RMR - Rocky Mountain Railroad

[thecanadianrail]

Well hopefully this is the last thread I will ever have to create for my RMR route. I have had a few tries at it and finally I have gotten one where it feels like I have gone far enough that I can finish it....one day. So right now I am going to talk about the Rocky Mountain Railroad's history, present, future, and other things like its roster and operations.

History

The RMR started off as a shortline logging railroad in the 1930's hauling logs from the mountains to the sawmills and then to the customers in towns nearby. As time went on the towns around it grew and new resources were found in the area, along with it one of the nearby towns on the edge of the mountain range grew to a major city thanks to the help of growth from the Great Northern Railway which runs right through the heart of the city. This created a boom since a larger city requires more resources such as wood, coal, oil, grain etc... Now the RMR had lots of access to top quality wood for the sawmills so that created good revenue, at the same time (its about 1940 now) a fair size coal vein was found just west of where the RMR was located, and with this the RMR cut a deal with the nearby city to deliver a weekly train of coal to a power plant the growing city would build. Now the RMR really started to pull in the $$$, and then the big stuff really happened in about 1946, one of the largest localized coal areas in the western half of the continent was found just over the mountains from where the RMR is! This coal is of some of the purest and highest quality stuff in the world and everybody wanted a piece of it, especially the other railways that were nearby. A major bidding war started between the RMR, GN, and the SP when it was decided that only 1 coal mine would be allowed to be built and only 1 operator could own the trackage to it. In a miraculous turn of events the RMR won the bidding war (thanks to some quick deals cut with GN and SP), and it was the start of something bigger...much bigger for the RMR. Now it is 1947 and the RMR has to find a safe way over the mountain to the coal rich area over yonder. It took 4 years to build it, it has grades up to 5% in some places but it was complete, and it was making big bucks. It cost a lot of money to build that mountain pass, so much that it almost bankrupt the RMR in 1950. It took over a decade to pay off the costs to build the route over the mountain and during that time not much new has happened. Quite a few years passed and during that time one of the biggest railways nearby had a major change, the GN merged with a few other railways creating the Burlington Northern Railway. This didn't effect the RMR much at all but its just something to keep this story alive during the boring period for RMR. So the year is 1975 and there is an increased demand for grain products. This kick-started the next big thing for the RMR, which is going over to the nearby parries and taping into the farmland. Now the RMR gained a few new resources such as Grain, Cattle, and Oil. This section was not considered as part of RMR's mainline due to the fact that it was almost completely single track on this subdivision/branch line with only 2 areas for trains to pass. In 1981 the RMR built onto its mainline connecting it with the SP to the northwest thereby creating a second route over the range but a less favorable one. Now its 1987 and Iron ore was found directly west of the west end of the RMR, and the RMR was going for it. a new branchline was built to access the iron ore and along the way found a few extra resources that I will discuss later. Now lets skip ahead to 1995, the next change in the area is that BN and Santa Fe merged together to create BNSF. Now BNSF having a lot more access to customers wanted some of the coal the RMR had, and which it had plenty. A deal was cut with BNSF for RMR to transport once every day a BNSF unit train from the mine to the BNSF mainline to the east and back. the occasional time BNSF will lend over a locomotive to assist in certain times such as winter. One year later SP was bought out by UP and that changed how the RMR dealt with the interchange, less traffic from the west unfortunately. (UP didn't like RMR for some reason at the start?) At the same time all this stuff with BNSF and UP's changes CN decided to build a line coming south and it ended up going right trough the major city on the edge of the mountains that the RMR and BNSF currently operate in/through. This gave the RMR another large interchange opportunity. That basically sums up the basic history behind the RMR.

Present RMR

About a month ago RMR officially became a Regional railway instead of just a shortline thanks to a deal between CN and UP. UP has been having lots of traffic through their pass and with that they decided to cut a deal between RMR and CN, the deal is that UP has a piggy back train that goes across the pass to an interchange with CN, and UP wants to cut RMR a deal if the RMR lets CN take the piggy back trains over RMR's pass instead of the UP one. This adds another 2 trains a day each way. RMR has also started to tap into the ethanol industry in the parries to the east.
RMR has 3 main subdivisions, the first runs from the UP interchange in the west up to the summit, the second subdivision stretches from summit east to RMR's original headquarters, and the third subdivision is between the end of the 2nd subdivision and the interchange with BNSF and CN in the major city to the east. there are also 2 small subdivision/branchlines. (I have yet to lay the track for these)

RMR's Future

RMR plans to improve its trackage over the pass by adding more double track areas and passing sidings throughout the route. Along with that RMR wants to expand further west to create its own route to the pacific, but that will take some time. Another thing is that the route is not yet cleared for double stack containers and RMR wants to change that since it will add a lot more traffic and revenue.

RMR's Current Roster

RMR currently owns a lot of older locomotives but thanks to increases in demand for coal and iron ore they are looking into purchasing some newer locomotives such as ES44's or SD70's.

RMR currently owns the following Locomotives:

6 gp9's #1000-1005
10 SD40-2W's #5000-5009
7 C44-9W's #3000-3006
1 SD7 #2000
1 GE 44T switcher #1
16 SD40-2's #2500-2515
1 SW1500 #2
2 RS11's # (forget the number)

RMR is currently looking at buying these locomotives: (most likely will get the used locos, the new ones are in negotiations)

Used ex BNSF SD70MAC's (5)
Used ex BNSF C44-9W's (8)
New SD70ACe's (10)
New ES44AC's (10)

Operations

RMR's operations for types of main commodity's hauled are as follows:

Coal (unit train and small sections for specific orders)
Grain (Limited numbers of cars at a time, not enough for a unit train)
Oil (Half unit trains worth)
Iron Ore (Unit train only)
Lumber (amounts very, included are lumber, logs, woodchips, and paper)
Piggy Back Intermodal (unit train, operated by CN)
Ethanol (Limited numbers of cars at a time, not enough for a unit train)

RMR's mainline has converted to CTC with signals over the past 5 years, the branchlines are dark territory and require train orders.

I will post a few screenshots of what I have done right now and more will follow later.

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[NDORFN]

That was a really good read! If RMR is a ficticious RR then you could've fooled me, and if it's real then you really know your route!

[thecanadianrail]

ok get ready guys, im going to be uploading a bunch of screenshots now!

[thecanadianrail]

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[bnsfsubdivision]

[thecanadianrail]

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[thecanadianrail]

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[thecanadianrail]

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[thecanadianrail]

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[thecanadianrail]

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[thecanadianrail]

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well that's a lot of screenshots isn't it

[thecanadianrail]

Work on the RMR has been going good today, The crews were working really hard and managed to complete the major part of the large yard on the west end of the route that's at the end of the mainline. RMR's new large maintenance facility is also built and just needs the final touches around it such as sand towers and fuel pumps. Crews also started work on the branch that goes to the iron ore mine in the west, the most interesting part about this branchline is that it crosses over a large dam that creates the lake in a few of the pictures. Next is to add the rest of the main track to the iron ore mine and after that to build the yard in the east that interchanges with BNSF and CN. More screenshots to come, and also I will be learning to repaint rolling stock soon so more RMR equipment will show up on the route than their already is.

[thecanadianrail]

So RMR's paint shops are back in action after a little bit of a mechanical malfunction...(we ran out of paint!)

in other words I decided to pick up the airbrush with the help of Mdurdan and this is what I got so far....

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[thecanadianrail]

Seen that one coming lol

[Chacal]

Awesome route!