The UP-CNW Burlington Sub

Here's my Pike Ad (logo/herald) that's advertised in the NMRA's North Central Region Hotbox quarterly:

The Burlington Sub of Union Pacific-Chicago and North Western's Wisconsin Division runs from Fox Valley Junction in Elgin, Illinois northward through Crystal Lake, IL, Richmond, IL and onward across the state line to Burlington, Wisconsin and the western suburbs of Milwaukee - connecting to the C&NW's Belt Line at Belton Junction, where trains can reach Butler Yard (freight) or Milwaukee Union Station (passenger).

Modeled era is the early-to-mid '90s around the merger date with Union Pacific, which allows me to run both C&NW and UP power. Transfer runs into FRV (Fox River Valley) Yard are made by the Wisconsin Central and SOO - the latter off the former Milwaukee Road Southwestern line. Occasional Amtrak detours use the Burlington Sub, coming off either the C&NW Geneva Sub in West Chicago or Metra's former MILW West Line at Tower B-35 in Elgin.

My "what if" (proto-freelanced, fact-ional) representation of the North Western's line in the Fox River valley was actually planned in the late 1800's, and much of the line built as the C&NW's Lake Geneva branch. An empty roadbed was actually graded from Richmond, Illinois north through Burlington and up into Milwaukee - but like many paper railroads of the time didn't make it past a financial Panic to tracklaying. However, in my version of history the Fox River Valley Railroad Company was completed and eventually absorbed into the growing C&NW.

I've done quite a bit of historical research leading up to this layout concept and plan, and feel the result will be a pretty-realistic representation of the North Western in NE Illinois - albeit a freelanced representation. The benchwork is now done, the Homasote subroadbed down - and tracklaying is to commence soon. Hopefully we won't see another financial Panic in the meantime .

A fun topic

Logos and rationales for freelancing or protolancing a layout is a fun topic.

My little Sonoran copper-mining railroad has a simple, hand-drawn logo that is intended to reflect its late 1800s and Arizona Territory heritage:

Nothin' fancy...legend has it the company clerk for the Estrella Mining Co. had a knack for drawing, and inked the design for the parent copper company and it's subsidiary railroad. He got better as he began working with the local newspaper printing shop, as revealed in this old announcement of a new company store grand opening:

It's been a fun journey over decades of living near the copper mining country of southeastern Arizona, and learning its history - then weaving my railroad rationale into the real world back around the early 1900s. If you are interested, check out my website for a bit of my railroad's historical flavor.

The BARR

This is the paint scheme/logo for my N scale Bethlehem-Area Railroad. Base color is French Blue, Daylight Orange stripes. The font is Gotthard (yes, the Swiss RR),  logo decals and safety striping on the loco are by After Hour Graphics from my art.  Drop shadow is done with white decals over black.

Data decals are Microscale.

NRSL LOGO

Neponset Ridge Shortline kogo 

CY&P logo

The Chicago Yellowstone and Pacific is my railroad.  The name is based on real highway route through my area in the early days of motoring, "The Yellowstone Road".  There was even a motel still in existence as a kid on the old route in my town, "The Yellowstone Motel."  Our local newspaper had a story on this road and immediately I thought,"what a great name for a railroad, Yellowstone Road,"  thus the Chicago Yellowstone and Pacific Railroad was chosen for my freelance line.

Here is a boxcar decorated for my road.  The logo is my artwork with sets made by Rail Graphics.

Also shown is an Eastern Car Works Pullman Smoothside car decorated for the road's premier postwar passenger train. the "National Park Limited."

At the bottom is a hybrid Baldwin rebuild AS-16m displaying the simplified scheme of the logo in later years.

Bob Bochenek [attach:fileid=136240_12_Y6+v196f1OAfWpn/2Q==] 

This Looks Like Fun

Here's mine, plus the railroad's subsidiary, a locomotive builder.

And the locomotive building company.

Bernd

The Louisiana Central Railroad

Here's the Louisiana Central Railroad's herald:

I may have to tweak the line weights and spacing a bit once I go to get my decals made.

This is not my RR but

 the slogan reminded me of what my mom would say when I did something stupid and got hurt.....DaveB 

Inland Pacific Railroad

We at the N-land Pacific freemoN modelers group call our layout the Inland Pacific (IPRR). A few of the guys came up with this a few years before I came along. Don't pay any mind to the line in the red field, printer error.

