The 64-mile (103-kilometer) railroad, built by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway, was completed on September 17, 1901. The arrival of trains led increased tourism to the area, and the railway company was instrumental in the creation of the Grand Canyon Village to serve guests. Declining ridership due to the popularity of the automobile led the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway to cease passenger service of the Grand Canyon Railway in July 1968 and freight service on the line ended in 1974. This route would be amazing in any era.
This was one of my favorite route mods for Microsoft Train Simulator the only issue was that I could never get the Grand Canyon Equipment to work so having this route in TSW and it actually worked I would very much support.
Wasn’t this suggested a few weeks ago? The impression I got from reading reports on trip Advisor is that the line is a bit over-rated, not much in the way of scenery mainly desert and scrub and you can’t actually see the canyon from the train. The journey itself is plagued with intrusive commentary and hokey banjo music, with a train “robbery” staged on the return to get gratuities out of the guests! I guess as the driver that wouldn’t bother you but other than the novelty of travelling to the Grand Canyon, I would suggest there are other heritage railways in the US that deserve to be ahead in the queue.
There is a stretch between starting near a place called Game Tank and ending near a place called Eighteen Tank that is mostly desert and then it becomes more trees the closer you get to both the Grand Canyon and Williams also from what I recall a tour guide telling me no one year is the same at the Grand Canyon which could make this a more difficult route to model in different years. My Suggestion would be to create the route during the ATSF and not during the Grand Canyon Railway, also the Grand Canyon would have been visible from the train during the ATSF days especially in the steam era so around 1910 to 1919 would be a good target as there would have been only 23 to 24 buildings instead of the now 44 that now completely block the view from the train built starting in the 1920s most of which are for the National Park Service with one exception which was the Bright Angel Lodge.