About The Duluth, Missabe and Iron Range Railway (DM&IR) (reporting mark DMIR), informally known as the Missabe Road, was a railroad operating in northern Minnesota and Wisconsin that used to haul iron ore and later taconite to the Great Lakes ports of Duluth and Two Harbors, Minnesota. Control of the railway was acquired on May 10, 2004, by the Canadian National Railway (CN) when it purchased the assets of Great Lakes Transportation. Rollingstock EMD SW-9 EMD NW-2 EMD SD-9 EMD SD-18 EMD SD-38AC EMD SD-38DC EMD SD-38-2 EMD SD40-3 ALCO RSD-15 ALCO C-630 ALCO HH-1000 Baldwin VO1000 (slug) Baldwin VO1000 DM&IR SD-M
This sounds like an awesome route. It's a pity that DTG won't make this route set in the steam-era with DM&IR's massive 2-8-8-4 M3/M4 Yellowstones, 2-8-2 Mikados, 0-10-0s, 2-10-2 Santa Fes, and 2-10-4 Texas Types. The Alco RSD-15 "Alligator" would be awesome to have on a diesel-era version of this route, as would an SD9 "Cadillac", SD38/AC/-2, and SD40T-2/SD40-3.
Here I was looking for pictures to copy/paste to make this exact suggestion. Just a bit of color to add: When the ore comes down off the iron range, it terminates at Lake Superior on these long docks that stretch out in to the Lake, which would be a fantastic challenge to drive on TSW. There is a real world risk (it has happened) of driving the train right off in to the Lake. This could be one of those routes set in the past as well, so you could add steam to it. In addition, the city of Duluth has an amazing rail history. Both long distance and local traffic. In the 1900's Duluth streets were filled with street cars/trams, so you could have that playable as well. There was even a famous incline railway, using one of those mountain train cars with the massive cog in the center. The centerpieces of the route could be both the ore docks, and Duluth's famous and beautiful Union Depot. I agree, I doubt DTG will consider it, but Duluth and the Iron Range are such fantastic focal points in railroad history, and continue to be relevant to this day.
While there's a lot that could be done here and some unique assets and scenery, how long is the route in total trackage? Over about 90 miles and it'd be too much for TSW. Which time period are you looking at for best presentation?
Theres another proposal of the same route, but in the CN era here: https://forums.dovetailgames.com/th...n-national-missabe-subdivision-ex-dmir.76474/ You are looking at about 75 miles of trackage.
Wasn’t this route, or part of it, done by Abacus for MSTS? You could never complete a loaded run because the coupler bug (known as Cutbank Syndrome) meant when you reached the first set of points after the climb to the summit, the whole consist exploded in the air!
I get it. It's a neat looking route. That doesn't really answer the questions of how long would it be, and would there be anything else on the route to do? Passengers, landmarks, other industries? It looks like a very long network. It looks to be roughly 300 miles-ish, maybe more for the map posted. That's way beyond the scope of anything TSW would attempt. Even a simple north to south is over 100 miles, let alone all the spur lines and branches. Now focusing on Virginia-Duluth.... then you have one straight shot of yes about 75 miles but again not answering what there is "interesting and unique" about the route, especially that section. As I keep telling people... imagine you're DTG and you want to SELL it to someone. What would you tell your friend if you were trying to sell it to him or her? How would you convince them it was worth buying?
Its an ore route, so most of the services would most likely be running ore from the mines, to the ore docks (I think they go somewhere else in between as well so its a 3 part process to deliver the ore to the docks). There is some other freight on the mainline, plus yard/local work around Duluth. It is a freight route only location. But with CN's track record on how they have handled their owned IP's in the past, this route can only come as CN only, not DMIR or WC or any other predecessors to CN.
