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Favorite railroad

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  • Member since
    January 2004
  • From: Québec
  • 82 posts
Posted by SD40-2W on Monday, December 19, 2011 5:52 PM

CN when the C in CN still meant something.

  • Member since
    July 2011
  • From: right around here
  • 267 posts
Posted by gabeusmc on Monday, December 19, 2011 5:52 PM

bulldog_fan

After MILW there's a shifting alliance of other favorites:  CNW, GN, Santa Fe, Erie Lackawanna, Maine Central, the Monon... which perhaps explains why I have *way* too many trains in boxes in the closet, waiting for me to figure out what to do with them.  Smile

Dean

and thats a problem??Wink

"Mess with the best, die like the rest" -U.S. Marine Corp

MINRail (Minessota Rail Transportaion Corp.) - "If they got rid of the weeds what would hold the rails down?"

And yes I am 17.

  • Member since
    December 2009
  • From: Dayton, Ohio
  • 64 posts
Posted by bulldog_fan on Monday, December 19, 2011 6:50 PM

gabeusmc

and thats a problem??Wink

Well, you raise a good point, but those darn shirts are starting to crowd the train boxes a little...

  • Member since
    December 2011
  • 112 posts
Posted by SWFX on Monday, December 19, 2011 8:46 PM

Apache Railway in Arizona

  • Member since
    June 2006
  • From: Baltimore, MD
  • 1,726 posts
Posted by CSX_road_slug on Monday, December 19, 2011 10:07 PM

I model whatever is closest to where I live.  Mostly because I can just drive a mile or two up the road and see the prototype in action.  So, in my [Michigan] childhood it was the C&O and the NYC.  When my family moved to Maryland we lived near the Metro branch of the B&O that runs between Washington DC and PointOfRocks, MD.  Early in my Navy enlistment I was stationed in San Diego and developed a liking for the Santa Fe and the SP.  After I moved back to Maryland and returned to the hobby in 1988, CSX was the main carrier in my area - so I modeled that.

Eventually I got homesick for the way things were during my teenage years (early 1970s), so I have decided to go back to modeling the B&O.

-Ken in Maryland  (B&O modeler, former CSX modeler)

  • Member since
    January 2009
  • 86 posts
Posted by U-3-b on Tuesday, December 20, 2011 6:49 PM

Growing up near the northern end of Potomac Yard and seeing the huge yard and shops in Enola on the way to New York every year for Thanksgiving, made me an early fan of…        wait for it…     Penn Central.  I shall now duck for cover.  I loved seeing the E-44s and GG-1s enter the yard.  Being a small kid and seeing the big black engines just did something for me. I have never owned a model of any PC car or engine, but that was the favorite of my youth.

 

With that being said my favorite road is the one my grandpa worked for from 1928-1968, Grand Trunk Western. I have never lived anywhere near where it ran, but both sets of Grandparents did so I got to see it every summer.  As I grew older and read more and realized that they ran steam up to a few years before I was born, made me like it even more.  I own lots of books, photos and of course trains from the era I chose to model, 1953 and as soon as I retire and stop moving every few years in my chosen profession, I will find out where I am going to spend the rest of my life and build my version of the South Bend Subdivision with steam galore and a few F-3s mixed in for fun.

 

Steve

Collecting to model the GTW in August 1953

  • Member since
    January 2011
  • From: Lancaster city
  • 682 posts
Posted by cats think well of me on Tuesday, December 20, 2011 8:50 PM

I like many aspects of many railroads and locales across this world and on top of that a fan of old automobiles and steamers throughout my living memory. Seeing these things as rare and special rather than just old relics from an old time, not to mention I'd been virtually the only one among my peers who took more than a glance at these old things from the past. But, which railroad(s) strike my fancy? I'm from Virginia and really love the N&W in the '50s as I fell in love with their famous J-class 4-8-4s once I first laid my eyes on photos of 611 in excursion service. I'm also a fan of the Pennsylvania in the same era after seeing photos of the railroad, plus I've always found the steel industry fascinating and that railroad and the industry seem to kind of go together. Plus, the selection of PRR models is quite vast which makes me happy. 

