Sand Patch could do with an extension to Connellsville, so long as others are actually interested. Right now, with the end of the route at Rockwood, some unrealistic operations are required to end services. Using Rockwood as a crew change point for every single train is not realistic, and any train that starts or ends on the mainline there is really out of place. It is understandable why Rockwood is the end, but it is not the most logical place to end in terms of realistic route design. A more logical crew change point and a more interesting place to end the route is Connellsville, which is home to quite a big yard acting as a hub for rail lines going off in all directions. This addition of track would be around 45 miles, putting the total route length at twice of what it is now, closer to 100 miles than 50. The line is not as intense as the East Slope, with higher speed limits and less extreme grades, with most of the scenery being dominated by rivers and hills, not just trees and hills. But, this would not add new mines or anything; all the action is at Connellsville, which would still be a good opportunity to add some more switching in to TSW. Now this does bring up the issue of multiple part services-not everyone wants to do the same train for 4 hours just to get a tick on the services list. A good way to get around that would be optional crew changes and multi part services. If you want, stop at Rockwood, get off, and AI takes over. Or, for the hardcore realistic 'run the whole sift' session, just keep on driving as if Rockwood wasn't there. (AI trains would take the 'keep going through' choice as that is more realistic) Either way, you get credit for doing half the service. That would also allow for doing just the half of the route that seems interesting at the moment. Connellsville has plenty going on, of course. Notably with autoracks. Many current autorack services in TSW actually terminate at Connellsville. Plus, a few manifest trains end there, of course. (Connellsville had a turntable, but the tracks were ripped out) A lot of the scenery of the West Slope is like this, river on one side, hill on the other. Part of the single track section came from avoiding tunnels that limited train height. And since you guys brought it up, after extension to Connellsville, there would finally be enough of the Keystone Subdivision modeled to allow for good operation of Amtrak's Capitol Limited. So if any train set were to be released along with (maybe as a separate DLC as this set could get a lot of use on other routes) Amtrak P42DCs, heritage baggage cars, and superliners would be the best.
Yes I would like to have the extension of this route to go on to Connellsville enjoy this route very much and would love the scenery . Also some services on the route would be welcome in service mode with coal loading, even lumber, loading grain loading stations
It's an interesting idea but as it is the CSX route takes forever to drive across. An extension would just be too boring to drive l, because there are no stops etc
What kind of stops do you want this is a freight route and 50 miles really isn't that long i have a made the trip a lot and don't get that tired of it . Be nice to have some things to do on it like picking up coal load and deliver the goods to a destination or loading Lumber at a yard and take them to a lumbermill or lumberyard and any other things maybe oil refineries or grain loading and take to mills for processing we could stop at a depot and have Lunch LOL!
The addition of local services with more objective based play would be nice, if its realistic of course. I enjoy taking an intermodal or an autorack across the route just as much as the next guy but one can only drive it so many times until it gets repetitive; which it has for me. I certainly would not be opposed to an extension to sand patch grade either.
IMO I prefer GWR, it could be because im English, or the fact I prefer passenger services, but i am glad CSX is there as I understand alot of you are big fans of hauling etc. I think what stops me from playing CSX more (aside from the snooker table green blasting in my eyes) is the sense of slowly crawling through what in my mind is 60% mundane scenery. I have a feeling tho this is mostly due to my only real life experience of US/Can rail freight is seeing the trains that pass through the Alberta and BC area - which i was fascinated with when i last visted the area. I cant remember the exact location, maybe somewhere in Alberta but the trains are known to form a figure of 8 viewable from the road - now if that route came....i'd probably enjoy it more. I would also play CSX more if there were smaller objective driven routes as described above - there are times I dont want to commit 2+ hours to the route, and instead would love to do say a 45 minute trip, or do yard work related activities - even if it was a few cold dark setups to get a later train ready etc thats my input as a non-HH fan?
I feel it would be better for Dovetail to make a new route which has both freight and passenger capabilities, rather than extending a route which will never please everyone
I don't think any route will never please everyone. If the logic is to not do a route if it won't please everyone...then no route would be done! American freight works for some people, it doesn't work for others. Final choice is still up to DTG, and they are in the UK (bais, grr :P )
From discussion when CSX:HH was first released I gather that Amtrak travel over that route as well. Perhaps an alternative would be to add Amtrak locomotives & carriages which avoids having to add a lot of new scenery?
Connellsville also has an Amtrak station which the Capitol Limited stops at. Doing Amtrak now would not make much sense at all since stopping at Rockwood would never happen, ever-any crew change on Amtrak would be at a station. So an Amtrak set could be a decent choice of extra stock to release with the extension. I do feel that route extensions should come with more locomotives and rolling stock as they are just more routes, effectively.
I would be up for a extension at either end of Sand Patch moving freight further along the line. This could also lead to adding passenger service on the route as well. Both of these would interest me very much.