Welcome, Mike.

My favorite is SP.  why?  perhaps the reason common to a majority of us:  It's what I remember as a kid.  I grew up in coastal Southern California watching the last glimpses of cab-forwards, and then black-widow F units and SD-7/9's.  Strings of PFE reefers, and lumber trains from the Pacific NW.   My daily drive to work is along the UP (ex SP) R-O-W, so the current layout design is the 1950's version of the area I see every day.

I grew up near the Santa Fe mainline as it runs through Corona in So Cal.  I like colorfull railroads, and when I got back into model railroading in the 1980's I liked the look of the Santa Fe's blue and yellow warbonnet frwight livery against the backdrop of the red ballast they use.  The more I read about the railroad, the more difficulty I had deciding what I would model.

I grew up in Regina, Sask. living about four blocks from the CN yard and used to ride my bike over to watch the goings on there.  We could hear the loco's working the yard, particularly in the winter and I fell asleep listening to the sound of the Diesels on many nights.  For that reason, I have a soft spot for CN.  I was always fascinated by the CP rail station in downtown Regina, (now a casino- head shaking) and the expansive CP yards east of the station.  Add to that the fact that I am a proud Canadian and that's why I like CN & CP.

When I was a kid, our neighbor across the street was a CN Engineer and a model railroader.  He was a good guy but was not interested in having kids hanging around his layout so I only ever saw it once and jsut a passing glance.  Well that was enough for me.  I started bugging my parents for a train set, got a Tyco CN set for Christmas in 1975.  So I have been loving trains and CN/CP for a long time now.

...even though my current roster is full of CSX diesels, I started out with B&O and C&O.  Growing up in SE Michigan in the SIxties, I saw many blue-and-yellow colored diesels on the former Pere Marquette lines in the area.  And when my family moved to Maryland in 1968, I was in B&O country.  Their diesels [by this time] were also blue & yellow so they reminded me of my old Michigan home road.

In December 2004 I tried modeling CSX because I figured that would be a way to get the kids interested.  Didn't work, but I grew to like the CSX anyway since I could still see its pretty gray-blue-yellow diesels running on the B&O's Old Main Line close to where I live. 

Once I get my layout rebuilt, I'm hoping to accumulate a new roster of 1971-era B&O locos.  But first I need to focus on rebuilding the layout so I won't accidentally spend all the money in my track budget!

Most of my life I have always build the Southern Pacific only because I could not afford to Build the Real Railroads I have always loved. Those were the Colorado Narrow Gauge Railroads. Finally now I have made enough money to buy a large enough Home with a 1/2 acre of land behind it of which at this time all I have is a 4&1/2 inch thick concrete floor 30 foot X 60 foot behind the house that will some day soon have about 1/3 of it as a shop and the main 2/3 of it will house a good portion of the D&RGW, RGW, D&RG, RGS, C&T and most of the narrow gauge circle incorporated in it. For right now I'm building a small portion of the RGS in my basement as a Chain Saw for now to learn DCC and some new techniques in bench work.

Narrow Gauge Mountain Railroading has always been my dream to build and John Allen is who inspired me years ago with his giant Mountains and little trains.

My favorite all time railroad has always been the Rio Grande Southern because it was the hardest to build and had the steepest Grades(5%)in places and was one of the major mining railroads in America from 1889 to 1949.

Dan

That would be the Boston and Maine. Which is somewhat odd, because I grew up (actually I still live here) around Conrail. My fist railfan trip (real one not the drive down to Franklin station to watch the local variety) was to the B&M in Ayer, MA. Guilford was just taking over so you could see anything from the B&M-MEC-D&H at any time. B&M GP7's and GP9's ruled everywhere. I would love to do a model of East Deerfield Yard, back when it was a great place to watch trains before Mellon killed it. I remember going out on a Saturday in 1988 and the newest locomotive I saw all day at ED was a GP18 on the point of about 7 other of her sisters. All I saw that day was B&M blue geeps and I was bummed. Now that I look back on it, I can't believe how lucky I was. Unfortunately, I missed the EMD Demo SD60's by one weekend and the SD26's in ATSF paint still. Ah, those were the days. That's why my layout is going to be the B&M in the late 80's. Location, undetermined ...

Although, HiRail truck, I do love the multimark logo as well. I remember trips up to Newport, VT and the chop-nose RS18's. I would probably model CP second (although they will have appearances on my B&M layout) and SP third (that stems from a trip to Tehachapi right before the BNSF and UP foolishness. The layout at my parent's house (before I moved out) was going to be the SP with the loop on it. I still have a bunch of SP stuff I need to rid myself of. Not that I don't like it, but one good thing about modeling a prototype timeframe is it keeps you from buying stuff just because you like it. Because you can't have just one ...

Jim

SP is probably my favorite.  My earliest train memory, other than counting boxcars when stopped at crossings, is the time my brother had me accompany him (I was about 4 years old in the early '50s) across a field near my grandmother's house in Hercules, CA, down to the tracks.  "The tracks" were the mainline of the SP between Sacramento and Oakland, and I remember a huge behemoth roaring and smoking at the head of a train, and I remember noticing the huge platform between the loco and tender...

Then there were the family stories of my great grandfather, who was the section foreman at Glen Frazer, CA, on the Santa Fe, and of course the pictures in the ads in my brother's Boy Scout manual of the Lionel F-3s in War Bonnet colors.  How beautiful!

And then there's the romance of the Colorado narrow gauge.  Besides the engineering, there's the scenery and the diverse operations, and the scraping by that the roads had to do as automobiles took over more and more of their business.  And having ridden on the C&TS, I was smitten!

So my railroad is the SPS&F (San Pablo, Sonora, and Fresno), with a narrow gauge branch that uses cast-offs from the SP, EBT, RGS, and D&RG for equipment, as well as some homemade stuff (old K-28 frames with SP M-6 boilers and Vanderbilt tenders).

LIke Joe says, model what you know and love.

It has to be Conrail. But nowadays It's going probably evolve into a mix of Norfolk Southern and CSX. Of course New York and Atlantic and LIRR has to be part of the mix as well.

Irv

The idea of a 100% Alco powered railroad operating right now is just too neat to ignore.  I just don't have the time or space to model both the A&M and the Santa Fe or in my case the LAJ a wholly owned subsidiary of the Santa Fe and now of the BNSF.

Dudes,

 I dont know what my favorite railroad is but I prefer to model Southern Pacific in the 50s. Growing up in Southern California in Tehachapi probably had alot of influence on it. I remember as a little kid the "bloody nose" paint scheme was an easy one for me to identify and I think that must have stuck with me. Now I prefer the "black widow" paint scheme for obvious reasons. J/K.

Mike