
When I can get back to starting a new game, I'm probably going to start in 2000 again and use electrified railways along with 2cc or American Transition, and I think I'll switch from ECS to FIRS. I love all the industries available in ECS, but the more I play the more I kinda feel like that most of the graphics are geared towards 1880s-1960s gameplay and doesn't fit quite as nice with ISR. If I had even more time and patience, I'd probably chip in some graphics for FIRS to get it finished... I can see some great designs, I suck at putting them to sprites though LOL.
I may also have to go with editing my own map first. I think a lot of my dissatisfaction with all the other games that I've played is that I just happened to get a map with a good placement of towns and industry here, and I've never been able to duplicate that. Also, not being able to have decent looking mountains and rivers is irking me.
Until then, I've found myself Googling for photos of industrial areas to get a better feel of more realistic stations. I'd like to incorporate more road vehicles and ships into future games. Just finished looking over Stanlow Oil Refinery and the docks in Liverpool, England for that, as well as following some of the short-line rail routes serviced by a rail company in my area, R.J. Corman Co, which include a lot of mountainous coal, aggregate and iron/steel transportation routes throughout Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virgina, Kentucky and Tennessee.
Speaking of which, anybody know of a good online map service which follows rail lines? I'm currently using Google Maps but it doesn't outline rail lines, and some of the photos are pretty poor quality in trying to find them.