Welcome to the Pacific Northwest! Here in the state of Washington, you'll find the city of Seattle, a city that lives by the water and is bustling with big business. Operate passenger trains to transport busy commuters during the rush hour, or perform exciting freight operations to connect with large container ships, or transport airplane parts to America's busiest airplane manufacturer, located in this very city. Whatever you choose to drive, be careful when you’re in the rain showers that the area commonly sees. Welcome to the Sounder S Line, from Seattle to Tacoma. This suggestion will be organized mostly by operators. The name of each section will be listed in bold underlined text, and each section will explain its operations and choices of rolling stock. The Route The S Line is a commuter line that runs from busy Seattle to the southern terminus, either being Tacoma Dome or Lakewood. The line is primarily operated by Sound Transit's commuter trains during rush hour, but also sees a lot of action from BNSF freight trains, and a few Amtrak trains. Here is a list of the route's stations from north to south: - King Street Station - Tukwila - Kent - Auburn - Sumner - Puyallup - Tacoma Dome (separate from line to Lakewood) - South Tacoma - Lakewood Sounder Likely the most common type of train on the route, Sounder trains operate full stopping services during rush hours. Most trains in the morning operate towards Seattle, starting at either Lakewood or Tacoma Dome. In the evening, most trains operate south with the locomotive leading, towards Lakewood or Tacoma Dome. Trains on the S Line consist of 7 cars. AI trains could also be seen at King Street Station to represent the N Line, which operates shorter 3 car trains. Sounder locomotives and passenger cars are stored in a yard in Seattle, not far from King Street Station. The yard is shared with Amtrak stock. There's a train wash in this yard. That's fun. Here's the schedule for when Sounder trains run on the S Line (bold represents PM): Yeah, it isn't the busiest commuter line out there. 10 services run northbound, and 10 run southbound. But it's still cool! Not every line has to be the Brighton Mainline, you know? Here's a list of what rolling stock is used for Sounder: F59PHI Sound Transit owns 11 of these locomotives, and are the most common sight on Sounder trains. MP40PH-3C These locomotives are much less common, with Sound Transit owning 3 of them. My favorite thing about these locos is the unique horn they have. Feel free to watch a video of one of these on a Sounder train. The horn sounds really interesting. Bombardier Bi-Level Cab Car This cab car in the photo is the modern one that's most commonly used nowadays. It features a well-sized driving cab for the driver. You may recognize these on Toronto's GO trains as well. The other type of cab car is the older style that you may know from the Caltrain MP36PH-3C add-on. These are mostly seen on the less busy N Line nowadays, but these were the only Sounder cab cars a few years ago. Amtrak An exciting type of train to run on this route is Amtrak Cascades. These trains are special for using Spanish Talgo sets rather than traditional Amfleet or Horizon cars. Amtrak Cascades operates services between Seattle, Washington, and Portland, Oregon. It also runs to Vancouver BC in Canada. The S Line features three stations that Amtrak Cascades trains stop at: - King Street Station - Tukwila - Tacoma Dome Amtrak trains used to stop at a different Tacoma station, but that station was closed after the reopening of the Point Defiance bypass, and so Amtrak on this route would go via Tacoma Dome instead, allowing a connection to Sounder's S Line and the T Line on the Link light rail. The schedule for Amtrak Cascades features 3 southbound trains, and 3 northbound trains. Southbound departures are at 7:22, 14:12, and 18:10 (using 24-hour time to match TSW). Northbound departures from Tacoma are at 10:54, 14:34, and 22:01. I think. SC-44 Charger These are of course the main locomotive to operate Amtrak Cascades trains. I'm not sure which side these locos are usually on, but it's a nice loco, that's for sure. Talgo Cab Car This is the cab car seen on the Talgo Series 8 sets that run on the route. They look funny and I love them. F40PH These locos are not used often anymore, but they used to be seen on basically every Cascades train. Nowadays, most F40s on the Cascades route are "cabbage cars" that are F40s powered by the other locomotive, like a cab car. I couldn't find a great image a cabbage car for this suggestion. F59PHI Amtrak doesn't run these anymore. I put this here in the case that the route were set a few years back, when these locos dominated Amtrak Cascades. It could make development easier, using