This time on the Route Suggestions subforum: We're going to the land of beautiful mountains and seas, the origin point of theatre, a land of history and unfortunately as of late, a land of economic struggle. We're going to Greece. Specifically, to the main line of the OSE (Hellenic Railway Organisation), the set of rails that connect the two larest cities of Greece - Thessaloniki and Athens, with the extention to the port of Piraeus, approximately 9km from the Athens city centre. It's another one of those ultra-long routes that I propose - but unlike my last suggestion of this magnitude (https://forums.dovetailgames.com/threads/ljubljana-zagreb-beograd-yugoslavia-1960s-70s.5375/), one that broke 550 kilometers, this one tones the raw route lenght back a bit to a more manageable 305 kilometers. The Intercity express train between Athens and Thessaloniki that stops at only four stations still needs four hours to get from one end of this main line to the other though. The prize, however, would be a lot of scenery, everything from mountains to forests to seas with cities and suburbs every now and then. I don't think any route with a climate like this one is present in RailWorks as of now, so this one would besomething unique and a breath of the fresh Greek air. As of the era that this route should be set in, I did consider having it set in the early 70s, but the only benefit, which would be steam and diesel locomotive combined operation, may not outweigh the extra cost of setting the route in that period with all the additional historical research required to correctly model the route before its extensive modernisation. So the route would be set in the present day for simplicity of modelling. As for rolling stock, there is quite the variety with diesel-electrics, electrics, EMUs, DMUs, ... ALL the stuff. But, as part of the base content package (what would come with the route), I'd say that, due to the high lenght of the route, having the fastest option for traversing the line, the Intercity trainset, available from the get-go would be logical. Now the eternal issue - licencing. I don't think it would be a problem. See, OSE is, like all of Greece, propably experiencing severe financial difficulties. If the executives at OSE are any clever, they will take the opportunity for promotion and a little extra revenue and license the trademarks without a second thought. Another neat little thing - you have propably never heard of "Το Τρένο στο Ρουφ". In fact, it's quite likely you can't read that, so I'll translate. It's called "The Train at Rouf", and it's a theatre inside a couple of passenger wagons at a railway station in Athens, sitting behind a preserved SEK class Μα 2-10-2 steam locomotive. It would be amazing if some form of official promotion for this theatre could be made in-game, or at the very least have the locomotive and wagons just sitting there, lights on. (https://totrenostorouf.gr/en/) And that's a good segue into the net topic, which is... Additional content: - Besides the usual diesels and electrics... - SEK class Μα 2-10-2 steam locomotive, in original and rebuilt form. Greek steam is not very interesting to many observers. They don't have a lot of unique designs, and virtually no high-drivered pasender locomotives. This design however, is an indigenous, relatively tall drivered 2-10-2, built by Breda in 1951, but rebuild from coal to oil burning by Henschel just two years later due to technical problems. These engines could pull both passenger and freight trains as they balanced their high tractive effort with a rated top speed of 90 kilometers per hour (56 miles per hour). They lasted untill the end of Greek steam, into the 70s. Having this engine be modelled would make sense as they would already need to have the engine modelled if they wanted to portray The Train at Rouf theatre and the old Thessaloniki freight station (a few old steamers sitting in there) correctly. (http://www.amnizia.org/viewtopic.php?t=107470&start=1140) - SEK class Λβ (W.D. 2-10-0) steam locomotive. (A W.D. 2-10-0 would have to be made first - https://forums.dovetailgames.com/threads/w-d-austerity-2-8-0-and-2-10-0.12025/) These engines arrived to Greece with the UNNRA mission in 1946 and stayed in operation untill the end of steam in the 70s, being some of the last steam locomotives to be retired by the then newly formed OSE. Two of them remain operational, so scenarios could be made for those two engines as a main line excursing train. (https://www.flickr.com/photos/124446949@N06/36009833195) - SEK class Δα (USATC S100). - SEK class Θγ (USATC S160). Thanks for sticking though this one and reading it. Imma leave you with a little something Greek sounding (the video was filmed on Santorini). Finally, if you liked this route suggestion and would like to see it in-game, well, you can help the post e a bit more noticeable by upvoting it. If you didn't like it, that' fine too, I just hope you enjoyed reading this suggestion of mine. Have a nice day!
I would love to drive a Greek route. Btw the video you shared is mine from YouTube. I had so much fun while recording it so I would definetly love to see the route in Train Simulator.
