Southern Pacific Dalsa Cutoff

Owner: Joe & Sharon Mainz
Scale: HO
Era : 1970s- early 1980s
Layout Location : Texas
Featuring the Espee line across central Texas between Hearne and Flatonia.
It's in a building we built for it just out of our back door.
I've been an avid SP fan since the late 1950s. Over the years we've made several trips to Flatonia, about 80 miles east of San Antonio. That's where the Dalsa Cutoff, originally constructed as a shortcut between Dallas and San Antonio, connects to the New Orleans-Los Angeles Sunset Route.
The Flatonia Subdivision, as the Dalsa Cutoff was formally known, formed a strategic link between the Cotton Belt connection in Corsicana, Texas and the Sunset Route to L.A. It was part of the route of the SP's - at times the world's fastest freight trains, the Blue Streak Merchandises or "BSMs," from St. Louis and Memphis to Los Angeles. - Ed.
The layout depicts the line between Hearne and Flatonia, part of the Southern Pacific's Austin Division in the 1970s and early 1980s.I've also modeled the connection with the transcontinental Sunset Route at Flatonia