Train Simulator: Norfolk Southern Coal District Route Add-On

The 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, c
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