New US route under development

[1225fan5358]

I have a vague rememberance of talk of the New York - New Haven Corridor. Would be great if they included both Penn Station and Grand Central. There's enough commuter traffic there to drive a grown man sane.

Duncan

There's enough to give a dispatcher a heart attack.

[JohnTrainHead]

I'd like to see the Northeast Corridor finished and fixed sometime too... But this should be a good new route if Dovetail is living up to their standard quality. More eastern routes, please!

EDIT: If it's a western route, I hope it's in Colorado. Thumbs up to anyone else who want's the D&RGW Moffat Tunnel route too.

[buzz456]

There are a lot of great routes in the SE. All someone needs to do is have the will.

[dr1980]

A North American commuter route would be a great addition...Chicago as mentioned, or (dare I dream) something north of the border in Toronto. The Lakeshore line would be great for mutli-layered passenger ops -> local and semi-express GO Trains, intercity VIA Trains...even lots of spurs/sidings for after hours local freight ops.

[Mydnyte]

There are a lot of great routes in the SE. All someone needs to do is have the will.

I would love to see a good Southeastern US route. Or at least a good modern NS route, like the Pocahontas.

[Haystack]

"We are currently looking at signalling systems for a very exciting new US route"

After reading that in the article, I have a feeling its going to be a Chicago commuter route. Why would they need to be looking at new signalling systems for a normal freight route? Just my 2 cents.

[jmslakings]

"We are currently looking at signalling systems for a very exciting new US route"

After reading that in the article, I have a feeling its going to be a Chicago commuter route. Why would they need to be looking at new signalling systems for a normal freight route? Just my 2 cents.

Because we don't have a NORMAL signal system. We have the Dovetail signal system.

[buzz456]

Sigh.

[arizonachris]

Yeah. What happened to "cautiously optimistic" ?????

[cor726]

[quote="JohnTrainHead"]I'd like to see the Northeast Corridor finished and fixed sometime too... But this should be a good new route if Dovetail is living up to their standard quality. More eastern routes, please! /quote]

I too would like to see NEC fixed. It has a lot of potential imo.

[bnsfsubdivision]

I wouldn't count on CSX

Why? They don't license out stuff? Come to think of it...unless someone knows otherwise

Well....

[buzz456]

I'd like to see the Northeast Corridor finished and fixed sometime too... But this should be a good new route if Dovetail is living up to their standard quality. More eastern routes, please! /quote]

I too would like to see NEC fixed. It has a lot of potential imo.

Look under freeware WIP. This is being worked on as we speak.

[LGM118]

One trend has definitely been the abundance of western routes through mountains compared to fast routes. The list of prototpyical US routes purchasable on Steam is as follows:

Marias Pass, Stevens Pass, Donner Pass, Pacific Surfliner, Portland Terminal, Northeast Corridor, Horseshoe Curve

Of those, four are slow routes through mountains with minimal passenger traffic, and two of the others have pretty much only passenger traffic, and the last one is a terminal railroad. There's definitely a case to be made that at least a few people have pointed out to Dovetail Games that all of the fast, busy lines are European while all the single-track and mountain routes are American. I'm guessing that they might be developing routes that "break the mold" in tandem - a German route that features more slow freight and terrain, and an American route with heavier traffic and commuter traffic.

Another factor is that DTG generally has been trying tomake sure US routes feature both passenger and freight traffic. That makes a lot of sense and there's really no way to argue that they shouldn't make routes with wider appeal. The immediate route I think of that meets all those qualifications is the BNSF "Racetrack" - Chicago to Aurora (or, possibly, line extended to Galesburg or Davenport). There's definitely a lot of passenger and freight traffic, and it's also fairly diverse, allowing for a wide range of options. One concern is complexity - the barrier to any Chicago route is that once in Chicago, there's a multitude of railyards, transfer routes, etc. that complicate things. It would make the north end of the Pacific Surfliner route look like a branch line, more or less. That said, the traffic mix and appeal are very well-known and hard to ignore. Probably the only reason this route doesn't already exist is complexity.

I definitely think this route will happen at some point, and the fact that it's been overlooked almost entirely by all train simulation games is pretty shocking. There's a good argument that the Pacific Surfliner was a bit of a "test" to see how well they could develop a line with a lot of complexity and how well it would be received. Not to mention that the triple-track mainline on the BNSF Racetrack definitely has "signalling systems" worth mentioning and spending quite a lot of time on. Given the biggest complain that people make about the NEC route is that it doesn't cover Philly-DC, I imagine DTG would want to make sure they build out the line to at least 100 miles. Chicago-Galesburg would be the logical length (162 miles - which is about the length of recent US route releases). It fits all the qualifications needed for a successful route: 1) Playability, 2) well-known route, 3) variety of operations and wide spread of "area types". Either DTG thinks it's too complex to do it well, or they aren't sure whether it would sell outside the US market.

[buzz456]

The UP route west of Chicago would work also.

[Haystack]

"We are currently looking at signalling systems for a very exciting new US route"

After reading that in the article, I have a feeling its going to be a Chicago commuter route. Why would they need to be looking at new signalling systems for a normal freight route? Just my 2 cents.

Because we don't have a NORMAL signal system. We have the Dovetail signal system.

And it works for the most part. I don't think they would go through the trouble of making a normal signal system if the average joe wont know the difference anyways.