freelance modelers, what are you modeling?

[Comrad_Durandal]

I guess my 'backstory' is really more a guiding theme - something to guide the creation process.  Subject to change, revision, discarding, and starting anew as most guiding principles are.  I really only set out with one so that I can choose appropriate industries, as well as limit my selection of eras, buildings, and track design.

Considering I am planning on the idea of an America with modern universal passenger train services, I should perhaps plan most of my train routes to have overhead lines, so I have a reason to purchase a TGV...when I win the lottery. 

[trainnut1250]

While my layout is freelanced, my approach has more in common with prototype modelers than freelancers.  I chose to take scenes from various prototypes and string them together in a layout.  Rather than one California shortline, I chose scenes from several.

I  do have several freelanced scenes on the bottom deck but the majority of the places and scenes on the layout are based on a prototype location.   I have scratchbuilt or found kits for most of the structures in the prototype scenes and have tried to faithfully recreate them while adapting them to fit on the layout.  Alterations such as flipping the track scheme adding a siding here and there are considered fair game. 

All of the rolling stock is from the era and many of the signature cars from the various shortlines are modeled.  The locos and cabooses are also from the various prototypes and lettered accordingly. 

In general, this approach does allow me to research specific locations and rolling stock without limiting myself to one prototype.   I have tried to get the feel of the prototype location and equipment even if the specifics are not exact.

As for a backstory, I did that on my old layout and frankly no one but me cared.  If I started to explain it to visitors, their eyes would glaze over in a hurry.  On this layout I don't even bother with a backstory and I hope that the consistent application of standards and details give the layout enough cohesiveness to make a backsotry unnecessary. 

 

Guy

[Texas Zepher]

Well, since the thread has changed Subjects and Topics for that matter ....   My prior post was a history of my prior N-scale railroad.  On the new more general topic of freelance and not bound to N-scale.   When I switched back to HO scale, the N-scale Pine Ridge and North River became garage sale fodder.    My new plan is to model around Pueblo Colorado in the mid 1950's.    Unlike the original poster my railroad certainly did not buy up all the competition in fact the whole point of Pueblo is where I can get a steel mill with its own railroad, the Missouri Pacific, Santa Fe, Denver Rio Grande, Colorado Southern (Burlington), and Rock Island all meeting in one place.    My railroad is the Pueblo & Arkansas River Valley RR.   It aquired (as in real life) the Canon City San Juan but in my world it di d not honor the Treaty of Boston and kept the Royal Gorge for itself.    Similarly Tesla's 1889 Colorado Springs experiments proved more fruitful and he built his first wireless power plant just north of Pueblo.   It is served by the Pike's Peak, Fossil Creek & Tesla short line.

As I said before this gets me a steel industry, all the farming (especially sugar beets) to the east, mountains to the west, major coal to the south to be moved up nort for the power plants, and tons of connections with other railroads at the height of post WWiI passenger traffic.     I have not developed a history yet, other that that which was recorded for the real Pueblo & Arkansas.

 

[Texas Zepher]

Mr. LMD

not to sound mean, but my layout is based around the fact that my railroad bought all the illinois major railroads including the rock island.

Alll?  from the Rock Island era.  That would mean that your freelance world has very few railroads other than your own.

[BobL609]

Currently the Chesapeake Transportation Co is under construction but will be located in Tidewater Virginia which is a relatively flat coastal plain. Its locomotive roster includes 2 0-6-0 switchers, a modern 4-4-0, a 3 truck Climax and since the owner's daughter just married the son of the owner of the Southern Pacific Railroad he is sending the Chesapeake Transportation Co and brand new GP-9 to try out on a trial basis.

[moelarrycurly4]

The Arkansas Southern is a fictional line that runs thru the ozarks. from Southeast MO to northern Ark.

