Some beginner questions

[undertoad]

Hi all

I've just played the first campaign for the third time (though I got Gold all three times, the first time was a mess! And I still get caught by leaving Double Track switched on and wonder why my new, mountainous branch line is costing so much to lay...). There are so many questions I'm confused about, so first of all

1. Is there an "alternative" manual anywhere? The built-in manual is good at basics, but falls down on detail. Maybe someone's put together an FAQ? I've found one here http://www.gamefaqs.com/computer/doswin ... 4361/49084 but it doesn't answer my questions.
If anyone can help you with the benefit of more experience, thank you very much in advance! I'm basing examples on the very first "Go West" campaign, so I hope it's familiar.

2. Setting train routing.
Is there any way to move a destination up or down within the train routing? Or insert a stop in the middle? Seems adding/deleting at the end of the list is the only option, which is a complete pain.

2a. Routing service/maintenance stops.
Do I have to include maintenance stops? I routed a train from Kingston Ontario to near Boston, and the driver decided to try to do it without ever stopping for water/maintenance! (There are plenty of water/sand/oil facilities). Of course the train broke down. My network is pretty busy - is the reason trains don't bother to maintain themselves because the water/sand/oil facility has another train already using it (so the algorithm goes "oh there's a queue, to hell with it, on we go..."?

3. Getting specific with cargo.
Sure, "auto-consist" works well within its limits. I'm finding trying to tweak it a bit of a nightmare though. Say I've got a Corn farm, with a little station that was only built to connect it up. I set up to a train to take Corn from there to the railhead for my (owned) two Cattle Ranches, where I want to maximise production. So far so good. But any other train that stops at the Corn farm station "steals" corn and takes it somewhere else, so there's never enough to take to the Ranches! How can I tell trains "DON'T load this particular cargo here? The only way I've found (clunky) is to somehow figure out which trains call there (see 4 below!), and set all of them to pick up nothing, or only Express, from Corn station.
The same happened with my long-haul Kingston-Providence train. It's supposed to supply Lumber to my owned Weapons Factory. But before the Weapons factory can use the Lumber, other trains steal it and take it to Boston for a $3 profit - much less than I'd get from leaving it there and then picking up finished Weapons.

4. Which train is that again?
I've taken to naming every train. Still, it's a nightmare trying to tweak the service. Station X is building up a lot of waiting Express traffic, say. Now, what service do I have from Station X? I wish I could filter the train list to show me only those that call at X - then I can think "where are they? what are they picking up? are they getting delayed? Do I need another service?"

5. The Express information
When I click on e.g. NY station, and click on Passengers or Mail, I get a list of destinations. This is hard to decipher. Sometimes I get passengers wanting to go from NY to NY, for $40! Am I understanding this wrong?
And do I have to take passengers specifically where they want to go, or are they willing to change or go part of the way? e.g. passengers in NY wanting to go to Buffalo; will they happily board a train to Albany, where another train can pick them up and take them to Buffalo, or does it have to be one service?

6. Track laying
Oh this is a nightmare... especially with only one level of Undo. Is "track MUST be connected" just a condition of the campaign? Makes it very hard to get track right. All I've figured out so far is: never end a bit of track-laying work on a bridge/in a tunnel - the tracklaying AI will never let me extend it. And, of course, remember to switch Double Track off... The 3-D view makes trying to cunningly climb up to high altitudes very difficult - a contour-line map would be much easier!

7. Toolbar
This is a big ask, and probably not possible. I'm running the game at 1440x900 (my laptop resolution). The buttons etc are still huge and fill more than half the screen. Much bigger than necessary. Would be great to have them halfsize so I can still see the main screen.

It's a great game and thoroughly distracting. But I'm finding the interface really inflexible, especially when I want to micro-manage a bit.

[Hawk]

Hi all

I've just played the first campaign for the third time (though I got Gold all three times, the first time was a mess! And I still get caught by leaving Double Track switched on and wonder why my new, mountainous branch line is costing so much to lay...). There are so many questions I'm confused about, so first of all

First of all, aboard! I'll give it a shot to answer some of your questions and maybe someone else wil stop by to answer mine better and those I can't.

