What Railroad do you model?

[EL PARRo]

I model UP during WWII. It's my first layout, and it's only 5'x9' and in HO scale.

[Anonymous]

Dear Hawks05,
You might enjoy modeling CSX or BN if running 90-car unit coal trains with four SD-90MACs are your cup of tea. Unfortunatesy, neither of these two lines were around in the steam age if you wanted to run steamers (although there's no law saying you can only run period trains-it's your layout, so if you don't mind running the occasional 4-6-2 with intermodals, don't exclude these prototypes).
I am partial to the ideas of freelance branch lines and helper districts (steep areas where helper locomotives are needed), but I don't really know why.
A lot of times your prototype will be your favorite railroad (probably why many strictly NYC fans don't model Pennsy). Being a Union Pacific fan, I can suggest that railroad, if for no other reason than "way cool motive power." But short lines can also be fun.
You might want to get some railroad histories and see which railroad interests you most, or look at some locomotive books, such as "The Great Book of Trains."

Good luck deciding,
Daniel

[JoeKoh]

The Joey Ohio RR has a lot of diffrent roadnames but mostly I have B&O and N&W power and rolling stock.My motto is "where all great railroads meet".
stay safe
Joe

[Hawks05]

i don't plan on getting any steam engines. i don't really like that type of railroading. and most are pretty expensive.

[Anonymous]

The Milwaukee Road. Why? My Dad bought me a GP9 in Milw Rd colors in 1970 (which I still have) and some other railway stuff. Over the years my Milw stuff has piled up. One day I'll build myself a layout!!! but for now I'm happy aquiring Stuff.

[Ibflattop]

I would like to model N&W, Wabash, and the NKP. With a Branchline for the DT&I/Ann Arbor, and anything else from the late 50's - the early 80's. KB

[Anonymous]

i am a conrail fan, and model that road in the era of 96-98'. i also throw in some reading and northern power as a modern-day run to flip-flop from then, to now. the reading and northern is a growing regional, and continue to buy former up/sp sd40-2's. my cr power is mostly emd, with my favorite kato power ,the sd40-2r's(rebuilds from 40's), sd80macs. p2k custom painted sd60's, 60m's. super-kitbashed athearn sd40-2 cr helpers, c30-7a's, and my yard pups.(gp38's, 15-1's, sw1500's, etc) i am also a big reading and pennsy fan. i run mostly coal drags, gen. merchandise, intermodal, and locals. every now and then, my cr executive e8's will show up. remember the roads of yesteryear!!

[ddechamp71]

BNSF and UP in California desert (a small display showing a fictitious area looking like Amboy and Cadiz on BNSF, + a soon started Tehachapi Pass main layout, showing the transition between flatland south of Bakersfield, Ca, and mountainous area from Illmon and Caliente to Bealville and Cliff, Ca).
My chosen era: summer 1997, in order to have recently merged SP/UP (and C&NW and D&RGW) and ATSF/BN, and having the maximum of paintschemes on my motive power.
Cheers
Dominique

[AntonioFP45]

SEABOARD COAST LINE from 1967 to 1975. Not as glamorous as the Santa Fe or the Pennsy, but equally as vital to the economy. As for the varnish, SCL and later Amtrak ran the Champion, Silver Star, Silver Meteor, Palmetto and various others on the steel highways from Florida to New York. Heard many a story about the SCL Champion E units hitting 90 m.p.h in Florida/Georgia during the late 60s! Nice variety of motive power: Baldwin, EMD, GE, ALCO. Fun railroad to model. I remember in the mid 70s visiting yards and being treated pleasantly by friendly personnel.

[Anonymous]

I model CSX , southern coal, coal river subdivision 1994-now . It strectches from St. Albans to about 30 or 40 miles south to Danville yard. I also included the mine branch lines into the hollows , of course. Even though almost extinct, I half to have the occasional Chessie C&O paint scheme on some old EMDs. I mean after all, ever since I first seen the scheme in the early 80s, it's been love.

[jimmac230]

Depends on the era, if it's the late 40's early 50's it would be with the ATSF when steam and 1st generation diesels roam Oklahoma. If it's current, I go with Union Pacific with a little Santa Fe blended in to make it interesting.

[Gunneral]

Santa Fe, all the way! [ Raton Pass ]

[Mikeygaw]

although prefer the major east coast rr's (CSX, NS, and Conrail specifically), a lot of what i have is the western railroads such as UP, Santa Fe, and Burlington Northern

[Hawks05]

well. like always i'm still undecided. i now have 1 BN, 2 CB&Q, and 1 Rock Island locomotives. i plan on modeling mainly railroads dealing with BN (GN, CB&Q, BNSF/ATSF, and of course BN.) but for now i like collecting stuff and getting more while prices are cheap. i know down the road in like 2010 prices will be sky high. i'm really starting to think about just doing BN (and all things involved in the BN) and Rock Island. i like the idea of coal and grain. i really like the hoppers. seems a consist of hoppers is more exciting than a consist of boxcars. if anything i'll have a mix of stuff.

of course this could all change tomorrow.

side note- tonight was the first night since i think last Friday i looked at my train stuff. mainly because i've had homework, and went to a b-ball game. of course i had to look at it tonight because i got my 2 Great Northern hoppers. great looking pieces. hopefully they run just as well as they look.

[bluepuma]

Started with NYC, Lehigh, then got ATSF, Penn Central but that was what the locos were.

Looked at a lot of layout plans, but had no clue how to scenic such places, have a little better idea now having seen some, but originally, the thought was: Model what you know best!