 

[MonkeyBucket]

I decided to set up a timber machining shop on my land to supply a solid timber furniture manufacturer which I built from the ground up. Having the local rail run through my property we decided to submit a tender to re-build and lease a section of RR off SP and have diesel fuel supplied by rail to onsite storage tanks and bowsers for local and industrial traffic to use. Fork lifts, trucks loaders and generators etc...

The furniture manufacturing company had a spur installed to allow greater product distribution potential for the growing company. Who knows where they will end up. I do believe some investors are keen to buy a private switcher for the company and acquire some plantation land near by. (my shed)  hehe

I'm sure a logging company will be contracted within the year and milled timber will be making its way to the machine shops of Bucket Furniture Co. soon.

[carknocker1]

My Port Destiny terminal RR is a fictional railroad in North Florida ( similar to the St Andrews Bay  RR ) but a lot shorter , in Ho Scale . My railroad is jointly owned by the Southern RR and the L&N RR , but operated independantly , but it gives the Southern RR a Florida Gulf Coast port . The PDT has adopted many of the Southern RR practices , but not all . Along with a small seaport there is some industrial switching and there is still passenger service with the Southern RR making a connection at Port Destiny , where the PDT runs a passenger train down to the Beach  area in the old town area .

 With it's compact yard and and ample switching the work can get complicated with both railroads leaving strings of cars and picking up out bound cars as well as passenger trains , there is always a challenge.  

[MisterBeasley]

Moose Bay is a town that's, well, it's somewhere.  The only true geographical reference is the "elevation" painted on the old water tower - the same as Green Bay, Wisconsin.  The motive power and cabeese for the railroad is Milwaukee, but beneath the streets run the subways of the Moose Bay Transit Authority.  In a place that is currently made of pink foam will rise the old industrial dock known as Mooseport.  It will be served by the Moose Bay Transfer Agency, just to add confusion by overloading the MBTA name.

Coal is mined on a small scale in Moose Bay.  The fortuitous location of a coal seam nearby has its roots not in the Carboniferous Period, like most coal, but rather in the Eisenhower Period when I bought a lot of hoppers and an old Vollmer flood loader when I wore a younger man's clothes.

Sheep may safely graze, but hogs are in trouble.  The local Swift packing plant ships pork products, which arrive in double-deck stock cars.   Mmmmmm.....bacon.

The Strumpet Brewery not only ships its own product, but also is a contract brewer for several other beers and ales.  That's an excuse to buy beer reefers.

And the moose are still around.  Drive carefully.

[Colorado_Mac]

Small West Virginia city on the Ohio River served by the C&O.  US Government builds large army depot across the river during WWII, town has growth spurt, B&O builds a branch on the outskirts to serve depot, thus competition.  I'll never model the depot, just traffic to/from - and of course, the city and the two railroads.

[Mr. LMD]

GARYIG

Total freelance here. Modeling RI commuter services that would connect to Mass and north. Best thing about this hobby is just this, you can create real or not and it still works cause it's your RR LOL.

 

not to sound mean, but my layout is based around the fact that my railroad bought all the illinois major railroads including the rock island.

[jmbjmb]

I do a prototype inspired freelance.  My main inspiration is a local branch of the Southern, the Piedmont & Northern, and the Buffalo-Union Carolina.  By using them as inspiration, I am modeling the textile southeast in the mid 50s, but freelancing allows me the freedom to model towns and industries to fit the space I have without someone saying "I grew up in XYZ and that building was painted red with brown trim in September 1955" or some such.  You can never have enough prototype information to make everything correct, but with my approach, I am going for the effect -- "know I've been there, but can't quiet place it" feeling.

The back story and my "prototype" the SR, allows me to keep to a plausible there, but slide slightly if I see something I like.  For example the C&NW (Carolina & Northwestern, not that other one) was owned by SR and used SR paint schemes on their diesels, sorta, but lettered for the C&NW.  They also owned a one of a kind RS11 that the rest of the SR didn't.  This gives me the freedom to go slightly astray, but remain perfectly within the prototype  history.  And with the history of mergers, short lines, and whatnot in the SR family, you could slip one more in without anyone knowing.  And just to round things out, P&N became part of the SCL merger and while the BUC went away, SR did pickup some of the trackage for years serving the cotton mills in that area before they too went away.