1. Is there an "alternative" manual anywhere? The built-in manual is good at basics, but falls down on detail. Maybe someone's put together an FAQ? I've found one here http://www.gamefaqs.com/computer/doswin ... 4361/49084 but it doesn't answer my questions.
If anyone can help you with the benefit of more experience, thank you very much in advance! I'm basing examples on the very first "Go West" campaign, so I hope it's familiar.

Have you checked the RT3 FAQ at this link? http://hawkdawg.com/rrt/rrt3/rrt3.htm

2. Setting train routing.
Is there any way to move a destination up or down within the train routing? Or insert a stop in the middle? Seems adding/deleting at the end of the list is the only option, which is a complete pain.

I think, and I could be wrong here, that if you highlight a stop, the next station you select will fall under the stop you've highlighted.

2a. Routing service/maintenance stops.
Do I have to include maintenance stops? I routed a train from Kingston Ontario to near Boston, and the driver decided to try to do it without ever stopping for water/maintenance! (There are plenty of water/sand/oil facilities). Of course the train broke down. My network is pretty busy - is the reason trains don't bother to maintain themselves because the water/sand/oil facility has another train already using it (so the algorithm goes "oh there's a queue, to hell with it, on we go..."?

Trains will only stop when their fuel level (water, sand, oil) is 50% or less. It could be that the train didn't get below 50% until after passing the maintenance stops you placed.

3. Getting specific with cargo.
Sure, "auto-consist" works well within its limits. I'm finding trying to tweak it a bit of a nightmare though. Say I've got a Corn farm, with a little station that was only built to connect it up. I set up to a train to take Corn from there to the railhead for my (owned) two Cattle Ranches, where I want to maximise production. So far so good. But any other train that stops at the Corn farm station "steals" corn and takes it somewhere else, so there's never enough to take to the Ranches! How can I tell trains "DON'T load this particular cargo here? The only way I've found (clunky) is to somehow figure out which trains call there (see 4 below!), and set all of them to pick up nothing, or only Express, from Corn station.
The same happened with my long-haul Kingston-Providence train. It's supposed to supply Lumber to my owned Weapons Factory. But before the Weapons factory can use the Lumber, other trains steal it and take it to Boston for a $3 profit - much less than I'd get from leaving it there and then picking up finished Weapons.

Trains will pick up anything that they can deliver that is profitable. You can't really tell them not to pick up something unless you give the train a custom consist or have the train not stop at that station.

4. Which train is that again?
I've taken to naming every train. Still, it's a nightmare trying to tweak the service. Station X is building up a lot of waiting Express traffic, say. Now, what service do I have from Station X? I wish I could filter the train list to show me only those that call at X - then I can think "where are they? what are they picking up? are they getting delayed? Do I need another service?"

Someone else will have to tackle this one.

5. The Express information
When I click on e.g. NY station, and click on Passengers or Mail, I get a list of destinations. This is hard to decipher. Sometimes I get passengers wanting to go from NY to NY, for $40! Am I understanding this wrong?
And do I have to take passengers specifically where they want to go, or are they willing to change or go part of the way? e.g. passengers in NY wanting to go to Buffalo; will they happily board a train to Albany, where another train can pick them up and take them to Buffalo, or does it have to be one service?

Yes, passengers will take a train that is going to a destination other than the one they want, if another train will pick them up to continue the trip. Not sure about the first part of you question.

6. Track laying
Oh this is a nightmare... especially with only one level of Undo. Is "track MUST be connected" just a condition of the campaign? Makes it very hard to get track right. All I've figured out so far is: never end a bit of track-laying work on a bridge/in a tunnel - the tracklaying AI will never let me extend it. And, of course, remember to switch Double Track off... The 3-D view makes trying to cunningly climb up to high altitudes very difficult - a contour-line map would be much easier!