the same locomotive for both Sounder and Amtrak. But the SC-44 is a great pick that shouldn't be ignored. Oh wait, I'm not done with the Amtrak section yet! We have to cover the Coast Starlight. The Amtrak Coast Starlight operates one daily southbound train towards Los Angeles, and one daily northbound train towards Seattle. On this route, the Coast Starlight stops at King Street Station and Tacoma. The train would consist of the lead locomotives, a baggage car, and various Superliner cars. Besides the 2 playable mainline services, all Amtrak trains (including Cascades) on this route are stored in the same yard where the Sounder trains are stored. So there would be depot services for the Coast Starlight, and you can also represent the Empire Builder, since it uses the same stock. The timetable mode could also add services where the train is turned around on a wye junction, which sounds fun. Genesis P42 The primary Amtrak long-distance locomotive. These locos are used to lead the Coast Starlight and the Empire Builder. BNSF We're nearly at the end, I promise. The passenger trains on this route don't really run that often, but I think it's the freight that really redeems this route. BNSF operates various freight around Seattle. There are a few yards located in Seattle, there's a grain train yard in Auburn, and I know that Tacoma has a yard that sits right where the old Tacoma Amtrak station is. There's probably more in Tacoma that I don't know of. It's FUN. Here's a list of types of services I've seen on the route: - Switching services. Seattle sees switching of intermodals and various freight cars. I don't know about switching services in Tacoma. - Mainline services. Manifest, intermodal, grain, coal, autorack, and oil trains run on the mainline. - Stampede Pass. The yard at Auburn sees two grain trains couple to each other before the train runs off a separate path onto the Stampede Pass route (AI-only) - Container loading. Load containers onto an intermodal train. Fun stuff. - Intermodal trash trains. They're intermodal trains that carry trash in them. I've seen some switching done with these before, and trash trains are surprisingly common to see on the mainline. But here's the most exciting part of driving BNSF in Seattle. You see, Seattle is the home of Boeing, a major airplane manufacturer. Someone needs to deliver airplane parts to this large Seattle company so that they can assemble these flying machines. These are literally airplane fuselages. On a train. This is amazing and you should be amazed. There are also airplane parts held in freight cars that look like this. GP38-2 This just makes sense. It can do the fun switching stuff in the big cities, and I really like the H1 paint scheme. GP40 I think this is a GP40M? Anyways, I chose this because I think a locomotive in the Burlington Northern scheme would be the best thing ever. It's GREEN! You can see quite a bit of BN in Seattle. ES44AC This is of course for the mainline freight trains. BNSF has a bunch of these in the modern H3 paint scheme, and it's nice. Could be an improved version of Skyhook's Norfolk Southern ES44AC. SD60M This right here is my favorite pick for a BNSF loco on this route. Wearing its old Burlington Northern paint scheme, these locomotives are commonly seen running the mainline with various freight trains, and also does some smaller duties in the yards of Seattle. I love this one a lot. Extras - Right when you exit King Street Station, the tracks run under T-Mobile Park, the baseball field where the Mariners play. On a normal day, the train will indeed run under the roof of the stadium. However, the roof on T-Mobile Park is retractable, so that it can close and cover the baseball field whenever there is rain. When the roof closes, it no longer covers the train tracks. This would be an amazing and neat feature if it was done. - AI passenger trains on the route would be the N Line trains, Cascades trains to Vancouver, and the Empire Builder to Chicago. All of these AI trains would of course be located at King Street Station. - It's Seattle, so perhaps the rain could get a big improvement, just like the winter snow was improved for Boston. Conclusion I chose to make this suggestion because I live near Seattle, and Seattle is very cool. The variety of trains on the route makes it really appealing, from the lovely blue Sounder trains, to the unique green and brown of Amtrak Cascades, and the exciting freight operations by BNSF. Sure, the route isn't very busy, but it gives a great feeling being thrown right into the big city that really can feel alive. I hope that you, the reader, may also have some interest in Seattle coming to Train Sim World, getting away from the East Coast and exploring the lovely Pacific Northwest.
