Release date: 17/07/2014The beautifully rural Mon Line running through the heart of Pennsylvania springs to life in this new route for Train Simulator, complete with mile-long coal trains and distinctive street running.
The original Monongahela Railroad was a joint venture between the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) and the Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad (P&LE). Through the early 1900s, the two companies acquired many lines in the area and by 1930, the Monongahela (‘Mon Line’) was operating more than 170 miles of track serving numerous coal mines.
At the heart of Pennsylvania’s coal country, the rural Mon Line is today owned by Norfolk Southern with CSX Transporation also having trackage rights. Coal mines dominate the route, with important facilities at Bailey Mine and Emerald Mine connecting with a staging yard at West Brownsville from where coal trains continue on their way to power stations or to ports for export.
More than 20 million tons of coal is annually transported along the line, much of it to Loveridge Secondary where it is transhipped from rail to river barges. The route is primarily made up of four branch lines – Manor, Ten Mile Run, West Brownsville and Loveridge, and includes the unusual spectacle of full size coal trains sharing the public highway with cars along Main Street in West Brownsville.
The route is relatively level, following the west bank of the Monongahela river, as far as Millsboro, then Ten Mile Creek to Waynesburg and Emerald Mine. The line then turns north east, closely following the twists and turns of Browns Creek. This final 15 miles to Bailey is completely rural in nature until it reaches the loop at Bailey, when the dominant coal industries take over.
Included with the 50 mile section of the Mon Line from Bailey Mine to West Brownsville for Train Simulator is a Norfolk Southern-liveried ES44AC diesel locomotive, part of GE’s Evolution Series. Its mammoth 4,400 horsepower and 75mph top speed make it an ideal locomotive to head the long coal trains seen on the Mon Line.
Engineers can also create their own coal loads at Bailey Mine and Emerald Mine with working coal loading facilities, and experience the rail served businesses along the east bank of the Monongahela River, including a metal recycling yard north of Brownsville, river barge repair and construction yard to the south, and a rail/river coal transhipment facility at Alicia.
