UNUSUAL OR WEIRD TOWN NAMES FOR A LAYOUT

Carl Sowell Oct 9, 2015

  1. Carl Sowell

    Carl Sowell TrainBoard Supporter

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    I was just reading and posted to the Gas Station thread and there are many long gone oil company stations to use on our layouts. How about unusual names for a small community to place on the layout. I'll start and see where it goes.

    1. Everyone has heard of Muleshoe, Texas

    2. How about Iraan, Texas ? Not named for the far east country but rather for the founders of the Yates Oil field in West Texas, Ira and Ann Yates.

    3. Here's one - Notrees, Texas pronounced No Trees is north of Midland Texas on the highway to Lubbock.

    Any more ? ? ? I'll bet there are many.

    Carl
     
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  2. BoxcabE50

    BoxcabE50 HOn30 & N Scales Staff Member TrainBoard Supporter

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    How about Ubet, Montana. Name later changed to Judith Gap....(pronounced "YOU bet").
     
  3. APV105

    APV105 TrainBoard Member

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    I have one town on my layout called Rock Ridge. It's from the movie Blazing Saddles.
    Also borrowed from the movie is the ice cream shop called Howard Johnson's with a sign on front that reads "One Flavor"
    (Obscure movie reference from the beginning of the movie)
     
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  4. Mike VE2TRV

    Mike VE2TRV TrainBoard Member

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    Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan? Squirrel Town, Ontario? St-Louis-du-Ha!Ha!, Quebec? Petawawa, Ontario... How do you pet a wawa? Even more important, what is a wawa and is it safe to pet?:cautious:

    In the fictional domain, Petticoat Junction - there are trains there! :cool:

    There's a really weird one in Newfoundland, but I don't think that word is appropriate in the scope of this forum. Try 47d34m North, 53d33m West. Make up your own jokes.:censored:
     
  5. Rocket Jones

    Rocket Jones TrainBoard Member

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    Bummerville, California. A prominent place on my very first layout.
     
  6. r_i_straw

    r_i_straw Mostly N Scale Staff Member

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    Brings to mind an old Tex Ritter song, Teneha, Timpson, Bobo and Blair. I have driven through Tenaha and Timpson many times but have no idea where Bobo and Blair are.
     
  7. Hytec

    Hytec TrainBoard Member

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  8. Mike VE2TRV

    Mike VE2TRV TrainBoard Member

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    Hot Coffee? Now that's my kind of town! :coffee: (I'm drinking one right now)>
     
  9. TwinDad

    TwinDad TrainBoard Member

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    There's a lot of odd and humorous town names in Appalachia... Big Ugly, Looneyville and Paw Paw, WV for example...
     
  10. friscobob

    friscobob Staff Member

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    Nameless, Tennessee
    Toad Suck, Arkansas
    Bugtussle, Oklahoma
    Okay, Oklahoma
    Cut and Shoot, TX
    Gun Barrel City, TX
    Levelland, TX (and it is- so flat around there that's said on a good day you can see the back of your head)
     
  11. Hytec

    Hytec TrainBoard Member

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    As a kid, I was told it's so flat in Texas that there's nothing between Dallas and the North Pole except three barbed wire fences and one pitiful Longhorn. :rolleyes:
     
  12. Rocket Jones

    Rocket Jones TrainBoard Member

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    Not a particularly odd name (other than being Indian), but in the 1830's Wetumpka, Alabama was noted in a major Eastern newspaper as being one of two small cities that had the most potential. The other city was a place called Chicago. What killed Wetumpka's future were a couple of major bank failures, a big fire or two, floods and even an earthquake!
     
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  13. Mike Kmetz

    Mike Kmetz TrainBoard Member

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    Pie Town, New Mexico
     
  14. Kenneth L. Anthony

    Kenneth L. Anthony TrainBoard Member

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    There's an old theater tradition about when an actor takes a small role in a play, and also plays a different even smaller role in another part of the same play, the playbill will avoid showing it is the same actor by giving the fictitious name "George Spelvin" as the person playing the smaller role. And there was a female performer in "adult" films who used the name "Georgina Spelvin" to hide her identity. Based on this tradition, I named a town on my old layout "Spelvin." Only it wasn't really there. Spelvin was a town between my modeled town scene and the distant unmodeled yard represented by staging. So how was Spelvin different from any other unmodeled town in staging? It was served by the same local that did the switching in the visible town. I had a special carbon black covered hopper I wanted to show off, but not the room or the inclination to build a carbon black plant. If the carbon black plant was at the distant town in staging, the special car would just zip past in a though train and you would hardly see it. But since it was in the unmodeled town served by the modeled local train, it was visible during all the local switching.
     
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  15. Kenneth L. Anthony

    Kenneth L. Anthony TrainBoard Member

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    I expect to want to run more trains than I can find hidden staging for. I consider parked freight trains in the distance as less obvious than parked passenger trains, so I have built open staging towards the back of the layout specifically for freight trains, on the far side of Harbor Drive so that the staging is visually and scenically part of the Port switching railroad. Since this makes this trackage a bit of an imposter, I am naming it “DEMARA YARD” for the title character in the 1960-something movie “The Great Imposter” played by Tony Curtis.
    [​IMG]
     
  16. Kenneth L. Anthony

    Kenneth L. Anthony TrainBoard Member

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    The dockside cargo sheds at the back of my big passenger station hide passenger staging tracks, and show the upper portion of ships above the cargo sheds, painted on the background. Some of the real port facilities were called Mallory Lines docks. I use “MALLORY” as the town name of the staging tracks, the first place trains reach when they leave the model scene. Mallory is also a tribute to pioneer modeler Paul Mallory.

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]
     
  17. Kenneth L. Anthony

    Kenneth L. Anthony TrainBoard Member

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    The Galveston, Texas (inspiration for my Island Seaport layout) has shrimpboat docks referred to popularly as “The Mosquito Fleet.” I found a place to crowd it on the layout toward one end of my harbor scene. However I don’t have room to model an industrial spur there for realistic operation. In fact, there is a track “which is supposed to be somewhere else” going into staging across the shrimpboat docks. The turnout ladder into one end of the hidden staging is named MOSQUITO JUNCTION for the shrimp fleet nickname.

    [​IMG]
     
  18. BoxcabE50

    BoxcabE50 HOn30 & N Scales Staff Member TrainBoard Supporter

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    I would really like to know the story behind "Toad Suck" and "Bugtussle...":eek:
     
  19. C&O Railfan

    C&O Railfan TrainBoard Member

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    Do you have a toll booth for Rock Ridge that requires "a sh--load of dimes" to enter.... Lol
     
    Last edited: Oct 10, 2015
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  20. APV105

    APV105 TrainBoard Member

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    What an excellent idea! As I haven't name my streets yet I will call one of them the LePetomaine Thruway.
    thanks for that great idea!
     
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