the north and south along its east-west route, in future. What a future it was too!
The war brought a new and vibrant mineral rush to the area as vanadium, copper and coal were needed in vast quantities. In late 1942, an odd War Department contract was let to the PUP to haul the vast old ore tailings pile from Uravan and other long operating vanadium mines in the area! (Between the two world wars, Uravan mined and milled for Vanadium and tossed out the Uranium bearing material as worthless tailings.) This old tailings hauling contract both stunned and excited PUP’s consortium directors as there was thousands of tons of these old tailings. The Manhattan Project and its need for Uranium was still a closely guarded secret. The cover story for the curious was that there was still a bit of Vanadium in the tailings and it was critically needed for its role in hardening steel for armor plate.
The road did not charge mines that were part of the consortium’s parent companies, but took percentages from their revenues based in proportion to the ore shipped. Non-consortium mines paid a standard haulage rate that was just below that of the RGS or D&RGW. This was done so that those roads would not push tracks west in competition.
The little road always operated at a recorded net “loss”, but as it served the consortium and did produce some out of consortium revenues, it served as a tax write-off in the end for the consortium owners and investors.
There were never any passenger trains, per se, on the PUP. However, what little human traffic extant was handled by “geese” from the RGS and the single P.U.&P. combine caboose that was made up, one-off, at the lone PUP shop and engine repair facility at NatNuc junction.
A symbiotic relationship developed between the narrow gauge lines during the wartime traffic boom. The PUP hauled vanadium/uranium, lead, copper, coal, silver and gold ore to Placerville where its cars went on the RGS to Durango’s ore concentrator facility.
The PUP also rented and leased engines to and from the RGS and D&RGW. It was not uncommon to see D&RGW engines on th’ PUP. The D&RGW engine might leave the concentrator with empties in Durango with an RGS crew and change to a PUP crew in Placerville who would then take the train to the various mines on the PUP. Thus cars and engines from all three roads could be found mixed in an effort to streamline and speed up wartime needs. Only the three railroad’s accountants had trouble with the cross traffic, leases and rentals along with the mixed billings. In spite of this, the war was a busy time for these narrow gauge lines. The PUP’s four engines, 25 revenue cars and its 41 employees would do yeoman’s duty during the war.
Alas, post war road building and robust improvements in heavy trucking forced this little road under at the same time, (1952), that the RGS filed for abandonment. Some say that the broken RGS link from Placerville to Durango’s concentrator, killed th’ PUP, but others noted that if the PUP had been truly practical, the money savvy consortium would have bought the abandoned RGS track from Placerville to Durango. In reality, it seems, that the new roads and improved truck capacity were the deciding factor. Also, Utah’s Lisbon valley was opening up with vast new uranium and copper mines. The new mill at Monticello was easier to reach at the PUP’s western most range, (Paradox), via new trucking roads.
Thus, Th’ PUP was allowed to go down with the RGS in May of 1952. The resilient, money savvy consortium got into the trucking business as smoothly as they got in the railroad business, but this time, they only hauled consortium ore. They began rapidly scraping the PUP’s engines, rolling stock and track to purchase trucks and set up depots for them. By mid 1953, the PUP was completely gone and some of its built up right of ways and small spurs that went to producing mines in out-of-the-way places became trucking roads.
Traffic and Geography over the PUP
Placerville was always an RGS town in that the local mines near there were serviced by the RGS and its link to the D&RGW via Ridgeway and Durango. Thus, the PUP was only concerned with those mines west of Placerville. Placerville, for the PUP, was a simple terminus with limited facilities as they used RGS coal and water that were billed out to the PUP monthly. It was a “handoff” point to the RGS where crews and engines could be exchanged. Since the PUP was never firmly established as a hauler of goods, mail or people, its mainline cross country track was basically a means of creating revenue generating, short spurs. Eighty percent of the PUP’s human traffic, what little there was, consisted of miners and their families going in and out of the area. Ninety-five percent of its freight revenue traffic was coal, ore and concentrates. The remaining twenty percent of the human traffic consisted of local ranchers, farmers, salesmen, doctors, company executives, etc. The remaining non-ore freight revenue was made up of explosives, tools and equipment, food and dry goods for company mines and what few local stores dotted the landscape.
The PUP rarely followed the San Miguel River or the questionable local roads, which often did hug the river. Instead, PUP tracks meandered along low-lying hills in order to spur off to successful mining operations.
If the PUP had an interesting hard point or "compnay town", it would be its mid-point junction located between the towns of Naturita and Nucla, simply called “NatNuc Junction”. Only a couple of miles of hard surfaced, dirt road separated the two towns. This area was loaded with rich mineral deposits and mines. The PUP, at NatNuc, had a small headquarters building, a few company homes and bachelor crew quarters. There was a station with platform, engine house/repair facility, coaling, sanding stations and a water tower. Thus, if you were looking for what you could call a PUP “railroad town”, the confluence of the local automotive roads, the towns of Nucla and Naturita and NatNuc junction would be it.
