Lake Inferior, or small guppy pond, got its name when our late cattle dog Mr. Otto took to cooling himself amidst the water hyacinth. This resulted in the name Haluku’ilio or Dog Wallo. Since his passing, our huskie-hound Opal has taken over the job of ensuring the town never loses the reason for its name! Today, I finally caught Loch Ness Opal on camera.
My whole railroad is called the Babs River Railway, named after my best friend ever Babs the dog , she was was a Lab/ Collie mix , very intelligent dog that loved to fetch the paper every morning, open the door and she ran out , pounced on it like it was going to run away and bring it back. On walks she also pounced and brought back anyone else’s newspaper !!!
2 of my favorites of her, in the second she is not supposed to be on the bed but somehow we snuck in and caught her in the act. Only reason for not on the bed was a recent surgery and she was supposed to be taking it easy.
While no pets are involved in the names on my railroad, I came up with names I like. For most of the indoor, names were chosen from actual places near my favorite railroad in Pennsylvania; the EBT. Towns like Willow Hill, Kistler, Nook, Meadow Gap and Tyrone were all randomly chosen off a map because I liked the way they sounded.
Outdoors, places were named based on physical features - an idea stolen from Ric Golding and his famous town of Cat Dump! There is Deep Cut in a deep cut, Pine Summit where the grade crests over a pine root and Indian Hill Junction where the steep grade passes a statue of a native American. The town of Wall is atop a retaining wall and Northville is the northern terminus of track. And I can’t forget Coal Dump Curve named for a historic runaway wreck that sent several hoppers full of real crushed coal over the edge of the retaining wall to the abyss below.
One name, coined by my youngest when he was about 10, is Es-cap-e``.
Borrowed from Finding Nemo, it is the point at which the indoor escapes to the outside over two bridges - The East and West Es-cap-e` Bridge!
Yeah when I read it first time , years ago it was during the time when grandkids were into movies like that so I got the reference then.
From the same movie ( IThink) I will someday have MineMine mine if I can find a suitable spot
My small place, can’t call it a town, is a Flag Stop named Oliver. It was after my young grandson. It was based on Oliver on the North Fork of the Gunnison River in Colorado. This was because my my initial stock was Bachman ten wheelers and RGW stock. It was after I discovered Aristocraft locos and stock that the location was changed to Oliver in PA. My backyard looked nothing like CO, but I did have more of an appearance to PA, VA where my shortline was to run.
The towns on my outside layout are named for towns that are in the local area, as my shortline is based on the actual shortline of EVWR… My major outside town and the freight yards of Bluestone Southern is named Bluefield to represent where the Bluestone Southern got it’s name… Named one town on the Hilltop Subdivision as Overlook, as the town sits at the highest point on the railroad… The Bluestone Southern runs trackage to Evansville (the start of the shortline run) thru the hilltop Subdivision… Bluestone Southern also runs trackage on the Sparta subdivion to Memphis with Freeman Spur along that route…
No pet antics to report here. However one of our garden railway towns name came about due to “herself” and her antics on holiday…
We were travelling through Northern California and discovered on the map, a town called Susanville. Herself decided we needed divert to see and find out why there was a town named after a Susan.
Just outside of town there was a sign Come and stay at the Diamond Mountain Casino & Hotel Susanville Rancheria. So we turned off the road and took a gamble on whether there might be a vacancy.
Well, Sue runs in to enquire. Needless to say the ladies behind the desk hadn’t met an Aussie and were enjoying her accent as she was, theirs. She was gone for a while and as I wandered in, I heard Sue say “Surely this Casino-Hotel would automatically offer discounts for people like me?”
With quizzical looks, they asked… “what do you mean, like you?” “Well this is Susanville… and I’m a Susan”, she laughed. They laughed. They said go see the town and come back later… and when we came back they had found us a coupon for ½ off. Nice little town of 8000. Needless to say, our DSP&P now passes through Susanville.
Eric, you may find this interesting as it’s been said the port town Pu’u’oma’o is like nowhere else… Recently our Susanville town committee was approached to become the sister city to Nowhere Else a rural town on the island of Tasmania Australia. While our mountain town slogan has always been Susanville is like nowhere else! the founders just aren’t sure Susanville can be now compared to Nowhere Else when there exists island town that also is like Nowhere Else, but still cant be like nowhere else as Nowhere Else actually is.
Just we need to find as good a story and name for the other town…
My family name is Germanic Swiss, so one railroad was named The Geneva & New Bern Railroad. I am also a Tolkie. I really love the literature works of J. R. R. Tolkien, so I also build equipment for the Brandywine & Gondor Railroad.
Bill,
That’s a cool story about Susanville.
I spent many months over a period of years working construction jobs in that town but that was long before the Indian Casino days.
The town has a rich history in the logging and lumbering industry, one of the main players was a company called Fruit Growers Supply Company.
As garden railroaders, we get tend to get involved in history even if we are happy it’s from a distance. And in an era when many people don’t know the names of their great grandparents, you certainly inherited a family tree with a significant history of emigration, exploration and settling of California.
We did not have it on our “to do list”, but we were so glad we visited Lassen Volcanic National Park. We thought it was more exciting than Yellowstone because not only was it accessible, it was uncrowded and beautifully accessible. So we actually had time and room to learn a bit about Peter Lassen as well about how mud pots, fumeroles and geysers work.
I wonder how the National Park would handle you showing up and saying, “Hi my name’s Pete Lassen and this park is named after my ancestor. Surely there’s a family discount!”
Legend Pete!
As an aside, does your garden railway encompass points of interest in Lassen County?
Well Bill did you climb Mt. Lassen?
Heck of a view from the top at 10, 440 or 10, 457 depending on which survey you read but at about half way up you would swear its at least 20, 000 feet
Clearly after reading this, and your previous post, we have missed out on quite a bit, and we’ll need to go back to Lassen county, visit the Susanville Railway Depot Museum, Mt. Lassen and it goes without saying, the Susanville Walmart.
