Border Crossing: El Paso

Border Crossing: El Paso

Hola!
Welcome to The Sun City region of El Paso, Texas. El Paso (Elevation 3740ft) stands on the Rio Grande across the Mexico–United States border from Ciudad Juárez, the most populous city in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. In the year 2019, the United States exported over 300 Billion USD in imports from Mexico and exported over 200 Billion USD of products to Mexico.

Despite the political, sociological, crime, and other tensions, the trade relationship between these two border countries continues to thrive. El Paso is considered one of the largest gateway cities of trade between the two countries. El Paso presents unique challenges in limited space, terrain, the border itself as an obstacle, and import/export rail choke points that exist in real life.

Map Features and Challenges
Highly detailed real-world topography (1/3 arc second detail)
Rich agriculture networks in the river valley
Mainline Connection Game Play™
Real-world freight types and directional demands (both internally inside the US and imports/exports with Mexico)
Real-world placement and naming of local industries and roads
Rail logistics choke point at the border’s rail crossing. Can you solve this real-world problem and keep up with demands?
Serve the region’s local industries and subdivisions via imported region freight and ship finished products downline
Conquer terrain and engineering challenges

Mainline Connection Game Play™
This is a new style of map gameplay I have developed that primarily focuses on the transportation of items from Point A to Point B vs. the standard TF logistics of connecting and completing all the building steps and processes. Locations on each side of the line’s exit of the map are called “Portals”. Portals reflect real-world freight types and proportional good demand in their various directions of travel.

To use the portals, simply connect a freight station to the road that runs through them. All generated goods will be sent straight to the depot! Remember that industries will not begin producing goods until there is a destination demand and an appropriate form of transportation (tankers for fuel, box trucks for goods, etc.) to that destination.

Important Game Play Notes
Border Crossing – You will need to build over the border fence or delete a slot to build through it
Crossing Options – Only the main road bridge border crossing exists, however, there are additional crossings (The region’s only other real-world crossing locations) east and west of El Paso that can be connected.
Starting date – You can change the starting year by playing in sandbox mode to access today’s machines and rolling stock
Highway Network – Interstate 10 crosses the full map. I have fenced I-10 off near cities to prevent the highway from being taken over by city growth. All portals are near road connections including I-10 so feel free to use road-based transportation if inclined.
Realistic Track Placement – I recommend pausing the game early to lay tracks and yards near the border in the cities, which is where they exist in real life. Use Google Earth to help with exact track placement.

Note From the Author
It was tough to find the drive to finish this map during the summer with so many other distractions, but I’m glad it’s finally done. This map has over 90 hours of developing, building, terrain forming, hand painting textures, and placing vegetation/rocks. I used Texas and US Government trade rail studies and reports to figure out what goods come into the region, what directions they travel, and how much of it (link provided below).

I used to fly in/out of the El Paso area for my old job often, and I feel like I’m back in West Texas every time I load up this map. The rail crossing at the border plus the proximity to cities and terrain will make this map challenging to efficiently move freight around all parts of the map with the mountain range blocking the north. I hope you will take the time to share your solutions in the comments below with all of us! Move that metal and make money!

Required items:
Fences
Rocky Climate
Freestyle Industries