No, not THAT Rochester. The one in New York, USA. No, not near Near York City either, that's hundreds of miles away... same state though. The RSR is a branch line that dates back to the 1800s. It's a good choice for a new route because it's so different from what we have in game and it has lots of varied freight for timetables/scenarios. First, the line itself runs between two Class 1 railroads which makes those connections usable for any number of freight combinations and consists. A LOT of stuff goes in and out from those interchanges in addition to the local products which are salt, lumber and train parts. From the north, the line starts with a couple lumber yards in Greece and Rochester, moving raw products in and finished products out. Those mostly go to the Class 1 railroads. There are connections for products in Brooks Ave yard for the city, be it for commercial warehouses or even the cities around the state who buy bulk loads of salt for roads in the winter. There's also the newspaper which takes tons of pulp paper. (It used to take it through the old subway tunnels, but those are closed now) Brooks Ave serves as the central yard for the line. Moving south, the link to CSX is at Genesee Junction. The line splits at Caledonia into east and west. In the East, it goes past the closed Retzo salt mine to the new American Salt Mine. Daily huge loads of up to 100 goldolas of salt come out for processing. Then it continues south to Dansville where there are a Bombardier and American Motive Power plants. Bombardier makes train parts and AMP overhauls and rebuilds trains. How can that not be cool to have on a train line? The west branch goes down to the Norfolk Southern "Souther Tier" line but before that is the Morton Salt Processing Plant. Unlike other lines, it's not just the ONE side of the movement. There are MULTIPLE moves you can do. The huge trains move salt from the American mine to Morton to process into table salt, rock salt, etc. Some is sent out by truck, or moved to the Norfolk/CSX lines to ship..which are more movements of trains. In addition, that salt can then be taken back into Brooks Ave for salt trucks and warehouses. There's even the occasional run too up Lexington or to Greece in the city for Eastman Kodak (rarer now than it was 20-30 years ago) and bulk deliveries to transfer to trucks and warehouses for all the stores in Rochester and surrounding areas. There is a LOT of movement along the lines (I think there's 13 locos now running the route daily even if it's only 90 miles in total) As a bonus, the RSR is a member of the G*W (Genesee and Wyoming) company that runs similar BNSF-style orange liveried trains through 10,000 miles of small branchline tracks in 5 countries so it would be more or less usable on lots of additional lines if they were done. There's a lot of variety on the line too.... SD 40, SD-38-2, SP-40, GP-9, C44-9, even SW-1000s. RSR Homepage https://www.gwrr.com/rsr/ Railspace Magazine article on the line https://railpace.com/railfanning-rochester-and-southern/ Railfan Magazine article on the buyout by Genesee and Wyoming https://railfan.com/genesee-and-wyoming/ Background video from Railfan123 Youtube Channel Run south to Silver Springs and Norfolk Southern Interchange Kodak Industrial Park Railyard in Rochester I just think it's a good example of a busy branch line that has high Class 1 connectibility. They're currently running. They're pretty approachable given how many media interviews they do locally and rail tours. If the actual services on the line were modeled, that'd be a huge variety available along with some really nice upstate NY scenery and working industries (the salt loading hoppers, lumber loading cranes, intermodal yards, etc) Development-wise, much of the stock is in game in one form or another. Assets can be convereted over (coal loaders look similar to the salt loaders, etc) and the route itself is fairly small track-wise, but also compact since it's multiple branches in the same small-ish area. The track speeds aren't super high so those few miles last for awhile and allow you to enjoy the scenery making it feel like a much longer freight route, but you still get to move very large freight consists if you want. Yes I'm biased being relatively local to the area. However, judge it on the merits. It has a lot of playability in my view. The only drawback I can see from TSW perspective is there's not a lot of passenger service (or any besides railtours seasonally.) AMTRAK passes by on the Class 1 lines, but don't go down the branches. It is a very industry-intensive route. Comments? Suggestions? If not this route, then something SIMILAR to it, with a wide variety of things in a small area that keeps you busy shuttling stuff around and feeding industries and markets in a country setting. Something like DRA or RSN for North American diesels.
This sounds like a great idea. Another operations possibility is interchange services where a player drops off cars destined for either CSX or NS and picks up cars to take to the local industries. We also have CSX and NS locos from SPG and HSC, so those could be seen on the mainlines. Perhaps this route could include services with NS or CSX locos working the interchanges, too.
Well, they are a global company now so decisions aren't made locally but at the corporate level. That's disappointing but thank you for doing the footwork. I'd still like to see something with a variety of local industries on a branch line for the North American market. Oakville is actually pretty close, but people seem to boo hoo it for some reason.
I ran some Oakville recently on a stream and was reminded that it was actually a really nice route - it didn't hit the mark in a couple of key areas though with players, so I get why it gets some bad press, but I was renewed somewhat when I played it.
Yes, there are a few notable areas for improvement but I agree. It's a lot more fun and there are some nice (if limited) gameplay loops. I understand the complications and limitations external to DTG, so you do what you can. More routes like that would be very nice to see. I appreciate that it's in the game though. As I've said in other threads, I think the GEEPS in Oakville are the best I've seen/heard in the game.
