If your fictional road is

If your fictional road is based on any real operations and locale, you could take town and geographic names from the same area and mix them around a bit, or use the actual town names if your road happens to cross over the “real” road at that town. 

Maybe Coos Bay becomes North Bay (combining Coos Bay with North Bend), etc.  Passes and Peaks can be renamed “…Valley” or “…Mountain”

Out of that exercise may emerge some logical names for the road, and out of that may emerge a logical logo design based perhaps on a real road. 

A lot of the turn-of-the-century logging lines in northern Minnesota didn’t actually have a logo other than their name spelled out, or just initials if the name was long. 

Or...

You could model an Eastern narrow gauge road. Everyone models Western NG, like it's the only NG that was ever out there. Maryland Central, Delaware Coastal, Virginia Eastern, North Carolina Midland...

Just thoughts mind you.

Naming A Railroad

I am going to be modeling a Central New York freelance railroad. I am planning to have its route run from Binghamton to Syracuse and on to Rochester, NY. I am leaning toward "Binghamton, Syracuse & Rochester." Or BA&R for short. As for a herald I am not sure what it should look like. I have not sketched anything yet, but the letters seem to indicate to me I may want something with a "bar" in it.

Jiim

Names

Then there is the way the initials spell something, or fit in to a motto. Since I live in South Oroville, I get S.O.. Which came to mind was S.O> R.R., or the Sorry excuse fir a rail road.... You can have some fun with it.

Nameing a Railroad

I like coal hauling railroads. Did a lot of rail fanning back in the 70's. I like the narrow valleys of the southern states such as Virginia, West Virginia, and Pennsyilvaina. I live close to the now gone Lehigh Valley railroad. Rochester Junction is just about 5 miles from my house. The B, R & P , which later became the B & O had a coal dock located on the Genesee River were coal was loaded onto barges and shipped over to Coburg Ontario. I also rail fanned the north eastern states up into Maine and my discovery in the early 70's of the East Broad Top helped in developing my protolance rialroad.

The main concept was a coal hauling line out of those coal producing states following the old B,R & P line to P & L Junction in Caledoina, New York. From there the line followed the Lehigh Valley east to Geneva, New York and beyond to serve the northern states with coal. The part I want to model is Lehigh Valleys Rochester Junction branch line north into Rochester, were the LV terminated at the Broad Street bridge. From there I will us what was once Rochesters so called sub-way system tracks to tack loaded coal cars to the transfer dock.

I was also influenced by the Green Mountain Railroad, Bangor & Aroostook RR, and many of the shorter lines in the New England states. I especially like the state of Vermont with it's marble quarries and mountainous terrain.

Thus the New York, Vermont & Northern Rwy. And this is the logo I came up with. I used an round logo ala Lehigh and New England  and added a diamond in the center denoting a diamond because coal is called black diamonds. I still need to add the words "Route of the Black Diamonds", it's a play on Lehigh Valley's famous passenger train, The Black Diamond.

So all you dyed in the wool prototype modelers. One can come up with a plausible freelance railroad that makes sense. I also plan on running a GG1 and a Little Joe under wire past the Lehigh Valley's Rochester Junction Station.

Blaspheme? I don't think so and I don't need a history of why and how. I can run all sorts of equipment that ran in the mid 40's to mid 50's. Now all I need to do is start the dang layout before I die of old age.

Bernd

Central of Wisconsin

Central of Wisconsin

Motto - Outstanding in field

or CoW out standing in field

I find that funny.

Variety of options

Pick a railroad you like and emulate it.  If you like the North Pacific Coast Ry, you could go for something unoriginal like the Pacific North Coast Ry.  If the fictitious railroad is set closer to California (maybe the bay area up into the Sierra Nevada) you could have something like the North Bay & Sierra, or perhaps Sierra Nevada Western.

I find that railroads tended to go one of two ways.  Some were grandiose in the extreme, like the Denver, South Park & Pacific (which never even got close to the Pacific), while others were equally mundane (like the High Point, Randlemann, Asheboro & Southern which went exactly where the name suggests, and was almost shorter then the name).  Sticking with either theme will work well in most cases.

The other names tended to come from nicknames, either based on some aspect of the line, or the name itself.  For example, the Katy was so named because of the initials, MKT (Missouri, Kansas & Texas).  The Nickel Plate earned it's name from a comment about prices (I think), when someone commented that they charged so much you'd think the line was nickel plated.

Of course, you can pick a single town and a direction.  Assuming the town (Robteed, CA, for example) is on the west coast, you could make the line the Robteed & Eastern.  That puts the main focus of the railroad on that one town - where the main service, yard, interchange, etc. are all located, and it runs out from there.

Thanks Guys

You have givin me lots to think about!

The bench works moving along fast. Have most of the first level built.

Rob Teed

The RMP

NMRA Pike Registry

is this list online ?

It could save a lot of "name and/or reporting already in use" messages after submitting a railroad.

cheers, Leo

You register your railroad with the NMRA?

So the pair of UTAH BELT SD50's might be in some sort of violation of NMRA rules?  I just wanted to interchange with another railroad and just happened both my railroad and the UTAH BELT end at the same place in New Mexico.

Pike Registry

2006 seems a little out of data.

So it is a feel good thing for $10.  from what I can tell.

What I saw too..

It seem very much out of date, but although for 10.00 is not a bad price, but that is you have to be part of the NMRA.  I would love to register my pike, but would not wish to join the NMRA, as it would not be worth my wile at this point.  I wonder if it will ever get updated to 2012?