[jeffrey-wimberly]

My layout reflects my thinking of what the Louisiana and Arkansas might look like had they NOT bought up stock in the Kansas City Southern.

[GARYIG]

Total freelance here. Modeling RI commuter services that would connect to Mass and north. Best thing about this hobby is just this, you can create real or not and it still works cause it's your RR LOL.

[tgindy]

Mr. LMD

My question for you modelers is did you find modeling an actual railroad easier than freelancing?

When is the modeling of the prototype ever close enough?

Allen McClelland of the Virginian & Ohio modeled a freelanced railroad with the attitude of:  Being good enough!  V&O is one of the all-time classic model railroads while capturing the prototype's Appalachian coal railroading.

Conemaugh Road & Traction is based upon 2 "what if" concepts:

[1]  What If -- Pennsylvania Railroad had electrified from Harrisburg to Pittsburgh?

[2]  What If -- Johnstown Traction Company (w/PCCs) was a short line interurban?

The (N Scale) CR&T goal is to "Catch the Flavor" of traction in Western Pennsylvania where the Pennsy runs GG1s with catanary overhead -- where PRR is "going through town" while interchanging with the CR&T.

Note:  Pennsy prototype was always breezing into your town by coming from somewhere out there, and quickly leaving your community to the world beyond on that busy 4-track mainline with no less than 4 dozen train consists/day + the passengers on the Broadway Limited.

Whereas, the 100% freelanced CR&T has single wire overhead with motive-power of PCC & box motor => "the traction" -- plus some small diesel, and perhaps some steam => "the road" -- by serving industry + passenger.

Circa 1956 allows for this transition era flexibility.  Here is JTC prototype inspiration for the CR&T's lower layout portion (note the PCC, sub-station, and Beth-Steel), and; the PRR inspiration for upper level helix tunnel portal from the Gallitzin Tunnels.  There is an actual Conemaugh Valley with the Conemaugh River lending itself to the name:  Conemaugh Road & Traction.

Again, the idea is to catch the flavor of the area with the 2 what if concepts.

[pastorbob]

Actually my main layout is based on the Santa Fe in Oklahoma, 1989, and includes Oklahoma City, Guthrie, Enid, and several smaller towns on a three deck layout.  The line ends up at Waynoka OK which is staging.

However, at Cherokee Ok on the Enid Dist, there used to be a Santa Fe branch line running north south and connecting with Santa Fe Cherokee.  That line was abandoned, but I resurrected it with a twist.  I made it a freelance struggling wheat hauling line connecting with Santa Fe.  The railroad is called the Oklahoma Northern, using a red and white paint scheme, has its own grain cars and a handful of geeps.  That satisfies both my freelance interest combined with my proto type interest.

The ON runs unit grain trains up to the Santa Fe, and has a yard at Cherokee joint with Santa Fe.

Works for me.

Bob

[Mr. LMD]

It seems like their are some prototype modelers commenting. My question for you modelers is did you find modeling an actual railroad easier than freelancing?

[caldreamer]

The Goldn State Railroad is a shortlline running from San Jose at the bottom of the San Francisco Peninsula east to the Sierra Nevda Moutntins and then noth to Southern Oregon, terminating at Medford, Or.  It begn when the Southern Pacific and Western Pacific were in financil trouble and we purchsed a number of their cast off lines.  With the purchase of a few shortlines and laying of some additional track the railraoad handes all traffic through northern California. An additional double track line with a 1.5% ruling grade, named the San Juan Cutoff had to be built to help accomodate all of the traffic over the Sierra Nevada Moutains.

 

[blownout cylinder]

@steinjr...