NatNuc also sported a telephone, telegraph, a service station, Mel's general/food/hardware store and Miss Molly’s combination café and two-room boarding house. This made NatNuc a tiny bedroom community between both Naturita and Nucla. All flourished throughout the war years. The Uranium mill just northwest of Naturita was directly entered and serviced by the PUP.
The PUP mining consortium deliberately chose not to enter either town. This avoided the PUP becoming indentured, by proxy, to provide passenger service. Instead, they chose to offer “catch as catch can” passenger service on their combine caboose ore trains, but preferred the daily round-trip goose run from the RGS on their property to ferry what passengers and light freight there was.
Fully, 80% of the passengers traveling over the PUP boarded or disembarked from either a goose or combine caboose at NatNuc along with about 70% of the non-mining service freight. In October each year, ranchers would even fill up about 6 or 8 stock cars a week with either sheep or cattle to go to market via the PUP/RGS connection. The once-daily RGS goose that rapidly trundled over the PUP’s trackage handled all local mail and what would amount to 50% of its human traffic and about 10% of its non-ore freight. Mail was carried under the RGS’ mail contract. Between the goose and steamed combine traffic, as many as 20-30 revenue people traveled on the PUP daily during the height of the war years traffic.
Passengers arriving at NatNuc were on their own. However, with the arrival of the PUP’s mixed train or scheduled goose, there were almost always several trucks, wagons or vehicles from merchants, and local mines come to fetch supplies or other goods. Passengers learned to hitch rides for the mile or so into either town; otherwise, they would be forced to walk.
This was purely a company mining community and the PUP merely passed through, but did have a standpipe there to water up for the trip out to paradox and back. Little switching was needed at Uravan, as the operation was simple and streamlined. The company loaded and set out its own cars. This left the PUP engines to just spot and uncouple the empties brought in and then just couple to loaded cars that were headed out. Uravan sent out concentrates and ore as well as old tailings. Uravan was the number one tonnage shipper.
Paradox
This was not really a formal town, but was just a looped turnabout with a loader platform that serviced small mine operations in the neighborhood. As the western-most terminus of the “PUP” it was named for the valley where it was located. Small trucks would deliver ore to small, subdivided ore cars dropped off there. There were only about 4-6 small homes in paradox. There was also a service station-general store combination which offered low rent trailer park spaces with limited electrical hookup to miners that were either seasonal or who were just in prospecting. The train, nor goose, spent much time there. There were no services for the steam engines at all. The railroad did have a seldom-used combination bunkhouse-tool shed there that the store’s owner looked after. A permanently parked, tank car of water and gondola of coal was on a side track for engine emergency use and winter heating use by the people there who would pay the railroad, through the local store owner, for what coal they took from the gondola. There were several short spurs to company mines north and south of Paradox.
Paradox seemed to be the home of the “dog hole mine”. These were mining operations owned and operated by one to three men with limited resources and tools. They blasted and scratched out the smallest hole possible to chase a vein of uranium or other valuable mineral into a hillside. Thus, the term “dog hole”, as half of the mines were worked on the hands and knees. Such mines needed limited shoring and timber and the ore they chased were prime vein runs of nearly pure pitchblende or corvusite. The ore was all “hand-cobbed” and brought about 20 times the price per ton as standard, common grade ores. A half-ton of hand-cobbed pitchblende could sustain, with some profit, a 2-man operation for a full month! Special gondolas with partitions in them were constructed for the small Paradox operations.
The Paradox area was typically hot, windy, bleak and barren in the summer and cold and miserable in the winter. Many of the men out there, especially in the dog hole mines, were psychologically shaken or damaged WWII vets who reveled in its peace and quiet where there was little society to try and fit back into. Like many hard rock miners, they were fiercely independent and self-sufficient. The PUP allowed them the luxury of occasional trips back to Naturita, Nucla or Placerville to get their “ashes hauled” or have a celebratory weekend drunk with benefits.
Thus ends the tale of the PUP a possible modeler's paradise.
Richard
If I can't fix it, I can fix it so it can't be fixed
Edit - oops I see now that someone else already pointed this out.
No Problem, TexZ, I have been known to respond first and read later as well. My regards.
Well I decided to get over myself and not worry about someone 'stealing' any ideas and give em up.
Most recent names are actually based on letters put together that I thought looked good for a reporting mark. National Locomotive Leasing Company, or NLLX, or NLCX. I also though of NLCX on cars.
My other newest one, Rock Prairie & Sugar Creek RR. This is pretty much just two things I heard on tv and put them together in a railroad name.
Duck Creek & Oneida RR, reporting marks DCOR. Based on small town and indian reservation, also my wifes 'tribe', and a creek that runs through it.
I also come up with lots of business names, mostly based on stuff I see or hear. Am thinking of modeling small town in the 60's with a feed mill named after my wife's maiden name.
Just use your head, ears, and eyes.
There's a prototype for everything, they say. Including my own initials as reporting marks.
My initials are "KLA".
