American shortlines are essential to the gaint class 3 railroads, as they provide conections to customers and company's that ship via rail. They also are some of the most unique and interesting railroads you will ever learn about. Every day i find pictures of shortlines that i never knew existed, and these shortlines usaully have amazing stories and scenery. But what i love the most is the character, shortlines can afford to have carracter as they don't have a huge infastructure to support. Class 3 gaints have thousands if not millions of miles of trackage and the most economical way to keep it all maintained is to make it uniform. Shortlines don't do this mabey a few of the class 2 bigger ones but the majority don't ever change much from what originally was there. Shortlines in TSW would be great as they would alow for a variety of rolling stock, operations, and scenery for the player to enjoy. They also aren't as big of a time killer for those of us who have short attetion spans, ADD, or not much time to dedicate to thier love of trains.
I would love to see the Indiana Northeastern railroad. They own a roster of classic EMD locomotives (GP9s, GP30s, etc), they have an interchange with Norfolk Southern at Montplier, OH, and they also run past the Little River railroad, which is generally a steam powered tourist train from Coldwater, MI, to Quincy or Hillsdale, MI.
You are both right, that would be great to play such routes and railway companies in the TSW or TS. But will probably never happen, because the license negotiations would probably mean too much effort for DTG. You also have licenses for the big ones, UP, NS, CSX, Amtrak - except BSNF for us Europeans. If the great community at Railworks America does not provide us with such repaints, these little companies will probably never see the game, I'm afraid. The pictures are top, excellent!