My rail line is fairly consistent in terms of motive power..RS1, 2, 3, 11's with the occasional H16-44 thrown in for good measure. Plus RDC's for passenger usage.

However, that does not stop me from using old Fred" How'dhedodat" Thompson from enjoying his tourist line that belongs to his Thompson Mills Railroad Museum and Ice Cream Emporium...

[BRAKIE]

steinjr

Texas Zepher:

 Unlike the suggestion that the story is created to explain an ecclectic set of equipment, mine was quite opposite.  

 

 I believe the suggestion I was making was that back stories (and in particular the "eccentric millionaire" type) often seem to be created to try to explain away inconsistencies or implausibilities. Not that they always serve that function :-)

 What you did was essentially to settle on a theme, era and location for your layout. It could briefly be described as a bridge route, with on-line mines, agricultural products, passenger traffic to resort, second hand diesels, 1950s, south/western Colorado.

 Smile,
 Stein

 

Stein,My CDB Industries is based on Rail America and GWI .However,all of the shortlines owned by my CDBI has been modeled my me at one time or the other-Detroit Connecting was my first freelance terminal railroad..The CD&B was my  N Scale railroad of the 80s and still very dear to my memory since my late wife and I planed and built this railroad.

The "history" of the C&HV is a play on RA's Indiana & Ohio  that operates the real old Athens Sub.

So,my concocted corporate history is based on actuality and therefore the locomotives was carefully chosen following prototype examples.

[ClinchValleySD40]

Southeast coal hauler/bridge route circa 1980 very loosely based on the Clinchfield

Video tour of the railroad at:

http://www.youtube.com/user/ClinchValleySD40#p/u/6/EPdw9Gr-Gt0

 

[blownout cylinder]

Great northern plain states and southern prairie provinces.

Abandoned rail got picked up by a trio of investors who had big plans to make their own rail empire...from Leemer on south with a few  spurs and interchanges betwixt and between...

Primary usage is grains of all sorts plus the tourist who are heading to fishing/hunting paradise to the north...oh...and Blue Circle Audio has a couple of plants here and there as well

 

[wedudler]

I've built my Westport Terminal RR. This is a railroad in the 70-80th. It's a freelanced Terminal RR.

And I've started with my narrow gauge Pueblo & Salt Lake RR, also freelanced.

Wolfgang

[tomikawaTT]

Basic fallacious premise - there are coal seams in the Kiso Gorge, Nagano-ken, Japan.

Backstory.  Six close-typed legal pages (plus a map) explaining how things got named, who owns what and how nationalization changed the character of the railroad - starting clear back in the sisteenth century.  (I'll spare you the details.)  The main point is that the local coal-hauler was taken over, extended through a long tunnel (and had other major engineering changes) and became a secondary main line.  The truncated end that remained survived for years mostly on the annual payment for the line taken by the Imperial government - then the owning family uncovered a really good coal seam farther up the Tomikawa Valley,

At the same time, the mineowner's daughter showed up in the valley with her new boyfriend - who had gone into the U.S. Navy after being laid off when Roanoke completed its last S2!  He took one look at the yard full of teakettles and the new coal cleaning plant (so new it was still clean!) and promptly proposed.

Now, seven years later, our Virginia boy is Chief Mechanical Officer of the Tomikawa Valley Railway.  The result - locomotives and rolling stock like nothing else in Japan, all intended to move coal as cheaply and efficiently as possible.  Race Horse Smith would have loved it.  Stuart T. Saunders would have hated it - the only diseasels on the property are a four-wheel rail bus and an asthmatic diesel-mechanical that can barely move itself and one car on level track.  In the meantime, having assembled Japan's only Mallet, the TTT shop forces are picking through the junk to get parts for another articulated.

As for the rest of the line, now long nationalized?  It's partially electrified (1500VDC catenary) and diesels are making inroads in the steam fleet.  This comparatively insignificant route through the hinterlands sees well over 100 train movements on a slow day!  As a result, double-tracking is in progress, as is conversion to CWR on concrete ties.