My April 1954 Official Railway Equipment Register lists KLAX reporting mark registered to H.Earl Clark Co of Havre, Montana 8 cars TM ca.8000 gallons
An old Moody's Industrial Manual from 1955 lists H. Earl Clack, with 200 wholesale and retail petroleum outlets, a wholly owned subsidiary of Husky Oil Co. acquired Dec.1, 1954. Husky also had oil properties in Texas, Louisiana and 5 other states, refinery at Cody, Wyoming, steel plants Omaha & Boise.
I don't and never have name my layout..I do however name my freelance railroad or if I'm modeling a prototype I simply say CSX Slate Creek Industrial Lead.I do name my industrial switching layout after a industrial park or industrial lead(branch).
Now my Slate Creek Industrial Lead layout has step up a notch to Slate Creek Rail which leases the track from the Maumee Port Authority and operates as a switching road serving two disconnected industrial parks Slate Creek and Lakeview Industrial Park.
SCR 3038.The 3038 will be used at Lakeview.
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
Re AT&SF, if memory serves, the Santa Fe in the name originally referred to the old Santa Fe Trail, which the railroad followed for a considerable distance, not the city of Santa Fe per se.
Keep in mind Santa Fe, New Mexico is not the only Santa Fe in the USA.
Well thanks everyone for the suggestions and the extra knowledge you provided me with. I'm partially knew to the hobby, only been into it for about 7 years but i have learned a lot during those years. to learn more about model railroading and railroading in general, i created a facebook group called Rail Enthusiast. if you would like to join and help me out that would be great. link: https://www.facebook.com/groups/RailEnthusiast/ Thanks, trainman251
Something from left field...
One of my other interests, acquired quite recently after seeing a documentary, is the literature of H.P. Lovecraft. He wrote horror stories in the early 20th century, many of them set in a fictional chunk of New England that includes a large city called Arkham on the Miskatonic River.
So my layout is going to be the Arkham & Miskatonic RR, with the steam tenders and cabooses labeled MISKATONIC in classic RR Roman letters.
It sounds like a real place name, and also pays homage to a couple of famous model railroads, the Housatonic, and the Allegheny Midland.
Weird, yes, but who cares!
I wouldn't start naming your engines. But that's just me, and I don't say I didn't warn you, if your figures start turning into fish people.
Oh and remember when Cthullu calls he calls collect...
Ha! Think I'll let it go to voicemail.
I briefly considered carrying the theme through on the layout, with strategically placed figures, tombs and such, but... nah.
Maybe I'll just construct a tunnel through the Mountains of Madness.
punder13 Something from left field... One of my other interests, acquired quite recently after seeing a documentary, is the literature of H.P. Lovecraft. He wrote horror stories in the early 20th century, many of them set in a fictional chunk of New England that includes a large city called Arkham on the Miskatonic River.
I wonder if that's where the creators of Batman got the name for Arkham Asylum.
Modeling the Baltimore waterfront in HO scale
Jumijo punder13 Something from left field... One of my other interests, acquired quite recently after seeing a documentary, is the literature of H.P. Lovecraft. He wrote horror stories in the early 20th century, many of them set in a fictional chunk of New England that includes a large city called Arkham on the Miskatonic River. I wonder if that's where the creators of Batman got the name for Arkham Asylum.
That's what popped into my head right away too!! Glad to see I'm not the only Railfan / Batfan.
I know the animated series have used similar devices. The character "Rossum" and the company "Rossum's Robotics" that appears in a couple of episodes of the 1980's-90's series, is based on the early 20th c. play "Rossum's Universal Robots" that brought the term "robot" into the English language.
Have you decided on a prototype railroad to model or is this total freelancing? If it is a loose recreation of an existing (or existed prototype) why not make up a new division and use the geographical location to help you with the name? If this is total freelance, again use the geographical location (this is what prototypes do)?
Craig North Carolina
You could always name it AT&SF for Alota Time and Small Fortune. There's loco's and rolling stock already made up for it!
RMax
Well, thanks everyone!! You really helped me with all of this! i'm going to build the one thats from the n scale Japanese forum in HO scale. i was told i had to double all the measurements which shouldn't be hard at all and im going to look back at these responses to help me with choosing a name. BTW i have a facebook group for people who love trains and modeling them. If you could join that would be great. we are always looking for good members who help out others with questions and post about trains! please join!: https://www.facebook.com/groups/RailEnthusiast/
trainman251 i was told i had to double all the measurements which shouldn't be hard at all
Doubling the N scale 4X6 you were talking about earlier would create a solid table of roughly 8'X12'. With aisles all around, that requires a room about 13'X17'. Much of the interior of the monolith will be unreachable and thus, unworkable.
Good luck -- it seems like you are either not understanding (or not valuing) the advice that folks are giving to you.
so if i double the diameters of the N scale from 12 to 24 to make it HO it would require a 8x12
trainman251so if i double the diameters of the N scale from 12 to 24 to make it HO it would require a 8x12
With that exact design, yes. Math is math. You can't double the size of the curves and keep them on the same size benchwork.
.. and scale model railroad curves are typically measured in radius, not diameter.