What railroad snuck up on you?

[MRL]

  Union Pacific

[eja]

WR&W  ... named for the grand kids .. the  Wyatt, Rhodes & Western. Kind of fun, it's imaginary and no one can tell me this is wrong.


Happy New Year everyone....


eja

[Rossford Yard]

Someone mentioned the North Shore, and while I don't model those Chicago interurbans, I have bought most of the books related to them. Not sure why.

I am different than DRD, in that I have never wavered on diesel era.  I know guys who go gaga for say, narrow guage, when they see it, or maybe Euro, or a short line like the Ma and Pa.  Not me.  I have always like modern, standard gauge diesels, gradually drifted more modern in the diesel era, falling in love with the modern toasters...er....diesels after seeing them a while.

I have also fallen in love with paint scheme variants.  My railroad was Cajon Pass 1985, but the BHSF HII scheme convinced me I needed to change it to KC Terminal in 1995 or so to take advantage of not only that scheme (and a half dozen others) as I like paint scheme variety.

I guess the short answer might be (eventually) all of them!

[robert3985]

Nothing's snuck up on me.  I always watch my back.  Been modeling the UP exclusively since about 1980.  First brass engines I ever bought was an Alco FA/FB by Key? (I'm not going down to the workshop to look at the box).  They still run magnificently.

However, I DID finally decide to only model UP from 1947 thru 1956, which caused me great heartache to sell off all my brass, custom painted Centennials, all of my GTEL Super Turbines, all my SP run-through modern engines and lots of other diesels that were too modern in both plastic and brass along with about half of my rolling stock.

Since my youngest son is interested in the SP, and the UP, SP, WP and D&RGW interchanged at Ogden in the late 40's and early 50's, he does the research and I do some kit bashing on SP stuff, mostly fiddling with Kato GS-4's and kit bashing proper cabooses.  Too bad one of my favorite all-time paint schemes (SP Bloody Nose) is past our time period, but we get to do UP two-tone gray, Streamliner Yellow (with both gray and silver trucks), Mineral Red and Armour Yellow UP cabooses, SP Daylight Schemes in both diesels and steam, various GS's in both black and Daylight, skirted and un-skirted, and those lovely Black Widow diesels!

Life is good.... 

[tehachapifan]

NS for me too. I primarily model SP/UP and ATSF/BNSF but those NS units really look sharp and had to have a couple!

[scaro]

The ACL.  Took me a long time to accept how goodlooking its Tom Rice era paint scheme was even though I'd been drawn to pictures of its SD35s and U25Cs for years.   

The Georgia and West Point Route do too, from time to time, but I draw the line at having every loco in solid black or dark blue dip. Got to be a stripe or two in the equation somewhere.

Ben

[spookshow]

I really like the Rock, but outside of my Zephyr Rocket I have to show constraint because if I started I would never stop!

I never even knew that The Rock operated in Minnesota until I picked a random "Spine Line" town just south of the Twin Cities to model (Hope). Now I have Rock Island models coming out of my ears 

Cheers,
-Mark

[sd45elect2000]

The North Shore.

My desire to model the North Shore Line hasn't snuck up on me but the sudden availability of a selection of equipment did. I guess I'm a binge modeler.

Two years ago I started a Milwaukee road passenger fleet. I pretty much started with zero and ended up with about 300 passenger cars of all types, heavyweight,1935 cars (fox valley) 1938 rib side cars (GHQ) 1942 rib side cars (GHQ) and 1948 cars (brass car sides, Athabasca and Jim Stillman cars).

 Last spring it was tank cars, I started with forty 10k and 11K tank cars and by the end of summer I had 210, now I see intermountain is re-issuing the 10k tank cars in different paint schemes, that final number may change..

I currently have 108 North Shore Cars , 10 different coaches, MD cars, reefers, locomotives...

Randy

[PAL_Houston]

Well, they didn't sneak, exactly.  They really have a place on my layout, but here:

1. Great Northern: Empire Builder plus a bunch of freight cars.
2. Northern Pacific: North Coast Limited, plus a bunch of freight cars.
3. Milwaukee Road: a set of C-Liners and rolling stock, for interchange, or for Rockford service on trackage rights thru Flag Center.
4. Chicago Great Western: a GP-7 and rolling stock, for interchange.

Amazingly, (considering how much of it has been produced) I don't have very much ATSF rolling stock at all!!

Well, and then there are the MTL state commemorative cars that will never roll on my layout:  Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, Kentucky, New Jersey and Texas.  Guess why these?

[skytop35]

As a dedicated Milwaukee Road modeler, most people would be surprised to know that I have quite a bit of C&NW equipment as well. I didn't plan it that way. I like to model prototype passenger trains and it was hard to resist the fine "400" kits by DesPlaines Hobbies. The more research I did, the more kits I built and the more kits I built the more research I did. The proverbial vicious circle until I had several C&NW trains. Like the thread says, it all kind of snuck up on me and I'm glad it did.

[CBQ Fan]

As a dedicated Milwaukee Road modeler, most people would be surprised to know that I have quite a bit of C&NW equipment as well. I didn't plan it that way. I like to model prototype passenger trains and it was hard to resist the fine "400" kits by DesPlaines Hobbies. The more research I did, the more kits I built and the more kits I built the more research I did. The proverbial vicious circle until I had several C&NW trains. Like the thread says, it all kind of snuck up on me and I'm glad it did.

Are you picking up the Kato C&NW E unit and cars?  I am really tempted on the E unit and the 6 car set.  The 4 car set does not interest me due to the dome not being accurate.

[Denver Road Doug]

I am different than DRD, in that I have never wavered on diesel era.

Well, to clarify, I wasn't actually wavering on diesel era in the sense of abandoning it...this was only a secondary modeling idea...and honestly I thought I would be more interested in the variety of the steam aspect of things.   That and the fact that I really can't afford to have five hobbies within a hobby meant that I abandoned that idea and sold off the few pieces I had purchased.   I have decided to eventually get a Frisco 1522 and maybe one of the UP steam program units to satisfy the need for steam.

I still desire to do 80's BN though, since it runs alongside my MKT stuff.  I have actually expanded my official date range to include very early Swoosh BNSF but I currently have no plans to purchase anything...eventually would like to grab an ACe and if Atlas does Gensets I'll grab two of those.

[Scottl]

Narrow gauge steam, especially critter type prototypes snuck up on me about ten years ago.  I attribute it to a MR cover photo and story on Bob Brown's beautiful On3 layout.  I love the baby Shays and Porters.  I have a small collection of O scale structures and equipment for a small layout one day.  I'll do n scale as long as my eyes and layout space hold out, but I could see moving to the larger equipment and having a different focus in the future.

German prototypes also had my attention, and living there last autumn really reinforced my interest.  I went to several shows in Berlin and became particularly interested in TT scale, which is popular in eastern Germany and is a nice scale to work with, but I resisted!

[CBQ Fan]

I model Chicago Union Station so I can model most any passenger train.  In my world Dearborn Station doesn't exist and the trains there all went to Union Station.  This gives me a wide latitude to model passenger trains.  Outside of the station it is a generic Midwestern feel so again I have a lot of flexibility.  I have an Amtrak train and Metra train so my boys can run what we see at the local train station.  My Kato Daylight is the only big stretch, oh and my GG1's.  But they are boxed up for the most part.

[SP-Wolf]

As an SP modeler- I must admit that the war bonnet and zebra stripes have invaded my little SP world. Gotta love those 1950's paint schemes!!

And- some armour yellow.

Enjoy,
Wolf