MARC Washington Union - Baltimore Penn

Departing Washington Union at the controls of our F59PHI. On the far left, a Washington Metro service is heading to New Carrollton, the closer service is heading to Greenbelt and ahead on the right an Amtrak service is heading to Baltimore on the NEC.

Here you are in charge of the MARC Washington - Baltimore passenger activity on the CSX sub. Once again you have an F59PHI to help you and plenty of CSX freight, as well as the MARC Baltimore-Washington services. There should be some MARC LRVs on their track as you approach Camden MARC.

There is a red before you get to Alexandria Junction and when you're almost at the Camden MARC station (where this activity terminates). Be patient at both holdups and they help make a mess of your schedule. Remember that CSX freights have priority over passenger (the MSTS AI dispatcher/train controller seems to be a through-and-through CSX employee).

You wouldn't believe it but on the first test of this activity, the Washington Metro train which starts alongside you, roared around the other side of the Ivy Yards on its path and came out ahead of the F59PHI. This caused us to wait at a red until it cleared the block ahead. It never happened again so there's no screenshot. web•TrainSim thought he'd finally found a situation in which the AI dispatcher had forgotten about always giving priority to the player service.

There are no loose consists in this activity. All trains are under the control of the MSTS AI dispatcher/traffic controller (Pan to trainsimmers drawing deep breaths and throwing hands up in the air in... anticipation?. Ed)

The screenshots below have been taken at various times of testing, thus the different weather conditions.

This activity has been packaged with Route Riter and is available from downloads.webdottrainsim.com.

All consists have been deliberately kept short so as not to cause problems fitting into various starting and ending sidings. So be careful if you're substituting your own rolling stock. The passenger consists are also short since all platforms, except Washington, won't hold more than a three or four carriages.

Rolling stock

All the following is available from Train-sim.com, unless otherwise stated.

Because there are no loose consists, you can use ConBuilder to substitute your choice of rolling stock.

• Amtrak F59PHI #451: f59phiv1.zip, 3window.zip
• ALe426-506 TAF double-decker EMU (FS_Ale426-506-TAF.zip from AllFreeNet.it)
• Amtrak E60C #620 (with cab), e60c_42.zip
• CEBX Schnabel: cebx800.zip, cebx8007.zip (updated ACE files)
• CSX Transportation box car #65892: csx_box1.zip
• CSX Transportation 50 foot box car #135070: csxbox33.zip
• CSX Transportation tank car: csx_tank.zip
• CSX SD40-2 #8119: csx8119.zip, CSX SD40-2 #8252: csx8252.zip, csx_ace.zip (updated ACE files)
• Default GP38-2 loco
• Default Metroliner trainset
• MARC HHP-8: marchhp.zip
• Metra "Winnebago" F40PH-2M #161, f40phmmt.zip
• Sounder (Sound Transit) Bombardier bi-level carriages: sndbdier.zip
• Trinity Rail Express trainset (only use the bi-level carriages): tretrain.zip
• SEPTA E60c trainset: septae60.zip (requires e60c_42.zip for cab)
• Boston MBTA Type 6 and Type 7 LRV: type6.zip, type7.zip
• NEC 4 Maps: nec40map.zip
• NEC Guide: necguide.zip