'Track must be connected' is a part of the events for a particular scenario and are set by the scenario creator.
Try hitting the 'G' key. That will turn on a grid that will help with seeing the contour of the land. Hit the 'G' key again to turn the grid off.
You got it. Never end track laying on a bridge or in a tunnel. Also always try to end track laying with a '0' (green) end to the track.

7. Toolbar
This is a big ask, and probably not possible. I'm running the game at 1440x900 (my laptop resolution). The buttons etc are still huge and fill more than half the screen. Much bigger than necessary. Would be great to have them halfsize so I can still see the main screen.

You could hit the 'Tab' key to hide the buttons until you need them again.

It's a great game and thoroughly distracting. But I'm finding the interface really inflexible, especially when I want to micro-manage a bit.

Micro-managing can be a task that gets easier the more you do it, but does take some concentration.
If you want to really dig deep into the bowels of micro-managing, download and install Trainmaster when it's released, which should be soon.

[nedfumpkin]

Based on the whole of your post, it seems to me that your problem is with planning more than anything. I will admit that the more you play, the easier it is to plan your set up.

When you open a map, take the time to look at it and get a sense of where things are. Develop a plan that will get you through the first five years as far as construction. Plan out what your trains are goin to do and where you will be expanding. Set out small goals, and work toward them.

Laying track is a very fine art, especially when it is hilly. Always paused the game when laying track. Even when doubling track. If you plan your routes well, then you can usually find a decent path to your destination. Don't worry about curves around mountains, etc. Your trains go slower but not as slow with steep grades. Save your game often so if you mess up a track laying set up you can go back and try again.

In order for your RR to succeed, you have to make money. Always buy an industry when you start the game. Then your first goal is to supply it. You also want to connect two reasonable cities, and your industry should be in one of them. If that isn't possible, then buy some farms or mines, and work towards supplying your two cities.

This will give you the income you need to stay afloat. You should expand from there. Always max out on bonds when buying industries, but always by buying them before they make a profit, and supplying them immediately.

Think about your trains when you set them up. Place your water towers at locations where they will best serve the engines running on them. If you run into a situation where a train is running out of water, then follow it to find out where it happens and put a water tower there. (or just before "there")

I've read where some people get massive numbers of trains, but I generally don't. I tend to plan out my trains so they are always doing something. I don't run empty trains except on return routes, and I still try to supply if possible.

Trains can be broek ndown thus:

Resource supply. These are the cheapest operating loco availabe that will do the job. The go from a farm or mine to the city or industry the supply. Or, use a railyard facility as a collection point. They run minimum 1 out from the resource, or 2 or 3 if the distance is long. The run back with whatever they can. I always max out the number of cars on freight trains.

These can also be used to go to a secondary destination to pick up a supply, i.e. corn for a ranch, etc.

The other resource train is when I have two supplies and one destination. I run a train going A-B-C-B. B being the city with the industry. This way it allows enough time for the resources to build up between trips. You use the same locomotive ad it sits idle a lot less.

Other freight trains can be between cities on various configurations, or over long distance. Each train is set according to the task I want it to do. In some cases, I want logs sent to a spot, and other cargo, so I set a customs consist of 6 logs, and the rest any freight. As long as I set a minimum hither than the any freight, and the train won't leave without logs, and will fill up with other stuff. (just an example)

Express trains should be set to operate based on passenger destinations. I use dining cars, and I never let then run empty.

I generally set my train up and then forget about them. I don't name my trains, I name the stations...i.e Cleveland cattle, Norfolk Produce. I find it is easier to know what a train is doing. I don't tend to run trains on excessively complicated routes. They tend to be very specific in their tasks. Once I have their routes set up to work right, then I tend to forget about them unless I notice a problem.

It also helps to watch what your trains are doing. Watch where the cargo goes. I generally play on slow because I like to look around alot.

