SANTE-FE ONTARIO AND WESTERN RAILROAD
by Ken Scales MMR
The Sante -Fe Ontario and Western railroad represents the old New York and Ontario Railroad which in this universe went bankrupt and was torn up in the mid 1950s. However in a parallel universe it was taken over by Sante-Fe and continued to run using a mixture of older Sante-Fe equipment together with some leased equipment from various other railroads. Some equipment has also been custom painted and lettered in the railroads own paint scheme. The era is the very end of steam diesel transition. Although the original railroad got rid of steam early, the maintenance facilities remained, so steam has returned particularly during winter, when modern locos struggle to cope with the ice and snow in the region. Many of the diesels have come from the mid west and are not well suited to the harsh eastern winters.
The eastern end of the railroad contains a large station at Middletown which was rebuilt from the original structure to give it a modern European appearance. This is also the main administration centre for the railroad.
Minerals are brought from the mines at the western end of the layout north to Cornwall where they are loaded onto barges and ships at the large ore dock.
The larger passenger trains run from Middletown to Cornwall where passengers transfer to ships and planes. Most local trains are mixed services with a single passenger car on the rear of a freight train or gas electric doodlebugs. There are also a few self propelled 3 car diesel sets using a mixture of Budd cars and some custom units. There are stations at Sidney and Walton representing these locations on the prototype.
The layout is housed in a part of a new house on the NSW Central Coast and occupies and area of 28 feet by 11 feet. It uses just about every type of construction possible, mostly using very heavy timber to allow construction of the rear scenery by standing on the layout. It has an NCE DCC system and dispatching is done using switch lists. Scenery is constructed mainly from plaster using different techniques. A mixture of real rock and plaster castings is used to represent rock faces. Large amounts of natural materials have been used to construct scenery, which represents eastern USA in the area covered by the original New York and Ontario Railroad. Some techniques such as the waterfalls are experimental. The layout was only started in February 2007 and should be fully detailed over the next 2 years.
