Best Placement of service towers and maintenance sheds.

[a432]

In the interests of speed what is better? To set up a tower and shed in the middle of two cities or to set it up very close the to city, near the station.

[Hawk]

Generally speaking, setting the maintenance sheds and service towers real close to a station produces what is known as 'the 1-mile per hour crawl'. In other words, when the train leaves the shed or tower it barely crawls to the station.
This has, for the most part, allegedly been fixed in the 1.05 patch, but I've still seen it happen.
It can also happen if you set the shed and tower close to each other. The train will crawl between them, consequently slowing the train down, especially important if a speed goal is part of the scenario.

[Stoker]

Near but not against the station seems to be the ticket. There is a bug that makes trains crawl slowly if the sheds are pushed together. Putting them in the middle (like the AI's) is the slowest option because you have to stop and accelerate twice between stations.

[coruscate]

The other thing to consider is cost and traffic.

For instance if you have three cities connected together, you can run a "Y" connection to the city and have just one station and one tower. The problem is that whenver a train stops, so do the ones behind it. Putting towers and service stations right next to extremely busy cities can be a bad idea because it will make "gridlock" even worse.

[Hawk]

One of the things I liked about RRT2 was the maintenance facilities were built at the station.

[Stoker]

I liked the option to "build in" maintenance facilities to stationsin one of the Michigan scenarios (setting oil, water and sand usage -%100and increasing load/unload time to simulate servicing) . The point about gridlock is a good one Coru, when possible, I like to have a "hub" city like New York and buid no maintenance near it to make the area clear as fast as possible, making sure that the other stations on routes do have them. The scenarios which require high average speeds like Orient Express can even require resorting to extreme measures like putting the service facilities on a spur and manually routing the trains to go there, with no load of course, and then go back and pick up cargo and continue .

[AZ Rail Rat]

I place water half-way between stations, double tracking well on both sides as funds and economy (recession or worse) permits to reduce traffic congestion around stations. I place sheds just outside the station influence zone (or whatever it is called - turns green when hovering over a station) so the shed does not take up space the city can use to put houses, businesses or industry in the green. Also reduces congestion around towers.

My game-play technique is a Zone Offense, i.e., Train Z1-1 to station A to B to C, then return to A - - - Train Z1-2, C to B to A, return to C. Next zone is C to D to E or A to F to G, etc. This means for each three cities: two trains, two towers, but only ONE shed is required just outside either anchor city for each zone.

Once set, these trains are NEVER changed, unless they set speed records, and then they are replaced with new trains. Name trains then run passenger only w/dining car routes between two or max three zones. All unnamed trains in those zones are then changed to "any freight" only. If name trains do not come quick enough, passenger routes are set up anyway.

Using this simple-to-remember technique, these and other long-run, special-consist trains between larger cities later in the game seldom have want for water or oil, congestion is seldom a problem (at least around sheds and water towers), and speed averages stay high.

The secret to RRT for YOU as the Head Cheese is the same as real life, "Set it and forget it!" Spending all your time looking ahead as your well-placed zones operate themselves lets you be like top executives of today . . . either take a BIG parachute when you are done, or run to Congress begging for a bailout . . . either way . . . YOU WIN!

[a432]

I ask this because I am playing the blue streak scenario and having difficulty reaching the 25 mph average speed for freight. I am more of a visual person could you post pictures of the method you use.

Also what type of cargo, if any, does a caboose count as? Will shipping just a caboose count towards or against freight speed?

[Stoker]

keeping the freight speed up is slightly easier IMO than keeping a high express speed. The easiest way is simply to keep trains small- 4 cars- and use the fastest trains for the route. Fastest depends on the route length and topography- if it is a short run, a loco with a fast accleration and medium top speed will out perform one with a higher top speed but slower acceleration and one with good pulling power like a Consolidation can out perform a speed demon like the 8- wheeler in the mountains. The other main issue is over all traffic congestion. The first thing to do to decrease it is to lay double track. As far as the maintenance facilities go, having them everywhere is the overall best method- regardless of exact placement in the line. The worst thing you can do is have a limited amount of service towers , and these at a busy station as this will cause a gridlock as trains pile up waiting to be serviced.

[nedfumpkin]

When playing a scenario that has speed requirements, the best way of doing sheds and towers is to put them on spurs and set orders for the train.

If a station is a terminus, meaning end of the line, then I extend track past the station and I put a tower at the end with a shed between the station and it.

If a station is not at a terminus, then I run a spur, or two, off the line at the station, and I do the same thing with the tower and shed.

I order my trains to go from a-b with cargo, then empty to its tower, then back to b and on to a where I do the same thing at the other end.

I try to double the track as much as possible in these areas.

This makes it so that your trains do regular servicing by filling up before they get cargo. When they have their loads they go directly to their destination and there aren't any slow downs for servicing. By putting the maintenance shed between the station and tower, it leaves it so that it will service it whenever it requires.

One thing about the spurs is that you want to make sure that the trains go through the maintenance sheds and service. Sometimes I can't get them to work and have to move them.

On scenarios that don't have speed requirements, I put towers just outside the cities, and sheds where they will get the best use.

[a432]

Thank you for your help I managed to make the speed goals using the spur method.

[nedfumpkin]

Another thing to keep in mind when there are speed goals is to keep your track as flat as possible even if it means going around some things. Also, when going for speed, keep your trains at 4 cars plus a diner or caboose. Check your engines too...you want fast exceleration as much as possible over a slightly higher average speed since some slow to get going locomotives take half the trip to get up to speed and if they get stopped they take a long time to get going again. Cabooses reduce breakdowns which if your locos are crappy will affect your average speed.

[KevinL]

I've found that sometimes even 4 cars plus a diner and caboose is too slow. I have to make it 3 cars and take a hit on the profit until the faster locomotives come out.