[WPandP]

Regarding a train that ignores its available Service Towers... I've seen this happen when a Service Tower is placed too close to either a station or a Maintenance shed. I designed a little scenario once where the model railroader in me wanted to create a spur out to the Maint. Shed, like a bona-fide engine terminal (as if there was a turntable and roundhouse). I placed the Service Tower right in front of the Shed, and to get trains to visit there I took pains to add the Shed as part of their route. My thinking was that, each time they visit the shed, they'll drive right under the tower's spigot and tank up, right? But no, they kept themselves fully oiled yet never once stopped at the water tower.

So, space them out a bit, from each other and from the stations, if this is what's happening to you. Alternatively, you can invoke the Service Towers as a waypoint on their routing, to force them to go there whether they need water or not, but this is cumbersome. It's a skill you'll need, though, to maintain minimum train speeds in some scenarios, as you place all service facilities on spurs away from the mainline and rely on manual routing to take a "light" engine to get tanked up and oiled, so that when it has paying passengers it can proceed unhindered. Click the "+" button under the train route and you'll get a list of all available stops, including stations and service facilities.

[EPH]

I believe the minimum spacing between maintenance and water towers should be 5 but can't remember where I learned that.

'Track must be connected' usually is intended to require you to build out from a starting point. What you don't see are the trains carrying rails, ballast, ties and work crews out to the railhead. You can't start in more than one place because there is no way to get the track-laying stuff out there except by railroad. For game purposes it requires the player to focus on planning and orderly growth instead of scattering a dozen 'two town' railroads around the map.

For routing, I usually set up two trains on a line of three to five smaller towns (say Chicago-Peoria-Springfield-St Louis-Springfield-Peoria; the warp-around takes the train from Peoria to Chicago) and four or more between big cities (Chicago-St Louis). If passenger traffic is profitable (or important to a victory) I set up dedicated express trains and use a 'Looks sharp' or 'Ultra Cool' engine. I'd solve your corn problem by using a corn-only train set to stay until it loads three or four cars of corn. Your dedicated train will load up the corn as it comes in and not leave any for the other trains.

Click on a station in the routing. Then hold down the Shift key and click on the map on the station you want to add and it will be placed ABOVE the highlighted station. Water and oil sheds can be added by CTRL-Shift.

[undertoad]

Wow! Thank you Hawk for the welcome, and to all for excellent advice.

EPH: I believe the minimum spacing between maintenance and water towers should be 5 but can't remember where I learned that.

One difficulty I've had is confusion about the land resolution i.e. grid. As advised by Hawk I'm now turning Grid on (pressing G) to lay track. Are these grid squares the basic "lowest unit of resolution" on the map - is it 5 of these you mean as a minimum spacing? And does this grid apply to the "cargo cars" supply symbols? I'm having difficulty getting a good handle on exactly where supply is.

EPH: I'd solve your corn problem by using a corn-only train set to stay until it loads three or four cars of corn.

Ahh, right, must try that. I'm reluctant to stop trains moving (e.g. by increasing "minimum cars") at the start. I guess, using a "corn-only" train, it would grab all the corn as it appears, stopping other trains from taking it? So it would make sense to make the station a spur to avoid holding up other trains.
I think I need a better understanding of how time passes and how fast trains travel to hold trains like this. Experience, I guess. I know my N.American geography knowledge is not great (RT3 is improving that!), but Kingston Ontario to Boston MA doesn't take 3 months by train IRL, even in 1860! RT3 stretches time and space scales for gameplay, and I need to get used to that.

I don't suppose there's an "and back" option in train routing? I mean so you can set up a route X-Y-Z-A-B-C and then click "and then same in reverse" - i.e. go back to X stopping everywhere?

