Personalizing your railroad

I love it! That's a very creative logo and story behind it.

TJ

My road is the "Denver and Front Range", which connects and parallels the north/south "joint line" of Santa Fe and D&RGW between Pueblo and Denver, over the old Colorado and Southern line between these two cities, with a line north connecting to the Great Western, and a line SW that reaches Gunnison.  Common connecting roadnames seen are the D&RGW, Burlington and C&S, Mopac, Colorado Midland,and Rock Island. Less frequently seen are ATSF and UP. Its logo and colors are spruce green and aspen yellow, with aspen leaf decals in those two colors.  Cabooses and some other cars are yellow with silvery green leaves, ordinary cars are green with yellow leaves, this in spite of green being a disliked color l would not get on an auto.  Its slogan is "Route of the Golden Aspens".

Ours is the Great Northeastern Railway with engines and rolling stock from the PRR, B&O, C&O, Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines and New York Central

While about 50% of my engines are Southern, I also run motive power from my other favorite railroads all over the US and Canada. I wanted a name that I liked the sound of but that also reflected the vast geographical area covered by the road names I run. Thus was born the Deadhorse & Okeechobee Railroad. Running from Deadhorse, Alaska to Okeechobee, Florida, their slogan is " From the Glaciers to the Glades, We've Got the Continent Covered". Quite an ambitious statement for a 9x6 spare bedroom layout. 

I took a different path and named my freelance theme in a way that the name itself says a lot about its function: "Kansas City & Gulf".

I also took the time to research and create plausible roster/traffic/etc for my KC&G based on what the "Foundational Four" prototype roads did that were regional to my freelanced theme. Therefore, if an engine time was found on one of my "Foundational Four" (SLSF, RI, Mop, KCS) prototype railroads that I used for my guidelines, then I COULD consider using that model type, but it still might not pass muster and make it to my KC&G roster.

I also created paint schemes that "could have been" during my era-span (early-mid 1960s), staying with what I felt was "realistic" with the hope of avoiding creating caricatures. What I came up with satisfies me (which is paramount). An example from the KC&G's RS-3's...

Note in the back ground you see engines in the "original" scheme  as well as some "simplified" variations of same.

Now, whether I will be successful (or not) conveying these concepts in layout form will rest in the eyes of the beholder.

Andre

No name, I just run trains. Why over think it.

Dave

David1:

"Overthinking": It's a way of life for me. I'm am one. Pays off handsomely at times, other times it's a pain.

However, in the case of my model railroading, I enjoy the research and I enjoy coming up with something that is plausible to me mentally. Obviously, it's not for everyone, but I sure enjoy it.

I also enjoy seeing my model railroading concepts come to life in miniature via my KC&G theme.

Andre

As a kid I grew up in Washington state and lived in Seattle, Wenatchee and Bremerton.  My favorite railroads have always been Great Northern, Northern Pacific, Southern Pacific and Union Pacific.

When I would set up my various American Flyer layouts on the floor, I usually referred to them as the Pacific Coast Eastern, or the PCE, inspired by the Pacific Great Eastern Railway, the PGE, in British Columbia, Canada.  I even painted (badly!) PCE on a Flyer boxcar and a caboose.

Now that I live in Salem, OR and have a vacation home in Lincoln City on the Oregon Coast,  I think that name may still work well if I ever get out of the armchair and finish a home layout.

Cheers!

Alan

Erie Central consisting of Erie, P&LE, B&LE, CSX, Chessie System

Neat logos. I can see I need to get one designed. No mystery on my layout railroad.

My railroad is called the "Liberty Belt Railway" with the tagline "Serving Ohio Industry". When I built layout 1.0 I lived on a road called Liberty, and my layout was a circle, so a belt railway seemed to fit. Other roadnames seen on my layout are Nickel Plate Road and Pennsylvania (which both served my hometown). The Liberty Belt would plausibly serve as a belt line to transfer freight traffic, and of course Ohio industry. 

When I first got back into the hobby, and started reading up about building a layout, I read a couple books and articles that discussed what your layout's purpose is, and why it exists, and that stuck with me. So I kind of played that out to create an avenue of bringing it all together. 

I've seen some clever ones.  "Weary Lackamoney" comes to mind. 

With my room painted, track lighting installed perhaps it is a good time to start thinking about a good name for my soon to be RR.  When I was moving on a frequent basis (jobs) I did call my slice of floor layout the "STSLRR" - The Short Time Short Line Railroad.

Right now we are in Napa CA and today we rode in the dome car on the Napa Valley RR Lunch Train. A very fun time. Seems a small vineyard has to go somewhere in the layout now ~~~

Paul

My new layout will be changed whenever I want to see something else. Hence the EverChanging RailRoad.

Mine doesn't have a name. But I run virtually all Santa Fe equipment, so this fits.

My railroad:

It also runs through a little known national park:

Rusty

The Razorback Traction Co. came about more-or-less by accident.  

As we know,  I have a predilection towards putting trolley poles or pantographs on pretty much anything that rolls,  and some stuff that doesn't.   The very first example of this, back in 2011,  was the "Red Rocket",  a former Lionel 627 Lehigh Valley loco:

I was casting about for something to cover the LV logo when I happened across a sheet of stickers for the local football team at a nearby Walleyworld.  Since the putative "44 tonner" was the same shade of red, inspiration struck, and the rest,  as they say, is history.   

The Giraffe Express came about as a bit of inspiration born of necessity.  It was Frisco Fest weekend, 2014:

Here's the setup for the RTC display at the Frisco Festival in Rogers, AR on 23 August!

Alas, the Gi-raffe Train's usual locomotive (the pale blue GG-1 at right) couldn't handle the 1930s grades of the mini Hell Gate bridge at layout rear, so a substitute had to be fabricated in a hurry... 

Since, as previously mentioned, the Gi-raffe Train's normal locomotive wouldn't handle the grade on the new bridge, I needed something on short notice on Friday night for the show Saturday morning. At 8 PM on Friday, I decided to take a spare Lionel 44 tonner and caboose, respray the shells blue, design and print logo stickers, install a pantograph and have the lot ready by 8:30 Saturday morning! 

As you can see, I got it done! 

Total time (including a run to Lowe's for some Valspar paint but not counting letting the paint mostly dry overnight): About two hours. 

****, but I'm good.  

Logo based on this:

http://www.clker.com/cliparts/...fe-crest-logo-hi.png

Mitch 

As I have noted on another thread, my 8' by 24' model railroad is called the Little Boston & Maine Railroad with all passenger cars, maintenance of way cars, cabooses, and all but one of the locomotives are Boston & Maine (that loco is a Maine Central diesel loco that I misread in a MTH catalog). The freight cars are labelled from New England railroads and industries. The scenery is a rough representation of rural New England.

And, as usual for almost all of us, it is not and, probably, will never be complete.

I call my railroad J&SO Lines, representing my wife's parents who are no longer with us. I intend on putting little things that honor her parents and her sisters possibly on my railroad, but I haven't figured out quite yet how I am going to do it. Interesting that some of you create Logos for your company. That is something I will probably never do, as I am not much of a designer.

when i bought these cars they were just painted with a primer coat, so in finishing them off, i decided to number them to remind me of my aunt's birthdays on Jan 13th, Feb 6th & Jan 7th.

my caboose is number #1112... the street address where i grew up.