Make up your own Railroad?

[GoCanes]

How many of you freelance with your own, made up railroad?

I'm doing a freelanced CSX in Florida, N scale, that includes a freind's small citrus industry from Vero Beach (Natalie's Orchid Island Juice, the BEST OJ on the planet), and the Cuesta Rey and El Producto cigar plant in Tampa  (based on the local CSX line, but I decided that my industries will be served by a smaller branchline, a yet to be named little railroad with a venerable GP 15 switcher and a GP 40, (I have those two undecorated locos) that will join the "real" CSX mainline.  Who wants to model prototype CSX phosphate cars anyway?  (boring)

Works out best for me, as my downtown Tampa Cigar indistry and Vero citrus cannot obviously be done on a layout (and heck, I don't even think El Producto has  railroad service, but I have some Model Power El Producto box cars that are too pretty to leave out, and the idea sounds cool)

Plus, my as yet to be named little railroad can have orange and green paint schemes (it's a Canes thing, you wouldn't understand)  

Who makes up their own stuff?  Please tell me I am not alone.

[NarrowMinded]

All my rail lines are ficticious, The "Johnsonville RR is based out of Johnsonville which is a small mining town with a scenic service as well as hauling supplies along the route.

The best part of this is your not limited at all with what you want to add or leave out.

NM-Jeff

[jward]

i freelance because the railroads i like didn't run the locomotives i like through the area i like. so by creating a fictitious railway, i can create a revised history that nobody can say is wrong because there is no prototype to follow.

[rogertra]

I freelance because I like steam and there's no RTR Canadian steam available and few accurate diesels either.

[CNE Runner]

The Monks' Island Railway is entirely fictitious. Frankly, Monks' Island itself is fictitious. I wanted a venue that allowed a great deal of switching, car ferry service, and small motive power. Monks' Island is a compilation of: Block Island, Martha's Vineyard, and Fisher's Island...all places I used to fly clients and still miss.

Monks' Island has two population centers (Molena Point & Sweet Haven) that are separated by a mixture of farmland, forest, vineyards and sand dunes. While the midsection of the island is not modelled...there is a great deal of activity at the various farms and Abbey.

The sounds of wind, surf and seagulls is only [occasionally] broken by the shrill horn of the little M.I.Ry. GE 45 Ton locomotive - bringing another cut of cars to Sweet Haven - whilst signaling one of the few road crossings...an idyllic place for sure.

Ray

[jettrainfan]

I model the Lakewood & Winterton railroad, which runs on the Ex. NKP, running from bellevue ohio to cleveland ohio. interchange is done with NS and the CV&WS, which just happens to be another fictional railroad, but is owned by the model railroad club I go to. NS meets up at a small interchange yard outside of the big yard they own. The yard in cleveland, right by the RTA's yard, rarely sees traffic stopping there these days, so the L&W got it. Power consists of steam engines, and older diesels. Rental engines from HLCX and LTEX are usually on the property. Trains consists of mixed freights, intermodals from NS, and coal trains.

When I get a bigger layout going, it will be really similar to the NKP (focusing on cleveland, lakewood, rocky river, vermillion and bellivue ohio) but some changes will be made. Mainly adding in bussinesses that I film along the chicago line and would like to add the flats industrial railroad in cleveland, sense that is accesible from the NKP. Right now I'm just mapping things out and going to paint the first engine for it by october. The loco is gonna be C&O 2707, it was stationed in cleveland ohio near the zoo, till around the 1980s when the illinois railroad museum got it. It has no lettering on the tender currently, so I'm gonna buy an undecorated bachmann 2-8-4 berkshire and go from there.

[ebtnut]

Free-lancing is an honored tradtion in model railroading.  It ranges from quasi- prototype (like modeling a line planned but never built by the railroad) to pure whimsey.  My Cumberland and Susquehanna RR is a narrow gauge pike that connects the WM with the EBT.  It looks and operates a lot like the EBT, hauling mostly coal to the WM interchange, but the motive power is a mixed of borrowed EBT locos and home road power.  Sort of in between are the folks who model a specific prototype, but don't necessarily model a specific portion of the railroad, tending instead to provide a "character sketch".   Remember, it's a hobby, and whatever floats your boat is just fine. 

[GoCanes]

Just thought of it,   let's see some pics of these homebrewed paint schemes and locos

[az2rail]

My railroad, the "Virginia & Rainy Lake Ry" did exist in the late 1800's. I was a standard gauge logging railroad. I turned it into a narrow gauge railroad, that hauls what ever I want.

Bruce

[rogertra]

Just thought of it,   let's see some pics of these homebrewed paint schemes and locos

Mine are all in my sig.

[Desertdweller]

Bruce,

Sounds like it might be in Northern Minnesota.

Les

[Johnson Bar Jeff]

I call mine the Juniata & Southern as a way to incorporate my initials into the corporate name as well as give a Central Pennsylvania flavor.

I've sometimes said I'd like to call another line the Frostbite Falls & Anhedonia. 

[az2rail]

Les. Yep, you got it. The railroad ran north of Virginia, MN.

Bruce

[GoCanes]

Just thought of it,   let's see some pics of these homebrewed paint schemes and locos

Mine are all in my sig.

Very cool

[PiedmontRR]

my railroad is the Orange and ALEXANDRIA   It was a real railroad, but though it didn't survive much past the CIVIL WAR,  I model it as if it had made it to the 1960's