Maybe this kind of stopping schedule is a bad routing technique? I'm using it a lot thinking I'd otherwise miss possible cargoes. But it does cause weird effects, using corn as an example:

A------------------------------------------B------------------------------------------C (Cattle ranch, Weapons Fact)------------------------------------------- D
Corn @$18-------------------------------Corn @$22-------------------------------Corn @$29
-------------------------------------------+$4 A-B----------------------------------------+$7 B-C
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+$11 A-C
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Lumber @$30-----------------------------------------------------------------Lumber @$33

If I run a train A-B-C, it tends to drop all the corn at B for a $4 profit, and pick up something else to transport B-C (presumably for more than $7, otherwise it wouldn't do it?). If I own the Cattle farm, this is not what I want to happen. Seems the only way round this is to run the train direct A-C. Is this right?
The other problem is getting the corn to stay at C to make sure the Ranch is supplied. Not so much a problem with corn - but take the Lumber for the Weapons Factory at D. Other trains steal all the stockpiled Lumber at C and take it to D for a measly $3 - when if processed into weapons it would fetch much more profit. Is there any way round this problem? The only way I can think of is to know exactly what cargoes might be sitting at C, and set ALL trains stopping there to pick up appropriately (i.e. specific cargoes, but not lumber). This seems very difficult.

nedfumpkin: I generally set my train up and then forget about them.

That's exactly a question I'm unsure about. Do people tend to set up scheduled services and let them get on with it, or dive in and change their routing constantly according to fluctuating supply/demand? What happens to passengers expecting to go from A-D if I suddenly re-route their train (mid-course, say near B) to go A-B-Z (somewhere off the line) and never to D? IRL, I'd be very annoyed as a passenger if this happened!

WPandP: rely on manual routing to take a "light" engine to get tanked up and oiled

Ah! Is there a "temporary manual routing" control? Tell a train to "go to station/maintenance/service location D, but then carry on going where you were going"? I've thought of diverting trains for maintenance, but the only way I know how to do it is to insert the stop into the permanent routing and then click it to give it a green light; a "one-off diversion" would be much easier.

I think I'm approaching cargo as in Colonization, if you're familiar with that game, which has a very fine control over the Wagon Trains: go to A, load cargo X, go to B, unload specifically cargo X, load cargo Y and Z, go to C, unload cargoes Y and Z. So in that game a lot of "scheduled Wagon Trains" zipping around automatically, plus a few "floaters" under manual control to pick up anything left, is a good strategy. From reading around the forum I gather that RT2 had a similar "flags" system. I wish RT3 had that, with a "use at your own risk, may cause loss-making transport" warning if necessary!

@nedfumpkin: yep, I end up naming my stations "Boston Grain" or "Springfield Cattle" as well - but also name trains (e.g. "Providence-Hartford Mixed", "Portsmouth-Boston Express", "Corn to Manchester") so that I know what each one should be doing.

Thank you all, lots of points to think about.

[Hawk]

In the settings menu, under the Gameplay tab you have the option to Auto grid during track lay. There's also a few other options there you might like.

One thing I think you're missing in RT3 is that raw materials and finished goods travel even without your train hauling them.
If you click on the 'Overview' button (the globe-bottom right) then click on a particular cargo and find it on the map you'll most likely see it moving all by itself.
This fact comes into play when setting your trains up in that you don't have to run your train out to a corn farm. Corn will travel by itself to the station where it will get the most profit. Route your train from there.

There's not an exact 'and back' button, but you can click on the stations in the order you want, including all the 'and back' routing.

Unlike RT2, in RT3 there's no way to leave cargo on a train to go to the next station.

You can build a siding and place you service facilities on it, then use waypoints to route the trains to the siding. If you zoom in on the trains routing map you can place a waypoint by moving your mouse over the track where you want it and then 'Ctrl-click' to add a waypoint.

[edbangor]

nedfumpkin: I generally set my train up and then forget about them.

That's exactly a question I'm unsure about. Do people tend to set up scheduled services and let them get on with it, or dive in and change their routing constantly according to fluctuating supply/demand? What happens to passengers expecting to go from A-D if I suddenly re-route their train (mid-course, say near B) to go A-B-Z (somewhere off the line) and never to D? IRL, I'd be very annoyed as a passenger if this happened!

You've clearly never riden the rails in the UK then.

Seriously, I tend to do what nedfumpkin said, and once set up I just let trains run, but then I nearly always fun just local services with one - or two - trains running backwards and forwards between a station at either end, endlessly, mostly with mixed cargo. That is, unless there's a min speed requirement to the scenario in which case I set things up differently. (but then I'm rubbish at those!)

