sfsarrinfo

The Santa Fe and San Antonio Railway (SF&SA RR) is an N-Scale model railroad layout built in modular sections, compatible with N-Trak. The original SF&SA was started in the garage in 1999, moved into an inside room in 2001 and is now approximately two-thirds completed. The SF&SA is based on a 'fictitious' feeder line connecting the Santa Fe Railroad's mainlines in the east at Houston and Galveston, Texas, to the Santa Fe Railroad mainlines in the west near Albuquerque and Santa Fe, New Mexico, and to the north near Ft Worth, Texas. It is similar in operation and covers an area like that of the once Galveston, Harrisburg & San Antonio, San Antonio & Fredricksburg, M-K-T and other small area railways. In theory, the tracks run via San Antonio between Galveston and El Paso east-west end points and north from San Antonio, via the Texas Hill Country, to Ft Worth. The Santa Fe and San Antonio also has some of its own locomotives and rolling stock. In addition, there are Santa Fe, Southern Pacific, Union Pacific, M-K-T, Texas and Pacific and Amtrak motive power and equipment from several smaller Texas railroads on the layout. The countryside through which the SF&SA operates varies from the piney woods of East Texas, to the buttes of the Big Bend, to the rocky arid mountains of New Mexico with its Pueblos. The Texas Hill Country and northern plains also provide more varying contrasts in scenery on the northbound leg to Ft Worth. Each major module is separated by a connecting module or by high background scenery, so as to appear as totally independent scenic areas. Some scenery on each module is constructed to allow various eras of railroading to be depicted, from old steam to ultra modern, with minor switching of certain scenery items. When the layout operates in the modern era, it is no longer 'fictitious', but can now represent the merged Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) (BN from 1970 merger of the CB&Q, GN, NP and SP&S and then in 1995 with the ATSF) which started services in San Antonio in 2003 along with the merged Union Pacific (MP & WP in 1983, MKT in 1988, C&NW in 1995, and the D&RGW, CB and SP in 1996). The Union Pacific has considerable trackage in the San Antonio area, but now both the BNSF and UP will serve the new San Antonio Toyota Plant. It will be interesting to see if the proposed BNSF and CN merger happens and one will see CN engines in San Antonio in the near future.

Information about the
Santa Fe & San Antonio Railroad

N-Scale Model Railroading

! Action

! Diagram !

! Rolling Stock !!

The SF&SA RR was started as a Christmas layout in 1998, expanding into the garage in 1999. In mid-2001, because of problems with heat and cold in the garage, it was moved to an inside spare bedroom, in which it has continued to expand. Presently the layout extrends 15' along one wall on shelf units, then across another room wall on shelf units for 10'. A pennusula table, made up of three N-Trak modules now extends 7' out from the end wall units into the room (see diagram). As new details are added, old ones are upgraded, changed or removed, the scenery is forever changing. Special electronic effects can be found all over the layout in unusual locations. At present there are five continuously running tracks and two auto-reversing tracks operational, or it should be said, running as soon as the new Industrial Area table is installed to bridge the 4ft gap. In 2005 a G-Scale Garden Division was added..

Train Depots of
San Antonio

History of
TEXAS Tailroads

History of the
AT&SF

At various times since 2000, there have been 2 to 9 N-scalers in the SF&SA RR group.

61 Specifically documented