Hauling the same cargo from A to C with a stop in B

[basvdriel]

Hello everyone,

Recently I worked out a strategy for myself. It's that your company has only two types of trains, one for the cargo and one for the express. The cargo trains may *only* transport cargo and the express trains may *only* transport express goods plus a dining car plus priority over the cargo trains. This worked out very well, as my average speed went from 30 mph to 60 mph! This works very efficient, but I'm dealing with one problem.

Let's say I want to run a train from Chicago to Seattle (an express train, called the ''Empire Builder''). Now there isn't demand for a full non-stop run for that, of course, so I add a number of stations on the way, like Spokane, Shelby, Havre and Minneapolis. But what happens next is very unprofitable and unrealistic. For example, between Chicago and Minneapolis is a lot of demand and the train is 7 cars plus 1 dining car long. But when it arrives in Minneapolis, it unloads completely and there is barely any traffic that wants to travel to Havre, MT, just 3 cars plus 1 dc.

What I want is what happens in real life: the train is the entire journey from Chicago to Seattle as full as possible, there are passengers in it that want to travel the full run from Chicago to Seattle, but also passengers that only do a part of the journey, like from Spokane to Seattle. I know that this is was possible RRT2, but apparantly not in RRT3, or is it? Hope you guys understand this problem, and maybe you have a tip or a solution.

Bas

[Hawk]

Set your train up so that the minimum loads it will haul is the maximum. Of course, then you'll find the train sitting at some stations waiting for a full load.
Other than that, there's no controlling loads.

[Blackhawk]

If you are focusing on passengers you may want to build some hotels/taverns/restaurants. There's a theory that hotels actually increase passenger production as well.

As for the specific question you ask. Passengers have a specific destination in mind and will take your trains in a way to get there and either they'll get there or they'll give up. So if you get to a stop with a full train and wanted to go to the next stop with a full train you may be out of luck if those passengers on your train wanted to stop at that town. You may want to take a look at the manual for the explanation on this. Chapter 10 Cargoes Subtopic - Express page 69. http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam ... 1400364473

[RulerofRails]

I'm not sure about the tavern and restaurant, but from this thread (viewtopic.php?f=68&t=1984&p=19128&hilit ... ers#p19054) we know that Hotels demand and produce 2 passengers per year. That post also has the passenger supply/demand info for municipal buildings like the Stadium and Museum.

The info Blackhawk linked to from the manual is very useful in understanding passenger movements. Unfortunately there is no explanation of how the passenger's destination is determined when they appear on the map. From what I have seen, I suspect that the destination is determined with some sort of distance-based probability divided among the cities on the map. What I mean by this, is that closer cities have a much higher probability as a potential passenger destination than those further away. (Keep in mind that in the cargo view overlay there are always some hidden passengers that lack a route to their destination.) Building more Hotels or even warehouses supplying and demanding passengers (these are available in the 1.06 patch) will increase the total pool of passengers on the map. I still think the odds are going to be that they don't want to travel very far. Nonetheless, you will see an increase and that is the best I think you can do.

I can see what you mean that RTII allowed long non-stop express routes. Unfortunately, the power it gave the player over the passenger's destination made the most economical gameplay style also very unrealistic with routes that were far too long and little to no short-haul express, else the demand for the long-haul trains would be destroyed. My

PS. If you like to achieve high average speeds, you could trying using maintenance spurs. An example is here: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=3112&p=30366&hilit= ... urs#p30366. This requires a bit of routing work to set up, but holding the Control key will enable selection of Maintenance Sheds and Sanding Towers with the cursor on the train routing map. It can also be used in combination with Shift to place that facility above the currently selected station. I often use spurs in long scenarios where I don't have track laying limits.

[Hawk]

It can also be used in combination with Shift to place that facility above the currently selected station. I often use spurs in long scenarios where I don't have track laying limits.

Are you saying that if you shift+click a maintenance facility over a station, the train will fill up there, and you can do this as opposed to building a spur?

[RulerofRails]

Are you saying that if you shift+click a maintenance facility over a station, the train will fill up there, and you can do this as opposed to building a spur?

No. When selecting a maintenance facility (Ctrl needs to be pressed to do this), note the message that is displayed in the help/info area at the bottom of the screen:

This is useful for fixing or editing longer routes instead of re-doing the whole thing from scratch. In this screenshot I added the Poughskeepie Service Tower as trains were running out of water just before reaching New York. I made a small siding for the Poughskeepie Service Tower to prevent local traffic from accessing it.

Also, if using a spur like I did that involves a track junction, make sure you place the closest service station a step back from the junction or the trains may miss it unless you manually add both stops to the train's roster. I normally add the Service Tower at the end and let the train decide if it needs oil. This stuff can be a lot of fun to tinker with. Makes any scenario with speed goals attainable.

[Hawk]

Ah! OK! I knew about that. I thought you found something heretofore unknown, at least to me.

[RulerofRails]

Hawk, I was trying to write in an instructional way. I doubt there are many secrets in the user interface that haven't been discovered yet. Myself, I didn't bother to use the benefits of either the Ctrl+ Shift+ or Ctrl+Shift+ until I started making the complex routes needed with spurs.

[basvdriel]

Okay, but that's not my question. My average speed is fine, just the passenger hauling is problematic.

So basically there's no option to not unload all passengers at all stations on the way to the ultimate destination? The only way is to build a hotel to ''produce'' passengers? Then my ''Empire Builder'' trains in the map ''Great Northern'' are not gonna work out I guess...