This works better than you would suspect because passengers, and cargo, will make their way down the line stopping off at the stations along the way, and then reboarding the next train, in order to get to their destination. (as in real life of course!) It's slower, naturally than doing direct services everywhere, but causes less congestion and keeps trains hauling, even at stations that have little going for them. (they will more often than not, even pay for cargo that is passing through, even though they don't actually want it). It's also a bonus for those scenarios where you have to delivier something to the end as it will start moving down the line, long before you get to build the end station.

[Hawk]

This works better than you would suspect because passengers, and cargo, will make their way down the line stopping off at the stations along the way, and then reboarding the next train, in order to get to their destination. (as in real life of course!) It's slower, naturally than doing direct services everywhere, but causes less congestion and keeps trains hauling, even at stations that have little going for them. (they will more often than not, even pay for cargo that is passing through, even though they don't actually want it). It's also a bonus for those scenarios where you have to delivier something to the end as it will start moving down the line, long before you get to build the end station.

If I'm understanding you right, what you're talking about only works with the 1.06 patch because hauling for profit was turned off in the 1.06 patch.
Prior to that, all the 'official' patches only allowed hauling cargo if there was a profit to it, in which case a train wouldn't haul cargo from station A to station B and drop it off so it could be loaded again at station B to go to station C, with the exception of passengers, troops, and I think mail.

I think I got that right.

[undertoad]

You've clearly never riden the rails in the UK then.

Oh yes I have.....

Seriously, as you can tell I'm a newbie at RT3 - but I'm still positive I could do a better job, with one hand tied behind my back, than.... oh, name any UK rail company.... Scotrail (or rather First Scotrail as it insists on being called) is my local nightmare.

Yep, I could do a better job. While drunk. Don't even get me started on the state of British railways...Any chance of kidnapping all UK rail managers and bringing them here for a "bootcamp" from Hawk et al?

[edbangor]

Yep, I could do a better job. While drunk. Don't even get me started on the state of British railways...Any chance of kidnapping all UK rail managers and bringing them here for a "bootcamp" from Hawk et al?

Just giving them the 'boot' would work just as well.

[nedfumpkin]

Something you may want to consider for hauling your cargo where you want is to install the rail yard structures. These act as holding yards for cargo, and also demands them so there is some profit, but it is offset by operating costs.

[WPandP]

To back up to your example of Corn being worth $4 profit at B but $7 profit at C, if you go ahead and pick it up at A and it gets delivered for the $4 profit, then it will be sitting there in that economic grid cell of the station at a price that is still $3 less than the value at C. This means, your train can load it right back on and take it onward to C. It will do so, as long as there isn't some higher value cargo to load. So you actually do get the full value of the haul to C, eventually.

This is how the Rail Yard structures work, in fact. They create a minor fractional demand, just enough to cause a price differential at the midpoint that you create by building them. But not as huge a price differential as exists at the ultimate destination, where there is a consuming industry or town. It's as if you're inserting B between A and C, able now to pass of loads from trains running A to B onto trains running B to C; each of those trains earns just a percentage of the revenue of the full trip from A to C, but your train routing can become more efficient, and you can assign engine classes based on terrain or other conditions. If A to B is a short run, maybe you want the best acceleration, whereas if B to C is long, you want a good top speed, for instance. And you can daisy-chain the yards, if you've really got a long way to haul something (like uranium from New Mexico all the way to Three-Mile Island reactor); loads will flow from yard to yard in the direction of greatest unit price. So if you've created a situation of A to B1 to B2 to B3 to C, where B1, B2, and B3 are each yards only, then when you get loads moved from A to B1, the price at B1 will begin to fall a bit. Then, those loads will want to move to B2, and once they get that far, the price at B2 will be depressed a bit as well. They will move on to B3, and from B3 the price at C should pull them along the last leg immediately. When B3 is emptied out, its demand will set prices rising again, which will pull more loads from B2, and so on.

