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Chicago Goose Island and North Side Switching

***ATTENTION: STEAM SUPPORT FOR THIS ROUTE HAS BEEN DISCONTINUED***

I have decided to use assets that are free and publicly available on http://www.railworksamerica.com/ and therefore, going forward, I will not be able to upload this route on Steam. I am continuing to work on this project and plan on sharing it through http://www.railworksamerica.com/. I will keep this early version available to download on Steam for the time being. Since the last update, the route has nearly doubled in size, many changes have been made and there are a lot more exciting things to come!

If you are a member of the http://www.railworksamerica.com/ forum my username is MonsieurMungo. Feel free to join the discussion over there if you would like to!


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Goose Island is a man made island located along the North Branch of the Chicago River. It was once a major industrial hub on the city's near north side, and at one time, was the center point to a vast network of street level terminal freight lines that operated in the area. Trains ran on the island all the way up until 2017 at a limited capacity. However, today there is little evidence of these tracks ever having existed to the point they once did.


This route is based off of a real terminal frieght network that once ran in Chicago. I decided I didn't want to stick to just one era, but I wanted to perhaps model it somewhere around the 70's and 80's with a few modern day elements thrown in. With that said, I tried to keep the track work and industries as accurate as possible but there are some areas I really have no idea how they once must have looked. Therefore, some places have been made up using an educated guess. The Milwaukee Road, and later the Soo Line, were the railroads that operated in that era. The BNSF has never operated here but those were the assets I have chosen to use as a placeholder for now.


I would like to give a huge shout out to Tom Mann and Tom Burke who are the owners of the website Chicago Switching ( http://www.chicagoswitching.com/ ). They have extensively documented the history of these rail lines with photos and descriptions. Their content has been the primary reference for this project. Be sure to also check out the Chicago Switching Flickr Group ( https://www.flickr.com/groups/1793636@N21/pool/ ) where you can find many more photos from them and other people as well.


This is my first Train Simulator editing project and it has been quite a learning experience and very much a work in progress. Track speed limits are a bit all over the place but lets pretend the overall limit throughout the route is 10mph. Imagine some very old, muddy and minimally maintained freight rail that could derail you at any moment. Keep it slow. No solid scenarios yet except for the QuickDrive but I encourage everyone to play around in the Scenario Editor. It's intended to be a switcher's dream so be creative and have fun sorting cars!


Bonus Metra service from Oglevie to Clybourn which can be set up in QuickDrive.



This route will require the following DLCs:

1) Racetrack Chicago to Aurora

2) Marias Pass

3) Peninsula Corridor San Francisco to Gilroy

4) Norfolk Southern Coal District

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***Update September 11, 2021***

-QuickDrive Scenario should be working now.
-Added Markers for destinations. (Incomplete. Will add more soon as time permits.)
-Added QuickDrive Metra to Clybourn.