King Cotton
A scenario for the Mississippi route
By Harry R. Adkins
December 2022


This scenario is for Jawal’s Mississippi route.  You can download it from the Railworks America file library.  Run the RW_AssetSetup.exe file to install.  

Your train departed Memphis early this morning with only four boxcars full of “King Cotton.”  By the time it reaches New Orleans for export, it will need two locomotives.  On this leg of the journey, you will have pick-ups to make in Louisiana and Clarkville.  Be sure to completely clear the yard switch ladders before reversing for pick-ups.  Also, be sure to drop your consist before doing any pick-up operations.

I envision the Mississippi route as the Memphis Subdivision of Frank Ellison’s Delta Lines extending from Monroe, LA, to Memphis, TN.  The Delta Lines mainline extends from New Orleans to St. Louis.  

The Southern economy was not undynamic or unproductive, though. During the period before the Civil War, Southern staples made up three-fifths of total American exports, and cotton was by far the country’s largest export. Southern plantations and farms supplied three-fourths of the world cotton crop—the mainstay of textile manufacturing in both Great Britain and the United States. Southern planters saw themselves, and accurately so, as a key component in the Industrial Revolution and a critical part of an international economic system.

Hope you enjoy.
Harry