However, in practice, a long string of yards can exhibit odd behavior from time to time, just because of the idiosyncracies of the economic model. So don't be surprised to see loaded coal hoppers rolling back towards the mines, for instance. One can limit such things by using custom consists or reduced/zero train length on the return journey, but why bother? The game is just paying you for shuttling carloads back and forth between holding spots...

Really, such backflow, if it persists, is evidence that you're supplying too much of a commodity. Even though the yards let you get it moving (like getting coal heading towards the steel mills), if you're providing more than the industry can consume then the stockpile that accumulates at that industry will suppress the price, possibly below the price at the yard. To fix this, you ought to build another steel mill, or else scale back your transportation of that cargo.

The Yards are part of the Trainmaster Mod, but they are also available here as a separate mod download.

[undertoad]

Rail yards sound interesting - are they part of 1.06 (apart from Trainmaster)? I'm on 1.05 for the moment, getting the hang of it. Would you recommend 1.06, or really getting to grips with a model that doesn't allow loss-making haulage first?

Having just played Germantown (Gold by 9 years before deadline - ok, it's on Easy level), all I can say is: the addictive potential is scary! I thought Civ3 was bad for gluing you to the computer... BTW, what happens at higher difficulty levels? More demanding investors, worse recessions, AI opponents have "unfair" cost advantages? (If it's anything like Civ3, the AI won't get cleverer at higher levels - just get given better deals on buying track/stations/trains/buildings).

I think I've now got the hang of forcing pickup from low-producing sites. I think you do it by setting a Custom Consist to pick up that cargo, and a Minimum of 1 (assuming your desired cargo is the first custom consist cargo). Is this right? I'm not very clear on how Custom Consists operate: I'm guessing that the leftmost cargo is highest priority, so if it's Milk and Minimum is 1, the train won't leave without a full load of Milk. Correct? Or is the Minimum just "minimum anything"? The interface looks like the former - "minimum 1 of this first cargo".

I'm still having trouble with sequential pickups of the same load, as opposed to a radial arrangement. Say X has a Meatpackers. With two Ranches a bit distant from each other, I give them each a station (A and B), and can arrange the rails either:
A-B-X (sequential)
or
A-X-B (radial)

i.e. the latter has X (the consumer) at the centre of a star. (Even if the track is sequential, I can run the train A-X-B-C to simulate a radial shape).

WIth sequential pickup (A-B-X), I'm sometimes getting the problem of a "price-sink" at B, which stops any Cattle being picked up at A; because Cattle at B has a <= price relative to A. The game isn't intelligent enough to figure out that though it's a loss to B, it's a profit A-B-X. I'm guessing the railyards you're talking about would help fix this.

That's a fascinating post in general, WPandP - it matches what I've started noticing now that I've played more. The game reacts very satisfyingly to supply and demand: if my consumer industry is starved of supplies, that's probably because it isn't using enough/had too many stocks, and things will balance out eventually. Though, since Germantown has a "total industry profits" win condition, I sometimes had to nudge the market forces a bit. It's much more complex and satisfying than Colonization. The stocks of supply at an industry station affect the price, so they tend to get taken away - very neat!

This makes great tricks possible: like undercutting an existing industry (e.g. a Textile Mill). Rather than buying it out, when I'm maxed out on bonds, I built my own along the line, and using connections and trains to steal my rival's supplies of Wool. Watching this is like an animated textbook in market forces: it's hard to get the wool at first, as the price near my mill is low. Give it a few months, and sure enough, my mill sends the price upwards in its neighbourhood - even my rival's trains start bringing me wool! Having markets for the finished product and trains available to carry it there makes it even quicker.

This game is so satisfying - I bought an isolated rail-less Steel Mill in Toledo, with Iron and Coal supply and Steel demand all planned out - built the rails, set the trains running, and that thing was bringing in $500k profit per annum before I had time to blink.

There's even the falling rate of profit to deal with...