Meanwhile, the ancient 5-tiered pagoda sits on its hilltop, overlooking it all.  Technology may be marching on, but the culture remains unchanged.

Chuck (Native Noo Yawker modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)

[Mr. LMD]

wm3798

The backstory of the Laurel Valley was covered in the November/December 2010 N Scale Magazine, but it's also sketched out on my website.  It's easier to refer you there than to regurgitate it here...

Scroll about halfway down the page.  Thanks.

Lee

 

Nice layout. is that an updated scene or no? Also, I have your webpage bookmarked because your layout looks amazing and new modelers could learn something from your layout.

[wm3798]

The backstory of the Laurel Valley was covered in the November/December 2010 N Scale Magazine, but it's also sketched out on my website.  It's easier to refer you there than to regurgitate it here...

Scroll about halfway down the page.  Thanks.

Lee

[steinjr]

Texas Zepher

 Unlike the suggestion that the story is created to explain an ecclectic set of equipment, mine was quite opposite.  

 I believe the suggestion I was making was that back stories (and in particular the "eccentric millionaire" type) often seem to be created to try to explain away inconsistencies or implausibilities. Not that they always serve that function :-)

 What you did was essentially to settle on a theme, era and location for your layout. It could briefly be described as a bridge route, with on-line mines, agricultural products, passenger traffic to resort, second hand diesels, 1950s, south/western Colorado.

 Smile,
 Stein

 

[Texas Zepher]

Unlike the suggestion that the story is created to explain an ecclectic set of equipment, mine was quite opposite.   I developed the story from 1972-1976 and had it all completed before I started designing a model railroad to selectively compress the made up prototype.  I then started accumulating equipment to match the story and compressed space.

My Pine Ridge & North River actually began as simply the "Pine Ridge" as an English assignment sophomore year of high school.   We had to write a "short story" so I wrote mine about a fan trip on this imaginary railroad.  Through high school and college I used the railroad for mechanical drawing class, graphic arts class (that is why it has three progressively more modern logos), ecconomics, and geology.

The Pine Ridge began as a connector between the AT&SF northern main somewhere in SE Colorado, the Burlington (Colorado Southern) to the NE, and the Denver & Rio Grande Western to the W (narrow gauge & NW (standard gauge).   During WWII a large uranium deposit was discovered in the high valley that this railroad served.  The mine became a major source of traffic.  While mining the uranium other mineral deposits were found as well.  After the war the mountain resort traffic increased and the railroad even opened its own ski lodge at the railside.  In the high valley an aquifer was discovered and the soil conditions proved to be perfect for certain fruits and vegitables.  This added yet another source of revenue.

The railroad followed the lead of the Norfolk and Western resisting dieselizaion in favor of steam powered by its own coal mines on the route.   When the diesels did start coming they were second hand power other railroads had upgraded from.

That put the railroad into the mid 1950s and there it got stuck in time.     All the new farm towns in the high valley were named after girls I favored at the time (e.g. Dillion, Weiby, Wormington, McCall, etc.) while the resorts were named after the really special girls (e.g. Henderson, Weckmann).    There were more quirks to it, and it was fun at the time. Through high school the story evolved and was cleaned up and perfected.  Eventually there were more girls then room for towns so I just stopped doing that part.   Sometime when I was a senior the railroad expanded to North River - don't even remember why now.  In that expansion it made a connection with another Freelance in the resort Town of Emerson Lake.

----------

Of course I didn't know any of this at the time but the Santa Fe, Burlington (C&S), and D&RGW all meet in Trinidad Colorado.   Likewise a real short line railroad (Colorado & Wyoming - now Genesse & Wyoming?) ran from Trinidad up the valley to a coal mine.    There are uranium deposits in the area (well over one bump of mountains) and D&RGW actually served one of them for a time.   There is also the Wet Valley right in that area that indeed has aquiffers.  The north end of that valley goes through WestCliffe and meets with the Rio Grande Royal Gorge mainline (near Texas Creek?).   There was also a ski resort in the valley (Conquistador).   The only thing not here is the additional short line.    If I would have had a town named Stonewall and used the name Cuchara Pass as the high point on the line I would begin to wonder if I was psychic.

