Southern Michigan Mega Route

[amtrakmattburb]

A few years back, I released a route that depicted the NS, CN and CSX main lines from Detroit, Michigan to Toledo, Ohio. I have decided to rebuild that route from scratch, and expand from that to include as much of southern Michigan's railroad system as I can build, and this will be exclusively for Open Rails (this route will not work for MSTS!), so it's time for a new thread.

I started this new project a few days ago and I already have the northernmost few miles of the Conrail Shared Assets Detroit Line put in, currently from its northern end at West Detroit (where it merges into the Michigan Line) south through Delray to the Rouge River "Conrail" Bridge. Unlike the previous route, it's being built using a combination of track charts (for this section, I used pre-split Conrail track charts from 1999) and current-day Open Street Map map images, and it includes the new third Detroit Line track between Delray and Livernois Yard that was only put in a couple years ago (so it's not present in the previous route).

Track Viewer screenshot (no TSRE screenshot as I don't have a proper terrtex file for this route yet, so the ground is currently black) showing how much of the Detroit Line is currently in place. West Detroit is at top, the Rouge River bridge is at bottom, Delray is at the southern end of the third track (where the line thickens in the middle), and Livernois Yard is just west of the thickest line:

[eric]

Second time around is usually better.

Make sure you have terrain.ace and microtex.ace in the terrtex folder. I just went thru the same thing on a new route I started up.

[amtrakmattburb]

Spent yesterday and this morning building most of the Bay City Junction complex, and the Conrail Michigan Line is now in place from West Detroit to Milepost 2.02 - where it turns into the CPKC Windsor Subdivision, which will continue into the Michigan Central Tunnel to Windsor, Ontario.

Full track editor view including that progress:

[LuFeDuTi]

I would like to see that route and control the GMD SD40-2W from Trainsimulations although I would like to see a Pack apart from those Locomotives with some Goods Cars

[amtrakmattburb]

Due to me realizing the grades did not quite match the track charts I've been using, I have simply decided to scrap the route and start over, yes you read that correctly, and over the past couple days I have rebuilt almost everything I had built up to that point.

What the route currently looks like, annotated to give you context on these screenshots:


Delray Junction:


CP West Detroit looking towards Livernois Yard, which will be a task to build:


Three control points in this screenshot - CP Scotten on the right, CP Springworks on the left, and CP Bay City in the background towards the east:

[eric]

Good luck -- the base maps from OSM are good for an approximation, but I wouldn't trust them with yard alignments.

I've found it better to rely on a little instinct and some artistic license, especially if you have track charts to go by.

[Fish4890]

Like how things are going will the Winsor Tunnel Go All the way up to Toronto or whats the Plan on that....

This Route would be Perfect for NS's 880 and 881

[amtrakmattburb]

Like how things are going will the Winsor Tunnel Go All the way up to Toronto or whats the Plan on that....

This Route would be Perfect for NS's 880 and 881

The CPKC Windsor Subdivision, which goes through the Michigan Central Detroit River Tunnel, will at least cross Essex County, Ontario, but I may take it further.

Speaking of the Michigan Central Detroit River Tunnel, spent tonight putting it in, now all I have to do left trackwise is the climb back onto ground level on the Windsor side, but since Canadian track charts are even more difficult to come by compared to American ones, I might just go off of the base maps from OSM, Google Earth elevation profiles and the .hgt terrain files.

The American portal of the Detroit River Tunnel, the one track that's currently used since the ceiling on that one is tall enough for tri-level autoracks (but apparently not for double-stack containers) is easily distinguished by its concrete ties.


Just past the American portal heading west is Michigan Central Station, which I have not modeled yet, but would be on the right adjacent to the between-curve double-track in the center. Michigan Central IRL is actually reopening this June as a mixed-use office/retail building after having been abandoned since Amtrak ceased serving it in 1988.


And finally, as always via Track Viewer, the current extent of the route as of this post: as far north as the current Detroit Amtrak station (a much smaller and plainer affair compared to Michigan Central), as far south as the "Conrail" and "Norfolk Southern" Bridges over the Rouge River in Delray, and as far east as the east portal of the Detroit River Tunnel in Windsor, Ontario.

[Fish4890]

The CPKC Windsor Subdivision, which goes through the Michigan Central Detroit River Tunnel, will at least cross Essex County, Ontario, but I may take it further.

Speaking of the Michigan Central Detroit River Tunnel, spent tonight putting it in, now all I have to do left trackwise is the climb back onto ground level on the Windsor side, but since Canadian track charts are even more difficult to come by compared to American ones, I might just go off of the base maps from OSM, Google Earth elevation profiles and the .hgt terrain files.

The American portal of the Detroit River Tunnel, the one track that's currently used since the ceiling on that one is tall enough for tri-level autoracks (but apparently not for double-stack containers) is easily distinguished by its concrete ties.


Just past the American portal heading west is Michigan Central Station, which I have not modeled yet, but would be on the right adjacent to the between-curve double-track in the center. Michigan Central IRL is actually reopening this June as a mixed-use office/retail building after having been abandoned since Amtrak ceased serving it in 1988.


And finally, as always via Track Viewer, the current extent of the route as of this post: as far north as the current Detroit Amtrak station (a much smaller and plainer affair compared to Michigan Central), as far south as the "Conrail" and "Norfolk Southern" Bridges over the Rouge River in Delray, and as far east as the east portal of the Detroit River Tunnel in Windsor, Ontario.

Nice Work... This will be fun to run on

[amtrakmattburb]

I haven't done too much work on this route for nearly a month, but the past few days I found time to resume work and I now have track in place down to Northline Road in Wyandotte, Michigan. Currently only the CN Shoreline Sub extends down that far, Conrail Detroit Line track 1 currently stops at CP Mill (just to the north in Ecorse), track 2 currently stops at River Rouge Yard, and I haven't started the CN Flat Rock Sub yet.

Track Viewer overview as of tonight:

[amtrakmattburb]

As usual, other commitments got in the way, so this thread has gone inactive for a month, so not much, first, trackwork is complete south to Trenton, Michigan:


To commemorate the reopening of Michigan Central Station, I went and did a rough model of it. Like the route itself, it's still a huge WIP, but I placed it:


Here's two additional views of Michigan Central, one from the Michigan Central Tunnel...


...and one from CP West Detroit:

[phydeaux]

Man, Matt, this is going to be incredible! I can't wait to run it. How far west do you plan on taking it?

[mbta1000]

Been toying around with the latest release of this route. I dreamed of the day my area would be covered. I'm very much interested in this project!

[jdonald1]

Thanks for updating the route. I live across the St. Clair river from Port Huron MI and am kind of hoping that you will extend it up as far as Port Huron and maybe through the tunnel to Sarnia ON. Thanks again.

Don