First, a sprinkling from my latest game. For sentimental reasons on my part, coupled with a firm belief in the steam engine's virtues of durability and amenability to variable fuel and maintenance, the steam locomotive remains the backbone of SCT's operations.
Thus we see this busy, steam-filled scene at Cata Motive Power Depot Junction, in which a Class 26 - a series production version of Wardale's famed "Red Devil" - returns to Cata Halt to load its cargo of food for offloading at a distant dockside. A grain train passes by on the Up line in the hands of a pair of 4-6-4 + 4-6-4 15th class Beyer-Garratts, probably making for Montevideo West, while a fruit train from the riverside plantations skulks past as its two 15ths drop into the MPD for routine maintenance.
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Two years later and somewhat to the East, a pair of Class 25C 4-8-4s approach an oasis-like body of water on a fast copper ore service making its way North through the blooming fields of a nearby farm. Having just left the longer of two tunnels, the crews have time to glimpse a pair of sister engines on a returning empty stock train disappearing into the opposite bore with the characteristic screech of a high-pitched S.A.R. whistle.
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An impressive motive power line-up at Montevideo West station sees four trains awaiting loading with grain in the hands of eight 15th class Beyer-Garratts, whose crews are doubtless glad of the brief lull in activity. Hand-fired, like most Rhodesia Railways locomotives, a hard-working 15th must have been a challenge to tax the strength of most firemen.
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Ancient and modern meet as a pair of oil tanker trains pass just West of Montevideo oil refinery. The Up train is in the hands of a pair of Class 10As, while the Down train's locomotives (mostly obscured by trees) are a pair of GMAs, whose high maximum DBHP and tractive efforts are necessary to drag the full 1,000+ tonne load over the steep hills near Oruro. The unfinished goods exit lines can just be seen in the top right corner of the picture; they are never to be completed, goods output instead being handled by air freight, shipping and road haulage.
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Another view of two pairs of Class 25Cs, this time running fast water tanker trains through the waterless central and eastern areas of the map. Beneath the redundant viaduct can be seen a short length of track owned by the ever-obstinate firm of Cannot Remove Obstacles on Land.
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Two GMAs haul a heavy grain train over the magnificent sixteen-arch Carupano Viaduct. Beneath them hum the overhead wires of the high-speed electrified passenger line between Carupano and Anaco.
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A Giant Screenshot showing the hive of activity in and around the town of Maracay. To the South-West, a pair of double-headed 10As await completion of their trains' loading with copper ore, bound for a factory situated on the coast and across the steep hills Northwards. Four sister engines haul heavy food trains from Ascencion Docks, bound for the city of San Borja and the growing town of San Juan, while yet another pair of 10As top-and-tail the copper ore train from Camana mines, destined for the same factory as the ore from Maracay South. Within Maracay itself, the roads swarm with buses, some intra- and some inter-city, while lorries pound through laden with food for distant towns and villages and diamonds for the bank in San Borja.
*****
A final view shows the attached banker of the top-and-tailed copper ore train vanishing into a tunnel, while two sister engines make for Maracay MPD. The predominance of the 10As can be explained by the ready availability of large supplies of wood beside the line -and the plentiful and cheap supply of men in the area.