Wanted,Model Railroaders

in Michigan,Ohio,Indiana,Illinois,Wisconsin,and of course Canada.This offer is also open to anybody whose mrr extends into these states.

The reason is to start a model railroad consotorium (spelling is not my strong suit).to expand all member railroads customer bases.If you are a member of NARA thats great,but if you are NOT it will make no difference.

The Grande Valley Railway actually starts in Indiana (headquarters are in Grand Rapids,MI )and runs the entire length of the lower Michigan peninsula north to south.We also run from Muskegon on the shores of Lake Michigan easterly to Port Huron, MI./ Sarnia,Ontario,CA where we connect with our Canadian partner the Mayberly & Tayside.

The object of this exersize is to enable smaller roads a chance to expand their customer base as well as our own.

If this sounds interesting to you please feel free to post to this thread.

[railohio]

You know I'm in so long as it doesn't require doing any actual modeling.

[brakie]

John,As you know CDB Industries combined the operations of the Cincinnati & Lake Erie,Toledo & Southwestern and the Toledo & Grand Rapids..CDBI also abandon track from Defiance to Ft.Wayne.So we no longer go to Indiana.Service between Jackson to Grand Rapids is operated on a as needed bases..We would love to up the service to Grand Rapids.

[60103]

Catt: The Perth and Exeter stops a little short of Sarnia -- about 40 miles along the lake -- but there is a car ferry service to Michigan. The other end of the line stops near Ottawa on the Tay river but joins onto part of the CPR. We offer economical rates to the heart of the Canadian Shield.
I think we intersect with the MAT someplace.

[Thoroughbreed]

The Midwest Ga RR, took over from the defunct Ga South Western, reaches all the way into Texas, and the Parent Co, NS reaches all the Way to Chicago and covers most Eastern roads. I might occasionally spot a GVR car down here serving the local paper co, Maed (intentional misspell), wh has a real industry just 35 miles south of here and is served by local RR.

The GVR's Indiana yard is a shared facility with NS.I do believe we have a connection.

[UP SD40-2]

Catt, is this going by prototype, or can we do it by our fictitious based on real road? i model UP under my fictitious "UP's Rock Valley Sub" based here in WI, and goes south to Chicago, then west to CA. here at UP's "Rock Valley Sub", "we can handle it", AND..."we will deliver". let me know whats going on. THANKS! -Deano

Deano,it doesn't matter if your road is proto or not .In the real world the GVR would be NS as it is their ex Conrail track that my freelanced road is based on.Actually as the story goes Conrail wanted out of this part of Michigan and the GVR was formed just for that purpose (this was in 197.

My basic plan here is to get a network of model railroads that can effectivly deliver the goods from one railroad to a customer way over on the other side of wherever.

[Gary S.]

I think I know the answer to this question already... is this going to simply be a list of other's industries that a person could ship to by sending the car off into our own staging, or is this a little more involved where the first person would notify the second via email, as in "there is a Santa Fe boxcar loaded with widgets that is headed to "XYZ" industry on your layout, and then the second person could put a similar car in his staging and route it to the industry?

[Thoroughbreed]

Catt, if you could give me a description, number, and color scheme of a GVR car, I might see if I can "find" one in the yard.
I would like to see if we could start a "spot that car" type of thread and send the car to different railroads here on the gauge and have the current RR take pics and maybe autograph the car or a bill of lading for the load. We could use an 86' box car, one that is typical, but could be labeled for the Gauge. I've got an 86' NW, I could relabel the reporting marks, if anyones interested.

[fifer]

Catt , although the Albuquerque Carnuel and Tijeras operates throughout New Mexico , we do mine Unobtainium here for transfer to any steel mill , nuclear power plant , soda pop maker , etc. around the US.

Mike

[spitfire]

Catt, when you talk about a consortium*, are you thinking along the lines of Conrail, where a whole bunch of our smaller RRs join together to form a larger one? Would we keep our existing paint schemes, or would we have GVR locos and rolling stock on our layouts?

Either way it sounds like a neat idea. I've been thinking about interchange traffic and this would potentially generate a completely new way of doing it.

Val

* I looked it up

Geez Val,I never thought of that "The N scale model railroad Grande Valley Railway now has more real miles of track than the prototype Union Pacific"

Ok back to reality here for a second

All member railroads would remain as they are now with their own equipment and rolling stock.There's probly a correct name for all of this but we'll just call it the agreement.The idea is to concider all participating railroads customers as your own even if you are way down the food chain in delivering the products to their end point.

Anybody have any ideas they would like to propose please feel free to do so.

[EDIT] The more I read the above it reminds me of NARA which was formed by this Yankee and a very much missed Canadian gentleman by the name of Robin to do just what I stated above with our two railroads.

[Thoroughbreed]

Decalling cars of my line is simple considering the parent co is NS. All i have to do is change the sub to MWG, such as Central of GA has done, and I'm done

[Thoroughbreed]

But seriously, I wanna see if we could get together and send a car to the variuos RR's here and get some pics from the participents and maybe an autograph in the form of graphitti on the car or on a bill of lading. What do ya'll think?
On the bill of lading, can just put "forwarded from XXX RR to YYY RR". And just keep all the bills of lading and forward with the car.