Choosing a name for your line

[Petersfield]

Perhaps you can blame the weather for this too? Given the recent temperatures (and point problems documented elsewhere), I've not been able to do as much on actual construction as I'd like. So I've been trying to do other bits and pieces which don't raise so much of a sweat!

Sooner or later I need to have a name for my line. But choosing one has been tricky. Most of the others in the local group have opted for the Something Valley Railway. But my back garden is rather flat and we're not noticeably on the side of a valley the way some people's lines are. And the valley we do live in has already had it's name taken for a line. Using the village name? I could do ... but I prefer not to advertise my specific location online or in publications and calling it the ***** Light Railway is a bit of a giveaway. Likewise using the road name. And in any case - a few weeks ago one of our neighbours stopped for a chat while we were gardening and she was dogwalking - she said that during some recent digging in the back garden she found the foundations of a garden railway. So there has probably already been a **** Light Railway.

I'm not trying to recreate a particular line but am aiming for the overall ambiance of an English or Welsh rural general carrier. If it's built as designed (!) then cognoscenti will spot inspiration for scenes from the Cambrian, Tal y Llyn, Welshpool and L&B.

I have wondered about 'The South West[ern?] Railway. As I have moved from the north into the lower left corner (BLC as opposed to Ivor and the FR's TLC?) of the country. But I'm not thrilled with it. Nor do I fancy calling it [My] Light Railway.

Current thinking is I could name it 'WLB Railway/s'. I have a lot of W&L stock, with some L&B and other freelance but widish loading gauge stock. So perhaps a merger between the W&L (perhaps the Whitchurch and Lyndley Railway?) and L&B (Lyndley and Broadoak Railway?) to explain the mix of W&L and L&B markings? I suppose I could invent a mythical county and weave that into the name.

Looking through the forum, sometimes I can see why a line's been given a particular name and sometimes not. Sometimes this (and a backstory) has been covered in the builder's OP (or soon after). I've had a few ideas but none which has really hit the spot. So, any thoughts, comments or suggestions welcome.

[drewzero1]

I wanted a semi-believable but fully fictitious Welsh(ish) setting, so I read books about and maps of Wales looking all over for inspiration and tried a bunch of names. Nothing really seemed fitting until I came across Llanfihangel yn Nhowyn, which through successive misspellings and misremembering gave me Nolwyn, which sounds a lot like my last names mashed together. I then searched maps, dictionaries, and translator sites to see if it was already a real name or a swear, and the only thing I got was that Google Translate put it back to English as "Backwater Tramway" which happens to be a perfect description of the line.

For your situation I really like the WLB idea, especially coming up with different things for the letters to stand for, though I would also find it very amusing to have the two original railways supposedly merging in some area far away from either of their original range. I have seen that done with US HO railways modeling a fictitious subdivision of a historic railroad, a "what if" that railroad came here. (I'm looking out for some EWS stock for my nameless Chicago Northwestern/Wisconsin Central shelf layout for some similar geography-bending. The WC and EWS were owned by the same parent company and shared a striking burgundy-and-yellow paint scheme.)

When naming my line I didn't consider abbreviations enough... I like NVT all right (copying the GVT from which I've borrowed a lot of stock, mostly thanks to Rik), but when I built some stubby vans that only had room for two letters, the NV ended up looking too much like NY, for the New York Central (the boxcars of which I have a handful of models in smaller scales). It could also be fun to spell out something with the initials, as Peter has done with BURPS. I'll be the first to admit I wasn't clever enough to come up with a name like that!

[Petersfield]

You can have a lot of fun with acronyms. One option along the lines of BURPS could have been the WC & P. All those letters are local names, whether farms or villages. In my miniature 4mm world, certain companies have been renamed - for example, [the UK's] EWS is now (in a Welsh accent) Edward Williams Slate. 'My' LMS is the Longridge Mining Society.

There are a few local names beginning with W, Weston is a very common placename and there's Whitwell and Whitchurch too. I was at school with someone with the surname Lyndley and it's a street name in a TV sitcom I like. Broadoak is nearby and as it's 'off scene' and represented by the fiddle yard - which will be timber construction - that also seemed appropriate.

I was tempted by Welsh names, they sound melodious and can be very evocative. Maybe I'll keep two sets of nameboards, one English, one Welsh?

[ge_rik]

You could always do what I did and name it after somewhere interesting near where you live. There may be quite a few plausible locations for mineral / rural / community railways in your area.

Rik