Railworks America

So I'm picking my way across Marias Pass and mapping as I go - every available map I could find was guilty of one or more issues (errors, omissions, low resolution, or was made for the MSTS route and not the TS route [what genius decided that reusing Train Simulator was better then Railworks anyway...])

I found in Essex a track labeled "Hogans Alley". Thinking it was some slang that I had somehow missed over the years (like Hogger, Gandydancer, etc.) I google it and all I can find are entries about the FBI training sight in Qunatico, VA or the old coin op arcade game.

So what is it? Is it something specific to Essex, MT? A GN thing? A BN thing? An BNSF thing? Is it even real? I mean the track is really there, beside the Engine shed whose tracks are oddly labeled RDHSE (round house?) BTW.

This was found on the lo-rez maps in the Marias Pass pdf manual.

And lastly, is it MAH-REE-UHS or MAH-RYE-AHS Pass?

tg626 wrote:MAH-RYE-AHS Pass

The above is the correct pronunciation. That much I do know.

As far as Hogan's Alley, they only thing I can find was from a search on Trainorders, and there is a siding on the BNSF in Denver named that by the locals. As for reasoning why, I have no idea.

I've learned "Hogan's Alley" was a late 19th century comic set in the slums of Manhattan. I'd expect that the name was chosen based on places known by that name in the real world, best documented being in Vancouver (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hogan%27s ... _Vancouver) and it's being synonymous with a slum or "a mess".

Such places would be riddled with crime (and probably also termed a "shooting gallery"), hence the arcade game and training facility in Quantico.

I would guess that such a place would be the "slum" of the railyard where scrap and refuse tended to collect.

The term it's self referring to a slum may have a connection to Dutch slang either "hogan" (short for "hogan-magan") meaning a person who is important, or who thinks they are - hence mocking the poor of such settlements, or "hogans" meaning breasts - hence a prostitution connection though the later is attributed to being from the 1960's.

THAT definition however does give me a new appreciation for the title of the TV show "Hogan's Heros".

(Definitions found in Cassel's Dictionary of Slang 1998,2005 https://books.google.com/books?id=5GpLc ... ng&f=false)