[steinjr]

Mr. LMD

 My post isn't for stealing any ideas, but to talk about ideas or talk about your layout.

 Wasn't saying that you were stealing ideas. And even if you were to get inspired by someone else's layout, and want to copy or modify elements from it, it would not be a bad thing.

 But if you want to learn more about what other people are modeling, perhaps a better question would simply be : "what are you modeling?". 

 Or better yet - "I am thinking about modelling in N scale a railroad in the Midwest (or Applachians or the SouthWest or in urban surroundings on the east coast) in the steam/diesel transition era (or civil war era, or late 1800s, or early 1900s or 1970s or current times or whatever). I have a room <this big>. Anyone else modeling this subject and era? What are you modeling?".

 Or something more or less along those lines. The more specific you get about what you are looking for, the more likely it is that you will get responses that are relevant for you. Up to a point, of course - asking only for people who model the X, Y and Z railroad in A-town in May 1972 makes for relatively few respondents :-)

Smile,
Stein

 

[Mr. LMD]

steinjr

 

Fastball:

 

Am I the odd man out because my layout doesn't have a history?

 

 

No. It just means that either it is fairly evident what your layout represents, or you simply don't care about what it represents. In either case, you feel no particular compunction to inflict on random bystanders attempts to explain away inconsistencies and implausibilities.

 In my opinion, "backstories" are mostly (at least in these model railroad forums) about forum posters who , for some reason not entirely clear to me, seem to be eager to try to make others accept and acknowledge that the ecclectic mix of trains the backstory fan is running is "sort of" plausible - if one postulates a railroad owned by an eccentric millionaire or billionaire.

The backstory person often also thinks this is an original approach, without realizing that it has been seen dozens of times before. Often the person will spend an inordinate amount of time on his back story, drawing large and complex system maps of railroads spanning large areas, and agonizing about this or that aspect of plausibility ("could there have been wineyards in Northern Alberta if the world had been tilted 20 degrees on it's axis by a huge comet striking it?"), or drawing up eleborate numbering schemes for a roster of 300 locomotives of 13 different classes, but when it comes to actually buckling down to design and build a layout that will fit into the space actually available, things tend to stop up.

Of course - there are also a few people who essentially just have a humorous little anecdote to explain a layout name (like the "holy cow" name on Leight Anthony's layout), or who just have a _brief_ rationale for some departure from actual history or geography.

As in "the main industry on the layout is based on mining and processing Flux, an additive used in many industrial processes" (doc Wayne's excellent layout). Or Chuck's japanese coal railroad running coal cars never seen in Japan before.

 Some background for industries on a layout certainly can make the layout more interesting. Doc Wayne has certainly succeeded in creating some memorable characters and industries on his very plausible looking and operating layout - Cookie Gibson - connoseur of beautiful women and the owner of the flux processing plant, the Hoffentooth Bros - owners of the coal and ice businesses in several towns on his line,  Barney what-his-name - the crazy (and seldom sober) barnstorming stunt pilot who takes aerial photos of industries on the layout, the various types of flux produced and shipped (Anhydrous flux in tank cars, anyone?) and so on and so forth. These things just add texture to a plausible looking layout.

 But on the whole, back stories (and especially the "eccentric millionaire buying and running whatever he likes" kind of back stories) are often a lot less interesting to other people than the layout owner may imagine. And they seldom succeed in convince others that a pretty implausible approach actually is sort of plausible.

 But hey - if people want to post back stories, let them post back stories.

Smile,
Stein

 

 

I agree with you on your post. My post isn't for stealing any ideas, but to talk about ideas or talk about your layout.