That was the LA area, with ATSF, SP and UP, but what I wanted to represent is the time and place when we moved from Highland Park, Los Angeles out to Puente, near the SP tracks and a feedlot, when most of the San Gabriel Valley east of the river was farmland, and I-10 stopped at Rosemead (Lakewood Blvd), it was '56, there were fields of barley, onions, cabbages, walnut groves, potatoes, strawberries, and in the rocky areas near the mountains, orange and lemon groves. Most of that filled in with Tract homes by '61, further out, later during the 70's.

My modeling desire is to capture the feeling of that time and place with me running the trains to local areas or heading trains to Las Vegas, Salt Lake, Omaha, Chicago, New Orleans, to see boxcars with far off railroad names.

I think of the scenes I want, Herefords and cattle cars, fields of cabbage, oranges, the San Gabriel River before it was concreted over, the LA River after it was, Los Angeles along the LA River. Got to have the ATSF passenger trains of 1970 running through the orange groves, have to have the oil tranks, pumps, refining and smell near Long Beach/LA harbor, along UP or SP or ATSF lines, have to have some street running in LA. Wanted country and city edge, and some PE cars, and PCC trolleys. Oh for the room to let UP have it's own line. If I cut the layout down to basics, would have the scene closest to home set up as a loop, or another section of main line on one of the 3, and fake some industries outside the critical 4 ft of N scale stockyard. The area modeled is relatively flat, but there are river crossings, impressive bridges.

Got to have passenger trains and mixed freight, run through piggy backs. Wasn't much double track. Lacking most is a good collection of SP F7A/B units in Black Widow paint, same in ATSF Freight colors. Some day I will paint. Only problem is how to justify NYC lightning stripe FA2/FB2, Erie Lackawanna F7A/B and B&O in the beautiful blue and grey scheme. They'd be a long way from home in LA! They all made it to Chicago!

[Anonymous]

I mostly model the Borg (aka CN) from 1955 to 1980, although I'm heavily concentrated in the late 60's for my rolling stock (I just happen to like some of the newer 70's era stuff, otehrwise it would be 55-66 for era) in Southwestern Ontario. I'm planning on adding a bit of TH&B power too, as interchange traffic. It's just a 4x8 for now, but I do plan on splitting it in half, and extending one leg to get some more run. I'm in an Apartment, so space is quite lacking.

My secondary interest is pre-WW2 Kettle Valley RR, and I might try building a 2-3 module set based on the Penticton yard, or the facilities at Beaverdell, to Freemo standards.

[TRENT B]

I'm freelancing an ATSF in mountians. I have a Blue Goose and some blue & yellow warbonnets. My town is called Katieville( after my daughter) so you model whatever you want!! JUST HAVE FUN DOING IT!!

[bruce22]

freelance

[Anonymous]

I made up my own location and i put Boston and Maine and Amtrak stuff in it.

[GDRMCo]

GDRMCo a freelanced railroad. If i did model a prototype railroad i would model the Rio Grande at Castle Gate or the Santa Fe's fast Los Angeles to Chicago intermodal route or the Queensland Rail's townsville terminal.

[Anonymous]

I model the Elgin, Joliet & Eastern (E,J & E), a shortline RR that serves many industries on the south side of Chicago. I also model Great Northern (GN), Kansas City Southern(KCS), and Santa Fe. I model in N-scale. Have fun.

[Anonymous]

I am making my first layout. An N scale layout of a Canadian Pacific yard similar to the one in Calgary, alberta, although mine will be different in many ways. It will have some Union Pacific frieght and maybe some Canadian national as well.

[Anonymous]

The CSX merger! Most equip is chessie every once in a while a Seaboard System repaint might show up in a consist .CSX was just starting to paint their own. Who can hate the Chessie Kitten!!!!

[Anonymous]

I model my prototype-freelance Allentown Scranton & Northern and the Reading & Northern plus CP, NS, and CN runtrough trains. The AS&N runs between Allentown, Pennsylvannia to Buffalo, New York. I model the Allentown to Scranton portion of the line. The line is based on if Norfolk Southern decided to sell a part of it's Lehigh Line and the Southern Tier line.

[Anonymous]

sorry to hear you had to go to school. whenever you started this topic. I am halfway through winter break. i ammodeling the Chicago Northwestern somewhere in nebraska
with side of iowa.

[johncolley]

Funny, I was raised in CA and grew up with the SP black widows, but now I have retired to the northwest I am modeling Great Northern in the early half of the '50's. I love the green and orange and besides a 75 car freight with 4 FT's in front and 2 FT's about 2/3 way back, I have a 15 car Empire Builder. johncolley tholcapn

[Anonymous]

I model 70's Amtrak and have interchangeable visitors running around. I've also got some mid 50's Rock Island and so 90's stuff if I want to swap out time periods.

RMax

[Anonymous]

The Rock Island - as a regional Iowa road in 1996!

This time frame also allows me to model AMTRAK, BN/SF (merging), and track use by UP.

The basis for the modeling are the locos/rolling stock the RI had in 1980 (which works good for a regional), and the real rosters and traffic of the IMRL and Iowa Interstate roads in that year.

I also am just starting to model the Iowa Interstate amd the IMRL, when I want reality on the layout (one loco for each road, so far).

[Anonymous]

I live in Washington State. my main road is BNSF, yet I have UP, NYC, Chessie
and old SF F7's, and GP38's

[rambo1]

I live in the toronto ontario area so I model C.N C.P and VIARail but I also have eqpiment in Rockiland newyorkcentral santa fe and many othersfrom the U.S. I love them all. rambo1........