[REL] Mexico City Area scenario

[alessandro]

So I tried my hands at a scenario again, and I'm personally quite happy with the result. This time I decided on making the Mexico City Metropolitan Area your turf, I was inspired to this by reading up on the transit history of Mexico City (also because I live here, derp).
This scenario is passengers only, there's no industry, and it's layed out in a way that you will experience almost explosive growth of the cities in the central area, the only challenging part are the first few years, after that the cities can be so large that it'll will be hard to keep up with demand. So the difficult part isn't the economical challenge, but instead the player's commitment to creating an all-enclosing transport system. For this you are allowed to use trains and trams ONLY, you basically take the place of the Servicio de Transportes Eléctricos (Electric Transport Service), which operates trolleybuses and the light rail line, it also used to operate the streetcar system. What worked well for me was creating a few heavy rail lines, to places more distant to the city, while using lots and lots of tram lines, as of 20 years into the game I have instituted 16 lines (with anything from 3 to abut 15 stops) and a total of 40-something trams, while constantly having to build new lines. But of course you're free to find your own solutions, if you really want to use other modes of transportation just go ahead and change the rules to your pleasure. You only have one competitor, limited to buses, but he always seems to set up just one bus in some other city, so my idea of having to compete with buses, the way trams actually used to, didn't work out that well, but that doesn't bother me really.
You will need a few vehicles for the scenario, for a start the tramwagon for the early tram, the beta PCC from Plastikman's US set, and the RENFE trainpack, from which you get the very useful Brill Railcar (kind of an interurban like railcar, can be MU'd) as well as some EMUs somewhat late in the game, the Railcar however is available until very late, and doesn't really get obsolete, thanks to it's 109kmh tops speed (FWI all the standard american locomotives and passenger and mail carriages are available). Finally you need the CLRV pack, from which you will get only the CLRV (because it already has a huge capacity, and because the ALRV doesn't really fit into my idea of transportation here, we only got articulated buses a few years ago, and they're only used in a crappy high-speed-bus-system). Also needs earthslopes.
A bit of history perhaps, Mexico had a huge tram network that reached its peak in the 1920's, the small trams didn't really cut the mustard (although 2-axle birneys were the very first trams run, one of them still survives), so with one trailer they have a capacity of 70 passengers, and they somewhat mimic the common motorcar-trailer layout trams had, especially on some of the longer lines that reached outlying towns. Mexico Operated almost anything, two-axle birneys, classic american 2-bogie cars and Peter Witt cars. We later had some PCCs here, we even had the only one ever purchased new in Latin America (in fact anywhere that isn't the US or Canada, yay), which was bought in 1947, more came as 2nd hand units in 1954 from the twin cities system, these replaced many of the ancient cars, even more came from Denver in 1957, these finally replaced all non-PCC cars. Starting in 1969 the lines were gradually replaced by subway lines, that mostly doubled the original streetcar lines (not all, and not completely, sadly), until the last tram line closed in 1979, with only one (and a branch) operating PCCs in a light-rail (ROW but with grade crossings) fashion until 1984, when the line was upgraded to use modern LRVs, the branch line was closed in 1990. So in reference to this it's good that Plastikman's PCC is available until 1996, I think, since they were actually used until very late (and some got a funky styling, with huge windows, twin headlights and an awesome orange livery, I've attached some pics).
The most outlying parts of this map are the city of Toluca to the east and the smaller towns of Cuernavaca, Cuautla and Tepoztlan to the south. The railroad goes to both Cuernavaca and Cuautla, and until 1998 (when passenger railroad operations ceased) passenger trains went to both places. As an interesting tidbit, the train line to Cuernavaca passed through some densely urbanized parts of the city in its later years (for a stretch even along the outer ring freeway) and was a considerable cause of accidents (which were practically always the drivers fault), causing around 100 accidents every year in 1998.

RENFE trainpack:
http://www.tt-forums.net/viewtopic.php?t=19296

CLRV:
http://www.tt-forums.net/viewtopic.php?f=40&t=24326

PCC:
Dunno lol, search for it.

[adroman]

Looks jawesome...

Great map! I can't wait to play it ...

[alessandro]

Some more screenshots. The terrain was made by using an actual topographical map, notice the mountain range to the south and west. It limits what is the valley of Mexico, open only to the north, although the western and northwestern part are just outside of the maps area. I think this scenario comes pretty close to what can be considered "to scale"...

[alessandro]

Just one more screenshot and some 'inspirational' images, I've linked them from the http://www.tramz.com page for Mexico City, which has been incredibly interesting for me to read up on the city's transit history (some of which isn't really history, tram tracks are still visible in a lot of parts of the city, a tribute to the awful quality of the roads, haha).

The very center of the city, for many years the terminal of most of the streetcar lines.


A Peter Witt with a Corona beer ad.


A PCC in their first livery in 1962, the PCC's heyday.

http://davesrailpix.com/odds/mx/htm/mxc17.htm
And their look in the 1970's, on the few streetcar lined that hadn't yet been replaced by the subway. Looks neat, eh?

Well that's it, I hope you enjoy the scenario and this little bit of history. If there are any questions I'll be glad to answer them, I hope the scenario doesn't ask for some files again, but I can't promise anything, happened with my last one.

[Plastikman]

No!

You did not ask to use a Beta File for release! Especially since the PCC has been rebuilt in 3D is in the US set as release.

Please remove my file now.

Plastikman.