That one railroad

[Anonymous]

I was first brought to railroading and model railroading by the Norfolk Southern running behind my house in nicholasvill,kentucky however I was 2 at the time and we only stayed there 2 years before we moved back to my birth place , Oklahoma City. I have grown up with the railroads in Oklahoma and Kansas. I never saw a couple of my favorite roads like the MKT and the Rock Island in action so although I originaly was going to model these in the 50's, but since I have limited recources of info, I decided to model the modern era. I like the AT&L and Farmrail ( Oklahoma shortline/regionals ) but what railroad do I turn to for that heart stopping operation and iorn glory type of railroading ? I really do not like CSX or NS and I just can't bear to model the UP . so which one / well there is that real flashy one that runs through Edmond, Oklahoma. It holds me up at 6:30 almost every thursday when i am trying to get to my fencing lesson. that cool pain scheme,a dn long fast trains. you guess which one i am talking about ? BNSF . I just realized how much I liked the BNSF a couple days ago. I now want to model the north-south line through oklahoma. I will probably also model Amtrak's heartland flyer. anyone else have a favorite line like this ?

[Anonymous]

HMM,

I find I like high intensity Mountain Railraod action with lots of flashy colors. Lets look at our options.

D&RGW? No Flashy color was only on the F Units.
NP? No Flashy color was reserved for passenger trains.
CB&Q? They had a network of branch lines in the black hills that still hold my interest. but its not high intensity.
BN? See CB&Q
Union Pacific? No they pissed me off royaly.
SP? Like NP the flashy colors were reserved for passenger trains.
Southern? I said flashy colors didn't I?
N&W? They had cool steam, but again I said flashy colors.
B&O. This line holds promise. It had the mountains and had the flashy colors. But I am looking for action close to home.
C&O? Dip job blue. No thank you.
Milwuakee Road? You can't miss that orange even if you tried. But their mountain sections have to many quirks for me.
That leaves GN.
Had a flashy steam locomotive paint sheme. (The so called "Glacier Park" scheme.) and two flashy diesel paint schemes. Orange and Green, and Blue and White. And Crossed four major mountain ranges.

With all the criteria listed above that I used as considerations. You can see how I arrived at GN.

James

[Anonymous]

Well, there's a couple for me.

The Kettle Valley RR/Kettle Valley Division of the CPR. Mostly because I hiked a lot of it around Myra when I was a kid in the boy scouts. My next layout might end up being CPR/GN in the Kettle Valley

I'm also a fan of CN, Just love the noodle, and it's gorgeous Green & Gold predecessor. This is what I model currently, in Southern Ontario.

[Anonymous]

I model BNSF and Amtrak so I get plenty flashy colors on my layout.
.

[Anonymous]

i cant stand the BNSF orange yuck!! but i like the Santa Fe blue/yellow bonnet.

[Anonymous]

I model the ROCK ISLAND, so I have almost ALL the colors on my layout !!!

[ddechamp71]

My absolute favourite line: SP/UP's Tehachapi Pass in California: a lot of great mountain action, including the famous Loop where you can see freights turn over themselves. The most interresting parts are to my eyes between Caliente and Tehachapi. About 20 trains a day each way. Still a lot of single track on this section, and helper operation, with all that means about headaches for dispatchers.

I chose to model selected parts of this line (even in Z scale we suffer of selective compresion!), and it will be on summer 1997. Why?

-BN / AT & SF merger 09/1995
-SP / UP merger 07/1996

My goal is to have:
1)summer (ie dry and yellow colored) desert landscape
2)railroads soon after their respective mergers, so that the motive power hadn't enough time to have had their new paintscheme applied on all units.

That's why my roster is:
-ATSF, BN and a only a single BNSF (Heritage 1) unit
-SP, UP, C & NW and D & RGW
-plus a spare NS unit to show one of the miscellaneous engines that sometimes venture on "foreign" routes (on the real Tehachapi Pass I used to see CR, NS, KCS, CSX, and even CP Rail engines embedded within "normal" motive power, UP or BNSF).

[ddechamp71]

My absolute favourite line: SP/UP's Tehachapi Pass in California: a lot of great mountain action, including the famous Loop where you can see freights turn over themselves. The most interresting parts are to my eyes between Caliente and Tehachapi. About 20 trains a day each way. Still a lot of single track on this section, and helper operation, with all that means about headaches for dispatchers.

I chose to model selected parts of this line (even in Z scale we suffer of selective compresion!), and it will be on summer 1997. Why?

-BN / AT & SF merger 09/1995
-SP / UP merger 07/1996

My goal is to have:
1)summer (ie dry and yellow colored) desert landscape
2)railroads soon after their respective mergers, so that the motive power hadn't enough time to have had their new paintscheme applied on all units.

That's why my roster is:
-ATSF, BN and a only a single BNSF (Heritage 1) unit
-SP, UP, C & NW and D & RGW
-plus a spare NS unit to show one of the miscellaneous engines that sometimes venture on "foreign" routes (on the real Tehachapi Pass I used to see CR, NS, KCS, CSX, and even CP Rail engines embedded within "normal" motive power, UP or BNSF).