Aberdeen Carolina and Western Railroad

[Warll]

Map: ACWR SAM
Mappers: STEP inc

SAMed by: STEP Inc
Tested By: STEP Inc
Posted with permission.

ACWR_Map.jpg (21.27 KiB) Viewed 8814 times

Back in September of 2008 I was looking thru some photos of shortlines and found the Aberdeen, Carolina and Western. After much help from the members of STEP Inc and a lot of sleepless nights we came up with this 18×18 map of south-central North Carolina. This railroad was created to take over a job that a couple of larger railroads didn’t want to do anymore, and has prospered since.

For more information on the ACWR go here: http://www.acwr.com/

If you go into ‘CUSTOMERS’ and scroll down you will find access to a map of the present line. The map you are playing is laid out as close to this as I could get, with the businesses placed where they appear also. The idea of this map is to lay single rail, with the shortest possible branch lines to access Annexes. Passing track should only be laid at depots as needed. Bridges are expensive and there are only two types, Stone for short bridges and Deck Girder, which is very costly, for the one needed crossing of the river. The Stone are expensive, so conform to the landscape as much as possible. Tunnels are allowed, IF you want to lay out $30 Million a section!

Now you can probably run this map, and most likely win, if you just make runs where you chose, but that is not the real challenge of it. One track from Charlotte to Gulf, and one from somewhere between Star and Troy down to Aberdeen, and take it from there. The other thing is to have only one of each Engine on the map at a time. Here is the list of Engines and the year they appear:

1992 — ACWR 3802 GP38-2
1994 — ACWR 3803 GP38-2
2002 — ACWR 703 GP40-2WL
2003 — ACWR 2077 GP38-2
2004 — ACWR 9556 GP40-2WL
2007 — ACWR 4500 F7A
2007 — ACWR 4501 F7A
2008 — ACWR 9529 GP40-2WL

The map also contains a few new cars, a tank container, a flat car hauling steel plates, a rib-sided covered hopper and a high-sided open hopper. I’d also like to thank MrScott1964 for his four coal cars, the C&O, the DLW, the Erie and the LV. They saved me a few days work. Thanks also goes to Choobacca for his BN and BNSF covered hoppers, which I upped the detail on for this map.

One last thing, one of our testers mentioned that the pointer was difficult for him to use. If this is the case for you, just go in and delete the Pointer.ani file and you’ll go back to the original pointer.

To use the attached files, place all three files in the same folder and click on 001. It will create a folder called AC&W.7z which will contain the folder AC&W and the Warehouse.FPK file. Place these into your UserMaps. You can now play the map. You might want to do a zip of the folder first for storage for later playing.

Good luck and watch for head-butting engines.

As always if you find any errors, drop us a line and we’ll pull the maintenance crew out of their card game and get them right on it.

[karsten]

The Aberdeen, Carolina and Western is an excellent, fun map. Reorienting the game to a real prototype is a very satisfying departure from the spaghetti railroad experience.

Keeping the number of engines to the maximum specified requires real discipline, but this more than repays itself in play value - every engine becomes a treasured asset, carefully assigned for maximum return. Each new engine is eagerly awaited for the additional possiblities it will open up. And although the first few years with only two engines are quite tough, in the end I needed only one year more to achieve all goals - compared with using unlimited engines.

The single line concept works very well with the up to eight engines. Clockwork operation, no problem. Only regret is that the space between towns is so limited that the single line stretches are often extremely short. One solution could be to tilt the map, giving about 1/3 longer distances between towns.

The achievement newspapers are also very well done and a nice reward. All in all, an SMR experience not to be missed!

[Jancsika]

Well, finally I’ve managed to complete this map ( only cheated, just a little). Most maps that are trying to recreate real world situation fail to generate too much excitement, because of the plain terrain and the utilization of the limited variety of goods that can be converted and manipulated. ( coal – steel – automobile, just does not generate too much excitement).
The terrain limitation was overcome by limiting the routing to a strict requirement of the way the track have to be laid. You are not told how and where lay those tracks, but you better lay them correctly, otherwise you will be in trouble.
As for the goods and industries, there are a large variety of new goods, industries, new buildings. (Now I know, where talcum powder is coming from) Most players of this game do not realize how much work it is to create a new industry and make it work.
The cities will have to grow to accept certain goods, but by growing they will not take some other goods. (you better deliver that lumber to that Town or Village, because the City will not take it).
As of the mechanics of the game, it performed flawlessly, no crashes whatsoever.
STEP Inc. did an excellent job.
Jancsika

[Tactician]

very fun map to play, however completed all goals with 2 years left before the 1st goals need completed. a set of update goals for the goal oriented player would make this map more fun then it already is!

[karsten]

completed all goals with 2 years left before the 1st goals need completed.

Amazing! That would be by 2003? How did you do that?

[Tactician]

as it appears i "cheated" i didn't read the 1st post which states i may use only 1 of each train, i will re-play it in this manner and re-post my "review"