"I Shall Call You . . . Um . . . "

[Santa Fe SDA]

Originally Posted by LoudMusic

Burbank & Pacific?

And I like bad puns. When you get tired of it just have the company get bought out by another bad pun. The jokes never stop.

I like the way you think, LoudMusic.

[Blackcloud]

Going through a few of my layouts, past and present...

The Norfolk, Collier & Gladstone RR was named after three of the streets I used to walk along to get between two of my favourite pubs and an old N scale layout was called 57th Street because I lived in Glossop at the time and the main road through town is the A57, similarly Cotton Lane was named for a road in the village where I now live.

The Foxbaile Light Railway is so named because Foxbaile is an anagram of A Boxfile, which is what he layout is built in, and CP Arundale is named after the school where my late father was headmaster.

Altgarten is named after a fictional German town in the novel 'Bomber' and the Ferrocarril Consolidado Pampa y Fernandez (Pampas & Fernandez Consolidated Railway) is after a line mentioned in an episode of 'Poirot' on TV.

Turning to my On30 modules, Perejil Apartadero is a rough translation of an old BBC radio comedy series, Parsley Sidings. Asilo means asylum, a tongue in cheek comment on the goings on at CRM's forum sometimes and Rio Paleta is named for Nick Palette who built the original OO scale module before I converted it to On30.

I do like using puns in layout names, though these get missed if they are too obscure and only I know about them, but I find taking names from novels, TV and radio works well. Sometimes you can see that visitors at exhibitions are debating whether or not it is a real place or not because they have heard of it but can't remember where.

Finally, Park Hall Halt was perhaps the easiest layout to name as it is a model of Park Hall Halt near Oswestry.

[Piermaster]

Some of my layouts past and present were:

Glasgow Subway Because it was an exact scale reproduction of the old Glasgow Subway station at Bridge Street and the Car Sheds Pit where trains were lifted off the system into the depot.

Dunsandle Co. Galway Because it was an HO reproduction of Dunsandle Station on the Attymon - Loughrea branch which closed in 1976 and the station is now a private railway museum.

East Mission Street Yard My first venture into American HO whilst visiting wife's relatives in San Francisco.

SP/Frisco Transfer An HO freight transfer facility using two boxcars - one from Southern Pacific and one from the St Louis-San Francisco.

Walmington Pier Tramway Hastily named less than 48 hours before its debut exhibition whilst exhibition manager and I were watching 'Dads Army' on our respective televisions!!

Dave

[mabloodhound]

I wanted to use my wife's and my first initials and then name towns for them. The setting is New England in 1920 and many small towns abound with old English sounding names. Originally it was the G&D but then I realized that was John Allen's moniker so I swapped it out and then gave fictitious village names to the two towns at either end.
So now it's the D&G, Dunstead and Granford RR. Now all I have to do is build the layout LOL

[Santa Fe SDA]

Originally Posted by mabloodhound

I wanted to use my wife's and my first initials and then name towns for them. The setting is New England in 1920 and many small towns abound with old English sounding names. Originally it was the G&D but then I realized that was John Allen's moniker so I swapped it out and then gave fictitious village names to the two towns at either end.
So now it's the D&G, Dunstead and Granford RR. Now all I have to do is build the layout LOL

Welcome aboard, mabloodhound, which is a good way to welcome someone to a train forum, don't you think?
Thanks for the suggestions.

[JackBlack]

Thats a few layouts you've made there Dave.

[gl.summers]

Just to put my two cents worth on this thread. First off, it is your railroad; call it anything you want too. The way I named my railroad had to do with where I grew up as a boy and an area where I was in NY for seven years. I grew up in PA but what in the world could you model since it was so huge a railroad. Therefore, I found a branch that went through the town of Salamanca, NY that was part of the PRR. So I was able to kill two birds with one stone. I can use all the PRR equiptment of the PRR because it all went on the Salamanca, Branch of the PRR. Also the B&O, the Erie, and the NYC made connections at different points on the branch line. I was able to name towns that I was familier with; name industries and I did not have to make up special decals. I could use just about anything out there. Cars from all over the country were found on the PRR therefore I did not have to repaint anything. I found this to be pretty cool. I had the best of two worlds. Good luck in naming your railroad. Larry

[b12brother]

I found out, that my grandfather had some coal company securities not in the US but that give me the idea to call my railroad FC&L RR standing for
"Feypel Coal and Lumber RailRoad" (Feypel is the family name). Funny what secrets a family can hide. I hope I d0n't have more brothers or sisters.

[Santa Fe SDA]

Originally Posted by gl.summers

Just to put my two cents worth on this thread. First off, it is your railroad; call it anything you want too. The way I named my railroad had to do with where I grew up as a boy and an area where I was in NY for seven years. I grew up in PA but what in the world could you model since it was so huge a railroad. Therefore, I found a branch that went through the town of Salamanca, NY that was part of the PRR. So I was able to kill two birds with one stone. I can use all the PRR equiptment of the PRR because it all went on the Salamanca, Branch of the PRR. Also the B&O, the Erie, and the NYC made connections at different points on the branch line. I was able to name towns that I was familier with; name industries and I did not have to make up special decals. I could use just about anything out there. Cars from all over the country were found on the PRR therefore I did not have to repaint anything. I found this to be pretty cool. I had the best of two worlds. Good luck in naming your railroad. Larry

I read this post a few times, but as far as I can tell you never did actually mention the name of your railroad. Is it the Pennsylvania Salmanca Railroad or something?

[Santa Fe SDA]

Maybe I'll take this in a different direction. Since I'm going to model this layout after a place called Highlands Park, maybe instead of naming the railroad, I'll name the layout "____ Park." Any suggestions? Are there any Unwritten Rules of Model Railroading that forbid this?