Great suggestion! I ride this line from Portland to Seattle pretty regularly, I would love to see it in the game
Excellent idea and when comes to GE ES44AC there is a difference between a BNSF and Norfolk Southern units the head lights. This is taken from horseshoe curve discussion article
I'd buy this route. If made, the route should include the Amtrak SC44 Charger and Talgo Cab Car, BNSF ES44AC/DC/C4, and maybe a GP50 or GP60 instead of the GP38-2 or GP40. The other locos could be added in the future as DLCs. For rolling stock, I definitely want the Boeing cars, other freight cars, and the Talgo passenger cars. This would be an amazing route. Future BNSF DLCs could give players an SD70MAC or SD75M/I, SD70ACe/SD70ACe-P4, ET44C4, and maybe an SD70ACeP4-T4. The TS2020 Stevens Pass route came with a BNSF Green SW1500. That could be included or added as DLC later on as well.
This is one of the toughest parts of thinking about this as a TSW route: what should be included? I feel like BNSF is really needed for this route, ideally a locomotive that is mostly used for local jobs and switching, which could also operate a few trains on the mainline. Perhaps the SD60M would be a good choice then? I've seen quite a few of those in yards while running quite a bit on the mainline. Best part, it would bring the Burlington Northern green! So perhaps that's my favorite pick for a freight locomotive. Now we have to bring in the passenger trains. The issue: we can't have both Sounder and Amtrak in the main pack. Sounder would make more sense, having 20+ services to drive, which actually populates the route more. But Amtrak Cascades really is interesting for having the Talgos. But 3 spots would be taken up by the two locos and cab car. So alas, It would have to have a separate Amtrak Cascades add-on. Not ideal, but a fancy Amtrak SC-44 with a Talgo set is sure to be appealing. So I guess I just came up with my best choices for the base route? - Sounder F59PHI - Sounder Bombardier Bi-Level Cab Car - ex-BN SD60M - A separate add-on containing Amtrak Cascades SC-44 + Talgo Series 8 set A terrifying thought right here: Amtrak could be snuck into the base route while it still only gets 3 drivable trains. This would be by using the old Amtrak Cascades F59PHI, and then using the Series 6 Talgos, and then just putting another F59PHI on the other end. I've never seen an Amtrak Cascades train with two F59s, but that would be the scariest way to get all three operators into the base route.
Really great suggestion. I made a route suggestion on this route as well a while back, also talking about the northern line. I would absolutely love to see this route come to the game. Although it isn't that busy, it has really good variety. The scenery around Seattle is also stellar. And with DTG now having a BNSF license, I could totally see this get added to the game down the road. I also need my F59phi D:
According to Wikipedia, in 2018, there is actually 8 Amtrak trains running on this route. 2 between Vancouver and Portland, 3 between Seattle and Portland, and 3 between Eugene and Seattle. This means we could have 16 mainline Amtrak services. Now I have no idea what the 2021 timetable is, so I would assume the service frequency is a lot lower. So a pre-covid timetable would make the most sense to do. Now adding up depot services, I could see a total of 25-35 total Amtrak services which is pretty good. One thing you also forgot to mention is that P42's (at least used to) can be seen trailing on Talgo sets. This could help increase the likelihood of DTG adding the P42 to this route as you could have 1 or 2 services with a P42 substituting as a cab car, along with the 2 additional mainline Coast starlight services, and any additional services around the depot. I could see around 10 services with the P42. Maybe more depending on what you could do with the P42 in the depot. Adding the SD60 would be a great idea since DTG could then add the BNSF ES44AC to another route, and then just layer it onto this route
I didn't know that there were services to Eugene! I just assumed that Portland was the only Amtrak terminus in Oregon. Having that many services genuinely makes this route seem like a great choice for a non-NEC Amtrak route. Also, the P42 on Cascades train is a somewhat wise idea. Saves a bit of work on the rolling stock. Although I feel like the SC-44 + Cab Car combo works very nicely. While having the Series 6 Talgos wouldn't hurt, the Talgo cab car on the Series 8 is a more exciting option imo.
You’re definitely right. Cascades is the only operator at the moment with talgos, so it makes sense for DTG to go with that. Although I dislike the cab car, it would still be new and fresh for TSW. If DTG ever does a route for something with an NCPU cab car like Amtrak Downeaster, they could repaint the F40 into the Seahawks livery and have it substitute for the talgo cab car on 1-2 services
Which F40PH to use as the basis for the NPCU there's Caltrain F40PH-2C or Boston-Providence F40PH-3Cs?
Neither. They're just the standard F40ph's. The 2CAT and 3C are much longer than the NCPU F40 since they have a separate HEP generator.