Alvie

  • Member since
    April 2012
  • 164 posts
Posted by ONR FAN on Friday, April 6, 2012 6:25 AM

TA462

I'm a big fan of the Ontario Northland Railway as well as VIA Rail.

Me too.   You model the ONR, do you have any pictures of your layout, loco's and rolling stock you could post?

  • Member since
    November 2002
  • From: US
  • 4,648 posts
Posted by jacon12 on Friday, April 6, 2012 9:33 AM

Southern Rwys

 and a close second, Norfolk Southern.

 Jarrell

 HO Scale DCC Modeler of 1950, give or take 30 years.
  • Member since
    December 2002
  • 1,511 posts
Posted by pastorbob on Friday, April 6, 2012 9:41 AM

SANTA FE!! ATSF!! Not the Big Nasty Santa Fe, the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe.

I like Santa Fe.  Questions?

Bob

Bob Miller http://www.atsfmodelrailroads.com/
  • Member since
    August 2001
  • From: US
  • 791 posts
Posted by steamage on Saturday, April 7, 2012 10:06 AM

I model Southern Pacific in the San Fernando Valley, as some of you know.  But for modern railroading, my favorite is the Modoc Northern, a short lived railroad in Northern California several years ago.  They had SD-9 a GE U-boat and an old DRGW caboose all equipment painted up in the green with yellow lettering.  

 

  • Member since
    August 2001
  • From: US
  • 791 posts
Posted by steamage on Saturday, April 7, 2012 10:06 AM

I model Southern Pacific in the San Fernando Valley, as some of you know.  But for modern railroading, my favorite is the Modoc Northern, a short lived railroad in Northern California several years ago.  They had SD-9 a GE U-boat and an old DRGW caboose all equipment painted up in the green with yellow lettering.  

 

  • Member since
    July 2006
  • From: Sebring FL
  • 842 posts
Posted by floridaflyer on Saturday, April 7, 2012 10:17 AM

Take a ride on the Reading, do not pass Go, do not collect $200

  • Member since
    March 2016
  • 1,447 posts
Posted by Eriediamond on Sunday, April 8, 2012 11:23 PM

You get three guesses and the first two don't count !!!

  • Member since
    December 2011
  • From: Bradford County, PA
  • 1,319 posts
Posted by Lehigh Valley 2089 on Monday, April 9, 2012 10:48 AM

I would have to second the LVRR.

However, I like the S&NY as a short line, and the Lackawanna.

The Lehigh Valley Railroad, the Route of the Black Diamond Express, John Wilkes and Maple Leaf.

-Jake, modeling the Barclay, Towanda & Susquehanna.

  • Member since
    October 2010
  • From: Centennial, CO
  • 3,218 posts
Posted by Stourbridge Lion on Monday, April 9, 2012 11:42 AM

D&H and any of the Colorado historical roads...

  • Member since
    March 2008
  • 258 posts
Posted by J.Rob on Monday, April 9, 2012 6:33 PM

I have to list more than one. Pennsy in the diesel era, as well as N & W and Virginian in the diesel era. C&O in the steam era as well as Virginian. Pennsy ran everything in the diesel market, Virginian and N&W ran high hoods. C&O ran a lot of my favorite steam locos 2-8-2, 2-8-8-2, 2-8-4, 2-10-4, and 2-6-6-6 all of which were very heavily built and powerful.

Wheeling & Lake Erie ,B&O, and Pennsy because they ran to the town I grew up in Wheeling, WV. Sadly now the trains no longer run in that city as the tracks have become trails and the businesses that needed the trains are gone as are most of the people.

My as yet to be built railroad will involve revisionist history and will depict the OHIO valley as a still great manufacturing center. The new hybrid line will be the Virginian and Lake Erie, merged with Virginian, Wheeling and Lake Erie, Ohio river railroad, Wheeling terminal railway, and granting trackage rights to B&O and Pennsy.

Since I am going to rewrite history I can also fix it in time to be the fall of 1959 and have the last days of steam with rapidly expanding diesel roster. And lots of heavy industry that needed the railroads.

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