Jefferson & Davis vs Travis & Crockett

The two towns in the Jerome & Southwestern copycat track plan will be Jefferson and Davis. Mirabeau is the town on the spur, and the territorial capitol, although only a small portion of it will be modeled. In the Grizzly Mountain section, the two towns will be Travis and Crockett. I thought briefly about using Bowie or Milam, but I just like the names Travis and Crockett a little better, I think.

In any case, the idea is that under the rubric of the Ruritanian Territorial Railroad Commission, an office of the territorial government, that many smaller "mom & pop" railroads bid on main access to various routes as government contractors of sorts, and the cost of laying and maintaining the lines, bridges, and even some of the facilities are subsidized because it was worth it to the territorial government to have access to rail in the territory. In return, these mom & pop shortlines, as most of them are, are required to pass along combines or passenger cars, along with the mail, as coordinated by the Commission. The Commissioner, or at least one of the handful of people that work in his small office, coordinates this stuff, as well as occasional right of way issues between the various railroads to make sure that the railroads are meeting the needs of the territorial citizens, and are working together.

Jefferson & Davis, or J&D and Travis & Crockett, or T&C, are two such lines. The J&D will be the J&SW style Davis County desert/mountain section, and the T&C will be in the Grizzlies. Mirabeau will be where their offices are, as well as the RTRRC's offices, as well as shared engine facilities. But technically, this railroad is two railroads. I like the idea that the owners are cantankerous middle aged old campaigners who respect and even like each other, but are cautious about showing too much of that because they're also rivals to some degree. They actually work together fairly well, but then—mostly for show—they have to argue too. Think of them as not unlike King Stefan and King Hubert; the parent kings of Princess Aurora (the titular character) and her love interest Prince Phillip respectively, from the Disney Sleeping Beauty. Their kids aren't betrothed... but secretly, they are engaged. While they haven't told their parents yet, because they're afraid of their fathers' reactions, but secretly, both would love to see them married and their two businesses combined, so they can retire knowing that their businesses have grown and prospered under the wise stewardship of Phillip, Hubert's son. Rose, Stefan's daughter, is of course wonderful, but has no interest in running a business because she's actually a feminine woman, and not a man trying to be a poor imitation of a woman. She wants to raise a family and have a bunch of kids. Both fathers and their mothers couldn't possibly imagine a better outcome, but ironically, nobody will admit it until it happens, so the engagement is a secret for now.

Anyway, I'd love to add little backstory vignettes like that to the railroad as I build it. But what I really want to talk about is that while I've identified eight locomotives that I want, I want to split them 4x4 between the two railroads. Because of right of way issues, it's always possible for one loco of one railroad to operate on the other, but mostly they stay on their own side, and of course in the Mirabeau spur. 

Because all eight of these are relatively small steam engines, in order to give more visual distinction between them, I want to have them be a little bit more colorful than normal; not just plain black, or black with silver front ends. J&D's colors will be red and white (or pale gray), based on the James Long Republic of Texas flag.

This would imply that I can use red for some accent colors. But I don't want all of the locomotives to look too uniform; that's beside the point, plus it isn't in character anyway. These are fairly rough and tumble railroads without really fat profits, so imagining them being very particular about repainting all of their stock to be visually the same.

Here's the four that I have assigned I think to J&D and what I'd like to paint them as.

• 2-truck Heisler, with a red painted roof. Silver or "gunmetal" front end
• 0-4-0 Camelback with red painted roof and tender top. Silver or gunmetal front end.
• 4-4-0 "Modern" in plain black, including front end and cab roof.
• 0-6-0 USRA switcher with red cab sides, and other details (headlight, etc.) as well as a mostly red-painted Vandy tender.

White would also be the color of the lettering and numbering.

The T&C will use the Burnet flag and associated colors, which are similar to the University of Michigan by coincidence. Numbering and lettering will be in maize/gold and accent colors would be navy blue. This railroad will also use four locomotives, and the ones that I'd want, along with their associated color schemes, are 

• 2-truck Shay, with a navy cab roof and maybe maize window trim.
• 2-truck Climax, in plain black.
• 2-6-0 Camelback, with maize colored cab walls. Not sure if the boiler will be black (graphite, really) or navy colored. Navy might be too much.
• 0-4-0 little slope-backed switcher, the AHM thing from the past (John Olsen had one on the J&SW, although he obviously greatly preferred to show the Heisler). Probably paint it up like the Shay, but I could go really colorful with it too. Maybe if the Shay has a navy cab roof, the 0-4-0 would have a maize cab roof, but be otherwise black.

I might do something with some of the rolling stock, making some custom logo decals for some of them, it's not really necessary to paint them. I won't presume that in the Texian territorial lands that people even bother repainting rolling stock, unless they have time and money to kill, or want to make sure that nobody can easily just run off with their stock. Most of them will have been bought used. I want to have older "old time" stock, not only because I like the look of it, it'll look used and older, but also because they're all smaller; less than 40' long in most cases, which will look better on the railroad anyway.

I'll have stock cars, which I probably won't reletter, flat cars that I also won't reletter. Box cars and little ore cars that I probably will reletter, at least some of them, and maybe some gons and tank cars that I'll reletter. I'll also reletter a few little bobber cabooses. Not sure what I'm going to do with passenger combines; and I probably will mostly have combines rather than passenger and baggage cars, although maybe I'll have one each of those two, and a few combines. Anything else that I need? Maybe some skeleton cars with logs for the T&C. Maybe a handful of unusual cars, like a derrick or something. But probably that'll do it, for the most part.