Service Station on Spurs

[JoeExplorer]

I've been considering using this method then thought to myself why?

If I put a Service stop on a spur and route my trains to it, isn't that the same as putting the Service stop on the mainline if all my trains get routed to the spur for Service?

[Blackhawk]

If you route everything to the spur all the time then it probably is just like being on the mainline.

But if you can make it between city A and city B two or three times before you actually need to stop for maintenance (being empty on sand/oil) then it would have a little bit of an improvement on your railroad congestion/speed. You could tell the train to go to A, B, A, B, A, maintenance, B. While being worked on it'll be off the mainline so it won't cause any other trains to slow down.

The biggest use for spurs are in scenarios with a speed goal. In these instances you'd put a spur after your stations and then go schedule maintenance with nothing on the train so then the train won't have any effect on your average hauling speeds. It would be something like A, B, A to unload, spur, A to load, B.

[brunom]

Following on Wolverine's comments, there is another advantage to spurs, with higher effect on passenger trains.

With spurs, trains tend to have higher average speeds, resulting from the fact that they never stop between two stations (unless broken, obviously). Because of this, train trips between cities are shorter, and if you have a passenger train with a dinner carriage, and watch it during a whole trip, you will notice how much money gets thrown overboard if they stop for water/sand/oil too often in a trip.

Nowadays, I almost always spur the maintenance sheds, and create passenger trains with priority (normally, in a A -> B -> C -> Maintenance -> C -> B -> A fashion) along with multiple cargo trains. Cargo trains will run fewer times, will be based on slow and powerful locos, and will always give way to the constant back and forth of the passenger traffic.

This works for me.

On a side note, I always place my water towers on the top of hills - this way, the composition will always accelerate well, getting back to regular speed on the way down...

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[JoeExplorer]

Thanks for the input. I know this was asked before, but right now I'm too lazy to look for it. How do you know how far a train will go before it needs water/oil?

What sort of method do you use to set up your spurs? Distance wise?

[nedfumpkin]

I always put my service towers on the spur before the maintenance shed. That way they will fill up with whatever is necessary.

Knowing how longto make your routes and the plaement of spurs should usually be taken into consideration by thr scenario designer, but for the player it comes down to design, and figuring out the best design based on observation. It also depends on how you schedule your trains. Do you want A-B-A-B-A-spur or A-B-C-B-A-spur? part of the fun of the game.

[brunom]

I always set up my spurs close to the main stations, those where most of the trains go to. Basically I try to use as little maintenance sheds as possible, since they cost money to build and to keep.

As for water towers, they need to be more common in a network - steam trains won't speed up without water and no train will climb a mountain with good speed unless it has sand. Letting trains run out on any of these will slow them down a lot, sometimes below the "profit" rate, while running out on oil only has an effect longterm, on their reliability.

Just for fun, I took some screen grabs of "my type" of spurs. I place maintenance sheds in two ways.

1. Right after an "end-station", which works best since the locomotives on maintenance schedule will never be in the way of arrivals/departures.

2. When the main stations end up being a "pass-station" (lines going in both directions), I lay a real spur, preferably on the side where there are less arrivals/departures, so it affects traffic the least.

Just sharing..
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[JoeExplorer]

Thanks brunom: Now we're getting somewhere. I wish more people would post screenshots.

[brunom]

Glad to be of service ;)

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[JoeExplorer]

Is this a good example of spurs?

[Blackhawk]

I don't typically use spurs but an example of a spur I used in my TM map can be seen on this thread: http://www.hawkdawg.com/forums/viewtopi ... =15#p22644

As for your spurs that you have used, you may want to locate them closer to your stations. And I generally tend to follow the way Ned described in putting a service tower before the shed, and then scheduling only a stop at the shed and if anything is needed at the tower, it'll stop on its own. I suppose the reverse idea works as well.

[RayofSunshine]

You are gettng the idea of a "spur" maintainence. As Blackhawk indicates, such a spur should be as close as possible to the depot. Also, because you may have a number of trains going "thru" the station, or even unloading, to use the spur, I will "double track" a few cells prior to the depot, also beyond the spur, as well as into the spur itself. The reason is to gilve access in-and-out of the spur, as it is competing with the freight, the consists of which will be hanging outside onto the mainline. In the cases of only the "express" is the speed factor, I would toggle the freight with a "yellow" triangle, indicating a secondary unit. OR, the express could be "prioritized".
Now, if both the express and freight are a speed factor, it would only be necessary to just use a single access into the spur, rather than having the "Y" system. Especially if there is a track limitation.
A player just has to experiment, and have the fun of watching your system work.