Milwaukee Road East or…

[normhart]

What to do on those long winter weekends after your team is knocked out of the playoffs.

I’ve loved tume’s Avery – Drexel Route since I first discovered it and recently I’ve been fooling around with jib228’s Montana Rail Link 12 MP v1.5 and neandertal & guilliamsyves’ MILWest Inpressionz 1972 TS2012 and it dawned on me that I might string them together, not as a merge but as a series of driving experiences.

The first thing I did was add the consist 12 that tume introduces us to as a saved consist in the Surveyor. Then I plunked it down at the west end of the Rail Link Route in a new session and at the western end of the MILWest Route in a new session. I suspect that all sorts of horrible things are going to happen in terms of siding length, signal blocks, and speed limits as I work my way east.

Well you can imagine the possibilities as well as I! Some of the things I’m planning are possibly adding some switching in the Avery yard as well as the Helena yard, changing the locomotives at the beginning of each Route (there are a fair amount of different engines for the MILW around), Dropping and adding appropriate blocks of rolling stock for each section and etc.

I would welcome suggestions for additional or alternative routes to add to the east and west of these routes.

 

[gearhead2578]

RIght on normhart! We need more Milwaukee Road around, at least until Tume gets another masterpiece ready to roll. I've been working on the MR Pacific Sub for a while now but it will only run from Tacoma to Ellensburg, WA (my stompin' grounds) and probably won't be "done" for a loooong time. I think Tume is still working on Avery, ID to Othello, WA. Maybe some day we'll have the entire route linkable.

 

[normhart]

Yes, I've noted your comments on your route and look forward to running it. I saw somewhere a route that claimed to be eastern Oregon or western Washington but I didn't download it and I am not sure where it was hosted. If it was a point to point route if might fill the gap temporarily.

I was pleasantly surprised to discover, in my first hour of running tume's consist 12 on the Rail Link Route that there were places where the sidings were long enough to handle the entire train. Most were too short though. I was even more surprised to discover that the MILWest had a few double track sections that were long enough. While both do not exactly resemble Montana or the Dakotas they are believable enough for me. At least until something better comes along. Any suggestions for further east?

 

[gearhead2578]

Unfortunately Fishlips is reconstructing his site (fishlips.net), but it's possibly one of the best collections of dems available that I've found. You could also try on the dls search username fishlipsatwork - there's tons of dems on there as well. Might find one of Wisconsin area and build east of the Dakotas?

 

[normhart]

I should have remembered this route since I've spent so much time on it. gfisher's Watseka & Kankakee Railroad Route with it's Lavonia, WI Classification Yard makes the perfect eastern terminus for this transcontinental freight train.



Edit, gearhead2578 I'm not planning to create a new route. This is simply an exercise in stringing together existing routes to see how close I could come to a single road transcontinental line. While I'd love to see all of these routes expanded or linked I don't plan on doing it myself. The four routes I've selected so far offer quite a bit of driving time and, with some fooling around with motive power and rolling stock, should offer an interesting driving experience.

 

[gearhead2578]

Hey there ya go I'll try to step on it with the Ellensburg end, maybe take some time off from Skookumchuck and just concentrate on the Pacific Sub. All we need now is some sucker...er...I mean... volunteer to try and tackle Ellensburg to Othello

 

[normhart]

Hey there ya go I'll try to step on it with the Ellensburg end, maybe take some time off from Skookumchuck and just concentrate on the Pacific Sub. All we need now is some sucker...er...I mean... volunteer to try and tackle Ellensburg to Othello

I took a peek at what fishlips has on the DLS and noted he has Billings which covers Laurel, MT to Hardin, MT. (about 56 miles) Perhaps some nice suc...um.. volunteer will tack that on our eastern end.