THE ultimate American route for TSW! With up to 155 miles (255 km) of track, as well as the longest single drivable service ever (4 hours 53 minutes), the CFRC offers an incredibly diverse amount of operations. Rough route map SEE MY GOOGLE EARTH MAP HERE!!!!!! https://earth.google.com/earth/d/1I2z4MobzPOONvhJVUo3d69NqQgTW08Vg?usp=sharing Sort of an idea of what the full route might look like: https://signal.eu.org/osm/#locs=27....002;28.002016,-81.734883;29.017288,-81.352487 Key locations include: Port Tampa (maybe?) Tampa Union Station Uceta/Yeoman Yard Yeoman Sub through Valrico too long lol Plant City (famous for railfanning) Winston Terminal and Junction Lakeland Station Winter Haven and the Central Florida Intermodal Terminal Orlando (Health) Station SunRail Operations Control Centre in Sanford DeLand (end of route) Passenger stations Maybe I'm not too lazy to list them... This route has a total of (all) 17 SunRail stations and 7 unique Amtrak stations. ███ DLD DeLand ███ DeBary ███ Sanford ███ Lake Mary ███ Longwood ███ Altamonte Springs ███ Maitland ███ WPK Winter Park ███ AdventHealth ███ Lynx Central ███ Church Street ███ ORL Orlando (known as Orlando Health/Amtrak on SunRail) ███ Sand Lake Road ███ Meadow Woods ███ Tupperware ███ KIS Kissimmee ███ Poinciana ███ LAK Lakeland (for north) ███ TPA Tampa Union ███ LKL Lakeland (for south) ███ WTH Winter Haven Rolling stock MPI MP32PH-Q (SunRail) Bombardier BiLevel VII and IX coaches (SunRail) GE Genesis P42DC (Amtrak) Siemens Charger ALC-42 (Amtrak) Amfleet I/II coaches (Amtrak) Viewliner I/II coaches (Amtrak) EMD GP40-2 (CSX) GE CM44AC (CSX) maybe also some other units (including heritages) like the GE ES44AH (I'm not a foamer don't judge me ) Services Amtrak Silver Star Winter Haven – DeLand via Tampa Union (14:56 – 19:49, 4 hours 53 minutes), the longest TSW service ever! DeLand – Winter Haven via Tampa Union (08:57 – 13:39, 4 hours 42 minutes) Silver Meteor Winter Haven – DeLand, skipping Lakeland and Tampa (12:08 – 14:40, 2 hours 32 minutes) DeLand – Winter Haven skipping Lakeland and Tampa (11:53 – 14:30, 2 hours 37 minutes) SunRail Northbound schedule from Poinciana – DeLand following the timetables here: https://sunrail.com/maps-schedules/northbound-schedule/ Southbound schedule from Poinciana – DeLand following the timetables here: https://sunrail.com/maps-schedules/southbound-schedule/ CSX Plenty of freight operations to and from these areas: Uceta/Yeoman Yard (Tampa) Transflo Tampa Port Tampa and its Rattlesnake Spur for locals Winston Terminal Central Florida Intermodal Terminal (Winter Haven) Orlando TDSI and Orlando Central Park (Taft) Many others along the way Don't forget NPC freight trains delaying our Amtraks!!! Conclusion This is possibly the best new American route we could have for TSW. Set in the present day, it has a nearly unparalleled amount of diversity of both passenger and freight operations, with plenty of ways to run it. It allows you to explore the landscape of Central Florida, running from the low-lying Tampa Bay through the hilly Lake Wales Ridge down to the sprawling metropolis of Orlando. Central Florida is also one of the most popular parts of the US for railfanning, and I know a lot of foamers that would be ecstatic to play such a route. Even if it were the only North American route for a year, it would still be 100% worth it.
If this full route is too long, there's also the possibility of: Winter Haven – DeLand (102 mi / 165 km): Skips the Tampa bit of the Floridian/Silver Star but keeps the ILC. Poinciana – DeLand (62 mi / 99 km): Only the section which SunRail operates on.
while I like the rolling stock here, if we could have a super-long route like this in TSW, I would rather go for BrightLine Florida with its highspeed diesel MU
