Marias Pass

Welcome to the North Super Highway!

Although the Marias Pass is one of the lowest level crossings on the Continental Divide in the United States (5,213 feet), there is nothing special about the BNSF Railway route through northwest Montana. Built by James J. Hill's Great Northern Railway in the 1890s, the Marias Pass line remains a major transcontinental route to the northwest Pacific Ocean, as well as an exciting place to enjoy the mountain railway. This superrailway, now owned by the BNSF, is a vital artery for the traffic of goods and passengers passing through the Rocky Mountains. Although its main line is mostly single track, it uses numerous driveways and amazing engineering feats to make this transition possible.

Map Features and Tasks

• Highly detailed real-world topography (1/3 arcsecond)
• Mainline Connection Play™
• Real proportional cargo types and destination needs, location and name of local industries, and road placement
• Ballast and small roads/tunnels indicating the route, tunnels and intersections of sections at different points
• Manage Amtrak Empire Builder, serving cities along the line
• Serve local industries and divisions in the region through imported regional shipments and ship finished products downstream
• Overcome challenges in the field and engineering

Mainline Connection Play™

This is a new style of gameplay map that I have developed that focuses primarily on transporting items from point A to point B, rather than TF's standard logistics of connecting and completing all the stages and processes of construction. Locations on either side of the line exit from the map are called "portals". Portals reflect the real types of cargo and proportional good demand in different directions of their movement.

Portal import/export examples:East-bound intermodal transport

about twice as much as goods headed west at the Marias Pass.

Crude oil from the Dakota oil fields flows westward to the coastal refineries and returns eastward in lesser quantities as fuel.

To use the portals, simply connect the loading station to the road that passes through them. All generated items will be sent directly to the warehouse! Remember that the industry will not start to produce goods until there is demand at the destination and the appropriate mode of transport (fuel tanks, trucks for goods, etc.) before that destination.

Local industries and cities use: goods, machinery, building materials, wood, iron ore, food, fuel, and coal

Important notes about the gameplay

1. Pass Construction - Several attempts have shown that the completion of the Marias Pass line cost approximately $8-9 million
2. Financing of construction - I recommend to build a line and then use Alt+M command in the mode of debugging settings to restore funds to the desired starting amount. Useful if you want to control the line at the beginning of a new game, instead of first accumulating funds and then building
3. The start date - I set 1890, which was the year the construction of the Pass Marias began. You can change your starting year by playing in sandbox mode to access state-of-the-art machines and rolling stock
4. Road Link - U.S. Highway 2 on the pass is complete and convenient for those who want to use the roads to cross the pass
5. Income - The longer the load is moved, the more money is earned. Approximately 1 item of cargo, moved along the entire length of the card (in any direction), is equal to 208 333 dollars. The 120-unit train will earn about 25 million per one-way trip!
6. Realists - I recommend pausing the game immediately after downloading and placing all paths, depots and yards before cities naturally expand over time. Use Google Earth and Google Maps to precisely place tracks