WINDSOR - GWR

A new HO Gauge US Layout, depicting Windsor Colorado.

Built and Exhibited by Peter Everit.

The Story of the Line

At the beginning of the 19th century, the need for an alternative source for sugar, cheaper than the cane variety, led the US government to encourage a sugar beet industry in the Mid-West.   “Great Western Sugar” became one of the major organisations involved, and soon had several large factories across several States.

The sugar beet needed to get to the factories quickly , to avoid sugar loss, and so the sugar Company set up the “Great Western Railway” in the area, north-east of Denver, a fifty mile line to connect with the main local railroads.  The GWR connected with the Colorado and Southern at Longmont, Loveland, and Windsor, and with the Union and Pacific at Eaton.

The sugar beet industry started to decline in the 1970’s, and was virtually gone by the mid 1980’s.  However, the railway was separated from the ailing sugar Company in 1978, but survived as a separate entity, and is surprisingly still in business.

The GWR operated a variety of motive power over the years, on its fifty or so miles of railway.  It started out with typical small steam engines, mainly 0-6-0’s and 2-8-0’s, with one 2-10-0, mostly purchased new.  In the diesel era it moved forwards more with second-hand units , passed on from the main Class 1 railroads.

Construction uses a light-weight open frame, mainly 6mm plywood, with Styrofoam and plaster-shell landscape.

The landscape modelling techniques, used on this layout, were described in detail at one of the Club’s talk nights.  The apparent over-steepness of the bank on the right is acceptable for layouts where often landscapes are compressed.

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Evening at the Mine