For games requiring speed minimums

[Shamough]

Just had a brain f...

For games that have minimum speed requirements ... (.semag ediskcab eht ni niap ehT)

The following will allow your trains to only use the services they need when they need them. This will reduce the overall spur service turn around times. (Note: Some long routes may require an in-line Service Tower or two Either use them or buy new engines because of all of the break downs. It takes less time to use a Service Tower than repair your engine.)

Used a service spur with a Service Tower, and Maintainance Facility with 2-4 tractc extra at the end of the spur.

Buy and Engine ... well select the buy option: Then when assigning a route:
Pickup Station
Delivery Station
Hold the CTRL key and slide it to the end if the Delivery City's service spur and mark a WAYPOINT.
Back to the "Delivery Station" and it now becomes a
Pickup Station
Delivery Station
Hold the CTRL key and slide it to the end if the Delivery City's service spur and mark a WAYPOINT.
Back to the "Delivery Station" and it now becomes the first Pickup Station
(For only 2 stations the loop is set.)

--------------------------
A
B
B's WAYPOINT
B
A
A's WAYPOINT

-------------------
Consist management:

ZERO all ...
Pickup Station consist construction
Delivery Station - pick up nothing
(Consist setup will skip the WAYPOINT)
Delivery now becomes a
Pickup Station consist construction
Delivery Station - pick up nothing
(Consist setup will skip the WAYPOINT)

For 2 stations you consists should look like:
Pickup Station Consist
Delivery Station consist = 0
Delivery/Pickup Station Consist
Original Pickup Station consist = 0


For LONG hauls use the service spurs in the middle by assigning waypoints at the end of them. Time consuming but the GOLD can be had.

And lastly ... in heavly congested sections use DOUBLE TRACKS.

----------------------------
Also you NEVER want to park a train and WAIT for it to fill for it to fill! Get what's there and get moving! (You can wait for a single load as you are not being timed until you actually have a load connected to your train.)


Hans

[Gumboots]

Yes you can do it that way, but I prefer not to. I'd rather over-service the locos than under-service them. It makes for better reliability. If you do it your way and the oil is 51% the loco will skip the maintenance shed. That means by the time it gets to the next one it will be burning itself up*. Same for water. Your way runs the risk of running out of water on a run because the loco skipped the tower. It doesn't matter how much time the loco spends on the spur as it's not hauling any load there, so doesn't affect your speed goal.

*Loco reliability is badly affected long before they actually run out of oil.

[Shamough]

It doesn't matter how much time the loco spends on the spur as it's not hauling any load there, so doesn't affect your speed goal.

Actually on LONG hauls with multiple service spur stops your load is still connected to the train during service.

Note: I just added in all of the long haul delivery and pickups for my current Blue Streak game ... NOW I need to edit 40 trains and add more MAINTAINANCE Facilities stops. I miscalculated how far the trains could go before needing OIL.

Hans

[Gumboots]

Sure, but long haul trains are a special case. If you're running enough of them to adversely affect your speed goals it's probably time to re-think your roster. The comments about reliability and water still apply to long haul trains anyway.

[RulerofRails]

Hans, my routing looks very similar to your basic outline except: I don't use the waypoints (too finicky for me, see what I do below), and there is no need to set consist=0 before making the service run, no matter the consist, the game will not load cars for this run.

My simple method to determine the stops is to watch the first train on the route. After it has run the route in one direction I take note of how much, oil, sand and water has been used. Using steam as the example, if water is above 50%, it is possible to make the return trip, and I don't need service at both ends of the route. For the long hauls see my preferred options below. An interesting strategy idea may be to make building service facilities expensive, thus forcing the player to plan and make the best possible use of them.

Personally, I don't really see the benefit of using waypoints on short haul traffic. When using steamers I find that only a short route can take two complete round-trips before needing water. Why have the train make an empty run to the service facilities to check if it needs them, when a little deduction can reliably predict this? For long-haul I can see the benefits of forcing a train onto a service spur. But in my mind this is not the ideal solution when trying to attain a high average speed (I see service spurs as high traffic areas full of jams even with double tracks). I prefer to try to set up a bypass line around a town that local traffic wont select by default (make it a little longer or less direct for all other traffic) or, better still, make a dedicated, separate line. Either way simply use in-line service facilities. If service is on a bypass line, it is harder to optimize the intervals of service. On a dedicated line it is really simple, watch the first train until it is about to run out of water then plonk down service facilities.

Another thing: You guys might nail this every time, but more than once when I have tried to use service spurs I put one of the facilities too close to the junction of the spur with the main track. Normally this is the Maintenance shed and I have the trains set to only stop there if they need it (oil below 60%) as they pass it on the way to a forced stop at the Water/Sand tower. After some years of operation I check back on these trains only to find they are running without oil. Not good. All that re-routing is so tedious (duplicating everything and forcing a Maintenance shed stop on the second pass), I will sometimes start over when I realize this is happening.

[Gumboots]

Yeah I just set all trains to all stops I want them to have, including service towers and maintenance sheds. I've enough experience that I can generally predict where stops at sheds and towers will be required, and as mentioned before I prefer to slightly over-service rather than under-service since this gives better reliability (which equates to speed in practice).

[RayofSunshine]

Some very interesting comments and suggestions. What I had done in the past, was to have spurs at the depots on the basis of point A to point B. that was simple for short haul. On long hauls I find that less time is used by using "side tracks". The trains usually do not have to battle with the short hauls at depots. Of course for the short hauls, a player could use the "secondary icon". But then that could jepordize that train, which might have a higher revenue consist, meeting a lesser revenue consist. It all depends on what a player wants to use in his idea against reality.