Here you go

The Yellow Hook Dock & Terminal is a freelanced industrial switcher located somewhere along the East River in Brooklyn.  It's set in the 30's, and is loosely based on the Brooklyn Eastern District and Jay Street Connecting.  Yellow Hook is the former name of the Brooklyn neighborhood known as Bay Ridge.  And since Red Hook, a rough (now rapidly gentrifying) waterfront neighborhood does exist, I thought why not?

Texas & Rio Grande RR

The T&RGRR will be a North South bridge line that connects the Santa Fe at Comanche Springs [Lamesa Texas], to the Texas and Pacific at Pecos Texas, and then to the Southern Pacific at Victorio [Alpine Texas]. The time period will be the WWII era.
 

Regards, John *******************************

The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools.<> Herbert Spencer

Great Lakes Regional Railway

This is mine, this is based on being brought by the GWI family 

Port Able Railroad Logos

I have the "End" logo that I put on my SW1200 #39 (ex PBNE 39),

my "Anchor" Logo,

and my "Lighthouse" logo.

Although my layout is mostly prototype-based

I do engage in some freelancing using my Southern New England Railway - the logo is in my icon. 

Nice graphics work

Nice graphics work Nathan [Somewhere, Ontario]

Hmmm...

Lots of excellent work seen in this thread!

For me, this is ironic as I have a background in graphics and design and have done insignia designs for aviation, military and space-related things. But I never even thought of doing up a logo for my layout.

Why? Well, my layout represents a real-life railroad (the narrow gauge East Tennessee & Western North Carolina) which bought out a fictional short line. The ET&WNC did have a logo but it was only ever used on the cabs of a few of their locomotives in the 30s, and were gone from anything by the time I model in the 40s. Their rolling stock only had roads names in writing.

Most shortline or narrow gauge railroads in the depression era didn't mess around with 'fancy big city' logos. While it's so tempting to create one for the concept of my layout from the time before the ET&WNC bought out the line I model, it wouldn't be historically correct.

Yeah, I'm more than a little bummed about that.

Rising rectangle

My Sioux River RR in theory operates most of the former Milwaukee Road track in South Dakota, along with some in Iowa, North Dakota, and Montana.  The logo (see top right of this post) is a cross between the Milwaukee's rectangle and the flag of my fraternity, Tau Kappa Epsilon.  I oriented it to be rising rather than falling, which to me was just too appropriate for the Milwaukee Road's fortunes.

The TKE flag is grey and red, but the black lettering would not show up too well on grey, especially in HO, so I changed it to white and red.  The result now looks like a "diver down" flag.

The version in the top right of this post was used to make a mirror sign lit by a fluorescent light, so the black and white are reversed from the version used on my models.

Scott Chatfield

Mine is in my signature....  

Mine is in my signature....   it's usually rendered in white with a back drop shadow, on a French Blue background, with a diagonal Daylight Orange stripe(s) on the carbody....

The font is Gotthard... used by the Swiss RR

< < sigh this is what happens when a thread is necro'd after 7 years,,,, you forget you already posted in it! Oh, well...

GPM&C

Did not turn out quite like I wanted but it functions.

Boston Terminal and the Nashua Terminal Railway

Two of my Concept branch lines

The Boston Terminal handles Local Boston Freight switching while the Nashua Terminal Railway supports the northern city freight customers. Both interchange with the Guilford Rail System.

Mine is also GWI based...

I took part of the Willamette & Pacific and part of the Portland and Western logos, and since I didn't just want the & in the middle, I put the beaver from the Oregon State flag there. Bill Brillinger (pdc.ca) cleaned it up for me, and it's been in my signature ever since.

Pacific City & Northern Logo

My PC&N Ry Logo, first two boxcars with this logo are currently in the paint shop. 

Ross A

Here's Blue Ridge & Allegheny

Here's Blue Ridge & Allegheny C-630 5895 fresh from the shops with the mountaineer herald. I came up with this herald design about 7 or 8 years ago after going through many dozens of sketches and poring over tons of books about graphic designers like Paul Rand. 

The decals were printed by Bill Brillinger.