Crossing the Great Divide - Campaign Discussion

[kamyFC]

Crossing the Great Divide is the sixth mission in the classic campaign. Essentially, its about the construction of the Canadian Pacific's transcontinental railroad during the late 1800's.
These were the win conditions. We start at 1868
Bronze: Connect Halifax to Vancouver and haul six loads between the two cities by 1896.
Silver: Also have a company book value of $20 million.
Gold: All of the above, but company book value of $50 million.

We either start at Halifax or Vancouver.  I decided to start at Halifax, as historically we go from east to west. The logical thing to do was to connect Halifax and Quebec. I guess most do that as its also on the route between Halifax and Vancouver.  But i decided to make things more challenging and saw St John which is perched in the eastern most corner of Canada. It had lots of houses and 3 ports generating passengers. 
So I created a giant bridge between Halifax, NS and St John, NL. Both the cities have 2-3 large ports, which generated insane number of Passengers. I had 4-5 trains and that gave great starting income. 

 

 

Once you have adequate income start a single track straight line track between Halifax, NS and Vancourver, BC.
Also take care to create pass thro stations in between for sand, water and oil. Once you have trains running between east and west coast, enjoy windfalls incomes!

I could get silver with around 25 million company net.  
50 million and gold would be tougher!  
I observed that bridges are only single track - they don't do double track for some reason. That slowed down my early production and also slowed down the rate at which my 6 trains generated revenue between between Halifax, NS and St John, NL.
Also i could have had more trains between Halifax, NS and Vancouver, BC to generate more revenue.  I think gold is achievable with this additional challenge.

Did you guys remember this campaign scenario? 
 

Edited May 25, 2020 by kamyFC

[Silverback]

Interesting idea. Ocean bridges were only added later (in the second century expansion) so the classic campaign wasn't designed to used them and this couldn't be done. I've always started Quebec Montreal Halifax. 

[jeffryfisher]

15 hours ago, kamyFC said:

bridges are only single track

Those long ocean viaducts represent ferries. True bridges cross rivers, and they (steel and stone) can be double-tracked.

[kamyFC]

On 5/26/2020 at 2:04 AM, Silverback said:

Interesting idea. Ocean bridges were only added later (in the second century expansion) so the classic campaign wasn't designed to used them and this couldn't be done. I've always started Quebec Montreal Halifax. 

Interesting that the RRT2 team added Ocean bridges in the expansion!

[kamyFC]

On 5/26/2020 at 7:00 AM, jeffryfisher said:

Those long ocean viaducts represent ferries. True bridges cross rivers, and they (steel and stone) can be double-tracked.

Ah i see so River bridges are double track but Ocean bridges are single only.

[Rileyrac]

How to do you get the money to goto St. John’s