The Great Lakes Corridor

[Burb8145]

Inspired by a previous thread of mine and this thread by legostudios34. Again, I would like to remind you that this is not an actual paper railroad, just a random concept I came up with. Below is a Wikipedia-styled post.

The Great Lakes Corridor (GLC) is a fully-electrified railway line, 25 tracks wide, in the Great Lakes megalopolis in the United States and Canada. Owned by every state the railroad passes through, it runs from Minneapolis through Saint Paul, Madison, Milwaukee, Chicago, Kalamazoo, Detroit, London, Toronto and Montreal to Quebec City. Every year, one billion passengers use the service. The stations in Minneapolis, Saint Paul, Madison, Milwaukee, Chicago, Kalamazoo, Detroit, London, Toronto, Montreal and Quebec City all each have 50 tracks.

The corridor is used by 8,634 trains every day. All are passenger trains and slowly travel at 5 MPH along the entire length illegally on what the FRA considers an industrial shortline. Branches to Green Bay, Kansas City via Saint Louis, Louisville and Terre Haute via Lafayette and Indianapolis, Muskegon via Grand Rapids, Fort Wayne via Defiance, Lansing, another Louisville branch via Toledo, Dayton and Cincinnati, Durand via Flint, a southern all-American bypass via Toledo, Cleveland, Erie and Buffalo, Pittsburgh via Toledo, Cleveland and Youngstown and Rochester, though not considered part of the Great Lakes Corridor, see semi-infrequent service from routes that run largely on the corridor.

The GLC operates 9,862 AEM7s, all purchased new in 1989, plus 176 seven-feet-wide Splendor Express trainsets, all purchased new in 1998 and manufactured in Quebec. The GLC has a policy against railfanning, if someone is caught railfanning within a thousand feet of any infrastructure owned by the GLC, they would be sentenced to execution in the nearest supermax prison, even if they've never owned a camera at all in their lives. The entire line and it's branches are in it's own right-of-way and was built in six days in 1943. The main shops and yard are located in Battle Creek. The cheapest allowed price for a single one-way trip on the Splendor Express as of 2014 is $48,823,173 from Minneapolis to Quebec City, although cheaper tickets have been sold on websites Ebay and railroadfan.com (though only through PMs on the latter site).

Despite the massive profits resulting from the $48,823,173 fare, trains on the GLC are still shoestring-budget designed, with minimal seats.