The Racetrack: Aurora - Chicago (BNSF + Metra)

[ricksan]

Industrial properties? How about Unilever Bestfoods, Cat Tractor, Dial (now VVF) Soap, General Mills, plus a bunch of smaller ones. Also two large intermodal yards. This commuter route does freight!

[OpenRailer90]

ricksan: Will any freight locomotives or vehicles be included with the route?

[Metrarailfan]

ricksan: Will any freight locomotives or vehicles be included with the route?

What rolling stock wise will be included?

The player will get the Metra ... er ... Chicago Commuter F40PH & Cab Car
Also a revised GP-38-2 with 2 liveries. (Outside the USA these will be unbranded)

The AI gets to drive the Amtraks. Of course, by now I think everyone that has any US content has a P42DC & coaches somewhere in their library

[OpenRailer90]

It is possible to publish the P42 Empire Builder Pack like how the Hamburg Route adds the ICE-2 DLC: https://steamdb.info/sub/29234/apps/

I also mentioned about any possible other DLC locomotives (MP36PH-3S), which also can have an included F40PHM-2 as it can be modified from the F40PH-3 already included.

Its also worth mentioning that this city (Chicago) has this year's Stanley Cup champs. :P

[Metrarailfan]

Do you have any screenshots of lagrange of downers grove?

[ricksan]

This route, being only 40+ miles long, isn't really amenable to heavy-duty Amtrak operations. Besides Chicago Union Station, there are only two other Amtrak stations and they're used by two separate trains. Also, as we know, DTG isn't fond of including a large variety of locomotives and rolling stock with the routes they publish. So what we ended up with is a Metra (Oh, there I go again -- "Chicago") commuter set and a pair of Geeps with a variety of freight cars.

Nevertheless, Amtrak has an important presence here, especially in the coach yard south of Union Station. To accommodate this, we are providing a Very Low Poly (VLP) version of an Amtrak train set. VLP cars have very little surface detail, opaque windows and no interiors. The primary purpose of the Amtrak VLP set is to populate the east (Amtrak) half of the coach yard more or less realistically, without overly taxing your hardware. The Amtrak train can also be used in AI service and in fact makes a supporting-role appearance in a few of the included scenarios. If you want to develop a true Amtrak scenario for this route, users have to provide their own DLC train set.

Similarly, we're providing a VLP version of a Metra train set to be used in the west half of the coach yard and at Hill Yard which services the Aurora terminus. In this case, the locomotive is really just another "wagon." We use the fully developed version of the commuter set for both player and AI trains.

You can see the results in that "Street View" shot I posted. Please, please don't look at them too closely!

[ricksan]

Screen shots of LaGrange, Downers Grove and other station stops have been supplied to DTG for marketing purposes, so they have first rights. You've seen a couple of Chicago shots now. I think you'll also like the way we handled some of the smaller towns.

[Chacal]

I'm confused as to who is "we".
Who made this route exactly?

[philmoberg]

And the not-so-great part
...
Attorneys make everything better, right? ... right? ... guys? ...

There's actually a very funny (if somewhat dated) song about that (said the son of a lawyer, who has been called worse names ...)

OneMillionLawyers.jpg

[BNEdward]

I see is a route to run more BN green!!!

[BoostedFridge]

I don't know much about the freight operations in Chicago. What freight operations would be realistic on this route?

[Antwerp]

This ought to be a good route.

[sandpaper90]

I don't know much about the freight operations in Chicago. What freight operations would be realistic on this route?

A little bit of everything. As someone who grew up beside the line, granted during the BN era, there was lots of intermodal, piggy back, tank car trains, coal trains, mixed freights, you name it, you'd see it.

Bn was the primary power on the road back in the 90's so lots of SD40-2's and LMX GE's. Occasionally you'd see Cotton belt GP60s running fast freights on the trackage.

Don't know if its in the works, or could be done as a reskin, but on the BNSF line the F40PHM-2's are far more numerous than the F40PH. The PHM's were the last of the F40's to roll out of LaGrange in the early 90s. Any chance the old EMD plant in LaGrange is included??

Shoot, would also be cool to do the old BN E8/9's on the front of the metra trains. 70's, 80's and early 90's commuter operations could be re-created with those.

[Metrarailfan]

On gtrax website there's some more info and another screenshot.
http://www.gtraxsims.com

[Metrarailfan]

Don't know if its in the works, or could be done as a reskin, but on the BNSF line the F40PHM-2's are far more numerous than the F40PH. The PHM's were the last of the F40's to roll out of LaGrange in the early 90s. Any chance the old EMD plant in LaGrange is included??

I was thinking the same thing about the phms. I agree!