Does anyone know how breakdowns work? They seem to often be just random - a train has plenty of Oil/WAter/Sand, but still breaks down. And the "breakdown chance" doesn't always make sense - I know it gets worse with age, but then I have some old trains that never break down.

[WPandP]

Rail Yards were not around in time to become part of 1.06, which is why they initially were developed (by me) as a standalone mod. Ned has refined them for inclusion in Trainmaster, so the ones you'll get with his uber-mod won't be the same as the initial ones I did, but they function the same way. They are compatible with 1.06, but the thing is, they are commodity-specific, and 1.06 introduced new cargoes that are not demanded by any of the yards. Ned's version of the yards are specific to the commodity set in Trainmaster.

In your scenario of trying to collect from both A and B to deliver to X, you've seen the problem which yards are meant to address. The game wants you to run A to X and B to X. By placing a yard at C, you can collect both A and B at C, then run C to X. This is more like how real railroads run... a bunch of coal mines might be on one twisting branchline, and the loads they produce are collected in a marshalling yard where that branch connects to the mainline. Slower, heavier engines deal with the steep grades and sharp curves to collect the loads, and then a speedier road crew takes over to move the collected loads to the remote destination.

As far as custom consisting goes, there isn't actually any priority in the order of the cargo that you set; the interface is misleading on this. If you set a custom consist of coal+iron+goods+produce+produce+caboose, and then set the slider to 1 load minimum, the train will depart once it has loaded any of those four cargo types. It might depart with goods+produce+iron+caboose, if that's what is available. Your consist description doesn't affect the order of the cars, and preference is given based on profit only. Note, however, that the custom consist above will prohibit loading up with more than one load of coal, for instance; this can be a way to keep diversified loads moving. A train set to all "any freight" loads might repeatedly depart with coal and iron only, never with goods or produce, simply due to relative profit. By restricting it, you are basically reserving some slots for the other loads, and so even if goods aren't as profitable as coal or iron, it'll still get loaded up on the custom consist.

I tend to add a couple "any freight" slots at the end of the train, however, so that I can still take advantage of best profits in the fluctuating economy. So, a train tasked on moving grain, for instance, might have a consist of 5 grain, 2 any-freight, and 1 caboose, with the minimum loads set to 3. With this arrangement, I'll always have at least one load of grain on board, and the 2 extra slots might be something more valuable. If I need to move more grain, I can just set the minimum higher.

[nedfumpkin]

Although the Rail Yard structures were made for 1.05, they will still work with 1.06, just that only 1.05 cargo are handled by them.

[Wolverine@MSU]

Although the Rail Yard structures were made for 1.05, they will still work with 1.06, just that only 1.05 cargo are handled by them.

True, but those handled cargoes also exist in 1.06. Are you planning any rail structures to handle cargoes unique to TrainMaster?

[nedfumpkin]

Already done. The only change I've made is the post office is now a municipal building, and the Railroad Office performs the same function as the post office used to, plus more. The old post office generates mail from goods or paper.

[Grandma Ruth]

Yep, I could do a better job. While drunk. Don't even get me started on the state of British railways...Any chance of kidnapping all UK rail managers and bringing them here for a "bootcamp" from Hawk et al?

Just giving them the 'boot' would work just as well.

Come back British Rail, all is forgiven!

[undertoad]

Come back British Rail, all is forgiven!

Seriously.... (and a friendly pre-warning - don't die of laughter or spill your drink!) I think going back to something like that would be way better than what we have now.

I was a big fan of Alan Ford's columns in Modern Railways, where he accurately dissected some of the crazy things that were wrong with British Rail. With that kind of critical, constructive attitude (and that of Christian Wolmar, who occasionally gets a column in the papers) there was so much that could have been done to improve British Rail. Instead we got this nonsensical franchise system, economically indefensible, ripe for exploitation and abuse, and wasting more public subsidy money than BR ever did!

Another victim of the "public = bad, private = good" mantra...

(sinister white-cat-stroking evil plan: by the time the railways are unified again, I'll have beaten all the RT3 campaigns on Expert, and they'll make ME the boss. MWUHAHAHAHA....)