Do you guys have any other advice on making a long haul express route profitable? Thanks
Bas

[Blackhawk]

The only way to haul passengers from A to C and make sure all those carloads are hauled to C is to have a direct non-stop route. It could very well be that some of the passengers on that train want to go to B so if you stop at B they get off there. If you don't stop at B, maybe going to C is their only way to get to B. (Assuming you have another train that goes from C to B or something similar.) So one reason some of the passengers may want to go to C is that it may get them to B somehow and not that they necessarily want to visit C.

[Hawk]

To add to what BH said: If you have a train that goes from A to C and no train from C to B, passengers wanting to go to B won't get on the train at all. They'll just stay home.
Course I guess that goes without saying.

[RulerofRails]

You could use the sandbox.

Thinking about this some more, one of the differences between RTII and RT3 was that you could have empty cars on the train. From my experience passengers in RTII would never stay on a train no matter how the flag was set. Only whatever passengers were in that town would be loaded and the rest of the train would run empty. I never observed passengers staying on a train. (ETA: don't want to deny that it was much easier to control the passengers as they had no particular destination in mind.)

I totally agree to run a direct route. I would set the train to wait-to-fill minimum 3 cars. It doesn't seem that much, but remember that each car on the train represents more in real life. The named express are legendary, but I doubt that they were that much of the total passenger traffic.

[basvdriel]

Running a direct route is indeed profitable, but not in all cases.
Let's say I'm running an express train from a city with 5 stars to a city with 1 star to a city with 5 stars. This won't work because there aren't enough passengers to and from the city with 1 star.
Now I'm going to run a direct express train: from the city with 5 stars, passing the city with 1 star and ending in the city with 5 stars. This does work.

But here's my problem. There might be big cities my trains will travel between, but the map is so huge that at some point there is no passenger demand anymore, as the further you go.
Now I can let my train stop in all the small towns inbetween, but there isn't enough passenger demand between all of those small towns.
The sandbox isn't fun by the way, because there's no challenge anymore.
It all comes down to the same question...

Bas

[RulerofRails]

I just played the original campaign to unite Germany. While playing I remembered something: the hub and spoke method is the best way to collect passengers at one point for a long distance haul. Towards the end of this play I was starting an 8 car train full of express from each new station going to the area of highest demand (one of my hub cities if it was within 3 or 4 cities) then after it loaded I would add a dining car and caboose to the Crampton. This would give 300-350k for each new connection I made.

I built a Hotel in all my hub towns (5 or 6 by the end). My biggest one (Hannover) was processing 100 loads of passengers per year giving a profit of 200k per year. Of course, Germany has more towns than Great Northern so more express is available. If I get a little time, I might try to set up some long distance passenger routes on the Great Northern map and see if I can get them working consistently. All I would be doing is building some Hotels, and making sure the first 5 or 6 cities on the route have a direct regular connection to the hub on either end. Also I will build spoke connections to any nearby towns at the ends of the route. I rarely focus on passengers on a map. To really get them going requires some effort, but it can be fun. You are playing the Great Northern map, right? I didn't remember seeing Chicago on that map, so my eastern hub will be a large station covering as much of Minneapolis and St. Paul as possible. Western will be Seattle.

ETA, I got time to try this. I tried to roughly recreate the Great Northern route. I managed to get passenger trains running profitably between Seattle and Minneapolis. I bought a few trains specifically for passengers and then re-purposed Cotton and Coffee trains once they arrived. Not long after I started doing this, I fulfilled the gold conditions, but chose to play on. Then I noticed that after receiving the medal I no longer got any track allocations. This and the fact that Consolidations get slow on the grades after 1900, made me lose interest. I wasn't too keen on going electric with the 2-D-2 in 1904. It is a long wait for the H-10 and I know that with any of the steamers after 1900 it will be difficult to pull a profit on the passenger run from Minneapolis to Seattle.

[Shamough]

You don't want the trains to UNLOAD and try to RELOAD.

Use the stations as WAYPOINTS if there are 2 or more direct routes.

If there are not 2 or more direct routes just select the 2 end points and use in line servicing or if you are using spurs for your servicing them use one or more parallel tracks (NOT DBL tracks unless you are only using dbl tracks) with your service and maintainance and a way point in between them.

Hans

[RayofSunshine]

All I can say is that Tycoon is a lot of fun. There are so many different options which a player can use, that it almost because a problem to decide on which one is the best option.

[RulerofRails]

There are so many different options which a player can use, that it almost because a problem to decide on which one is the best option.

While this may be somewhat , but I agree 100% with you. Often I have a problem deciding which way to do things. Without trying everything it is difficult to know what is really best, and there are 1,000s of possible strategy choices in most games. I try to single out a handful of the ones that seem more important, but still it's hard to know how to implement them for maximum effect.

[Cash on Wheels]

Does it work like this? 5 passengers from City A to Town C = 5 passenger loads

This train has a stop in Village B which it will pick up 2 more loads of passengers also bound for Town C. Now= 7 passenger loads to Town C

[Cash on Wheels]

Or 4Lds A--> C and 1ld A-->B = 5 pass loads.

When it arrives in B it drops off the one load and the pick up another pass load bound for C.

There are .2 passenger loads per destination

[RulerofRails]

Cash on Wheels, I fail to see what you are saying with your comments after what has been said in the rest of this thread. At the risk of repeating much of it, the RT3 game doesn't understand mid-route stops it only puts passengers on a train on a direct route between two cities (A->B). Any further haul is a "separate" journey according to the game no matter how many stops are on a train's route and whether those stops form part of a particular routing pattern. There is passenger traffic over the longer distances, but the game does it's passenger traffic management behind the scenes so there is no way for us to track any particular load and how long it takes in a stop-over town before passengers are ready to continue on their trip. We can only provide good service which helps the game do it's allocation process better. Also, building Hotels seems to influence travelers to be more likely to travel again sooner.

There are .2 passenger loads per destination

What do you mean?