I'm just being my curious self for no reason once again, wandering what the most popular road to model is. I myself have no preference and am very freelance, but I tend to lean towards the Burlington heritage. (CBQ-BNSF) It seems a lot of people here model SP, a good number follow BNSF, but I don't see too often any UP stuff (without getting into the high technical UP owns SP and what not). So what do ya say we better educate ourselves on this topic? What road do you model? (Or if its freelance, which road do you find you have the most of?)
My non-scientific guess would be that the most commonly modeled road is by far the Santa Fe, especially if you include BNSF layouts in the mix. I was originally going to model the ATSF passenger service in the 1960s as well, but when the time came to actually plan a layout I switched to the modern day CSX. Jamie
I model a ficticious midwestern town in the mid 1950s. It is based on a very small, dirty forgotten coal town lost in time in the midwest that the Rock Island comes through. I also run CB&Q through there. Most recently, I started planning a small layout of a small Georgia town in the early to late 1960s with the Seaboard Air Line.
I freelance...more modern era....I run diesel freight. Mostly Santa Fe. Love the old blue/yellow war bonnets. Wanting a #2964 really bad! Getting ready to throw a newer BNSF in the mix.
I model lots. Starting with the most I model Santa Fe, Southern Pacific, Missouri Pacific, Missouri Kansas Texas, St. Louis & San Francisco, Burlington-Rock Island and Kansas City Southern.
The SP all the way! From steam to some what modern. My layout will be set the early to mid 50's. I do have some Santa Fe,D&RGW,UP,WP. Wolf
I Model A Location I'm modeling a location (two actually) so I don't really have a particular road that runs. The first area is around St. Paul, MN which has power from just about every class I rolling through it. Primarily though it's BNSF, UP, and CP. Lots of older power still lingers around too, especially old Soo Line SD-60s and occasionally you'll see an old Milwaukee Road GP bandit sneak by. Plenty of local traffic too: TC & W, as well as Minnesota Commercial. The second area I have is the twin ports of Duluth, MN and Superior, WI. CP, BNSF, UP, and CN all have yards and engine service facilities within a few miles of each other and there's lots of interchange traffic between them. Of course, I'd be missing something serious if I didn't mention the Missabe - The Duluth, Missabe & Iron Range. They still shuttle ancient ore cars out on to the docks to be loaded onto ships. The maroon and gold is slowly disappearing though as since they were purchased by CN, more and more units are repainted. The problem with modeling an area instead of a particular road - It gets expensive! Kato and Atlas keep "taking" my money as I try to fill out the roster enough to represent all this different traffic!
Most of the western roads are in my menagerie of motive power, with an emphasis on D&RGW, SP, WP & CB&Q. I have a fictitious roadname BRG&P... Burlington Rio Grande & Pacific which hypothesises that several western roads banded together in the 1950s & 1960s to compete against the Union Pacific & Santa Fe merger... yeah UPSF
I have been modeling the Pennsy in the 50-60's but of late have broadened my scope to include local roads The P&WV, Montour and the Pittsburg & Shawmut. All three lend themselves to modeling being essentially one track mainines with lots of coal traffic from mines on line. Atlas once did their 90 ton hopper in Shawmut Line paint but I'll have to buy a lot of undecorated cars and decal them myself.
[FONT=Trebuchet MS, Georgia, Verdana]Calzephyr[/FONT]: BRG&P, I like it. I like the western railroads (mostly because of the mountains) but for now I am concentrating on modeling the Sierra Railroad. I like UP, something to do with watching the city of San Francisco and Gas Turbines going round my dad's layout as a kid. So naturally I now have a big Boy. I also have some Rio Grande, I love the the tiger stripes. When I first started I didn't have a good understanding of the geography of America but I am now putting it all together, moving here helped! James
