Southeast Australia

[Hawk]

The following text is a compilation of what was salvaged from the old Gathering Forum. It contains postings from several different people.
Thanks goes out to Wolverine for putting this all together.

Hawk

Southeast Australia
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I just got gold on normal on South East Australia. Used diesels, mostly GP7, started adding & upgrading to Deltics in the year I won (65 I think it was). Diesels seems the way to go, not much passenger traffic compared to USA and Europe, the profit is in freight.
I didn't buy any industries at all, because of the high hauling requirement I wanted the trains to start running ASAP. Started in Newcastle, worked from there inland and down the coast to Sydney. I did run only two trains until I at last managed to connect to Orange. This took maybe five years, but once that connection was finished the money started rolling in.
Did anyone choose steam on this map and what was your impression?
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Curious, I went back and ran this scenario using steam engines. At the end of the first year I got a message asking if I wanted to spend money on an advertising campaign designed to attract passengers. At the time I had other uses for the money so I passed it up. Haven't a clue where this would have led to.
I started by buying a textile factory in Orange and then running tracks to a nearby town in the middle of a bunch of wool ranches. This was a nice combination which enabled me to make money and haul wool from the very beginning. Later, I expanded down to Sydney and along the coast.
I tried using Big Boys to haul wool nonstop Orange-Sydney and general cargo back. This didn't work because maintaining these engines was so expensive I lost money on these runs. Got rid of the BB's and substituted Kriegloks. This worked much better, and I finally won gold in 1971.
I might try this again using diesels and see what the differences are.
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I can not haul 500 loads of wool.
If I try to haul mostly wool, I am cash strapped.
If I set up cash runs, I run outta time to haul all the wool I need.
Any ideas would be appreciated, thanks.
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Try and expand cash runs in the areas where there is wool. That way, you can generate a baseline for cash, and have tracks laid where the wool is coming from.
A good strategy is to then slowly increase your wool cargo. As well, try and find multiple stops where you can haul wool several times among cities, ie haul from some farms to city #1, then from city #1 to city #2 and then city #3. That way, you can get credit for hauling the same load of wool 3 times.
But keep expanding some cash lines at the same time. I forget how many years you have, but if you have 20 years to haul 500 loads, you have to haul 25 loads a year. If you spend the first 10 years building a cash baseline, then you have to haul 50 loads a year, but it may be easier since you can buy more trains and build more tracks. Use this method of figuring how how many years/loads left you have to monitor your progress... if 15 years have passed and you still have 350 loads left, it may be too late.
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Kill two or three birds with one stone!
Buy or build a textile mill not too far from a wool producing area. Then connect the two by rail. Before long you are hauling wool and making money at the same time. You are also increasing CBV - another goal.
Keep this up and, before long, you'll be the the Austrailian Wool King and a railroad tycoon to boot.
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Not to mention that textile mills are the second cheapest major industry to build next to paper mills, so they're not hard to get started.
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I usually start this one with a textile mill at the river fork on the right hand side of the map. Up in the corner, there is usually a warehouse or 2 that demands wool. Once things get rolling, I can usually make money connecting right to left and hauling wool to the new textile mills that spring up.
By the time my line connects to my lumber mill in Brisbane (i think) the haulage is almost guaranteed
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Thanks for the advice, textile mills work great.
I bought the one in the upper corner, then 4 more and upgraded them.
All I hauled was wool, no town connections.
In this scenario, textile mills are a great source of cash.

[canis39]

I just got Silver on Medium. This was a really fun scenario. I started up in the corner at Coongoola. I connected from there down to Orange in the middle of the map, and from there to Sydney, and started hauling wool to Sydney. I eventually connected to Brisbane, and then finally connected Brisbane to Sydney via a coastal line. Wool eventually got pretty tough to haul at much of a profit, but I had enough profitable trains and industries that I was able to dedicate a couple trains to nothing but low-income wool runs.

This scenario had a nice balance between running a profitable railroad and meeting the haul requirements.

Does anyone know who created this scenario?

[Rowan]

The Geography's reasonably accurate too!

[Gumboots]

Aussie Aussie Aussie! Oi! Oi! Oi!

Just been playing this one again for fun, and for testing some stuff. The geography is sorta accurate, if the Great Dividing Range was like the Himalayas. By Himalaya standards it's really more like a collection of molehills. That's what you get for being an ancient continent with no active plate boundaries.

Question: why did some Septic call a town Port Macquaire? It's Port Macquarie, ya wrong-side-driving galahs. I must fix that sometime.

Also, it's a bit of a pity that the main freight locomotive ends up being the Chinese Class QJ. Nothing wrong with it in terms of performance (it's actually rather good) but there is no way that Australia would have been buying locomotives from Chairman Mao in the 50's and 60's. I'm pretty sure that no war reparations German locos were ever imported either. It would be nice to revamp the scenario with a more repesentative range of steam.

From the OP:

because of the high hauling requirement I wanted the trains to start running ASAP

Not necessary. You can start running trains in 1960 and still get 500 loads of wool by 1975 without trying too hard. That means you can spend a decade building a really solid industry base first.

At the end of the first year I got a message asking if I wanted to spend money on an advertising campaign designed to attract passengers. At the time I had other uses for the money so I passed it up. Haven't a clue where this would have led to.

Tried that once. It's worth doing just for a laugh, but I wont tell you what happens.

Anyway, being biased as anything I really like this one. I'm currently thinking I might shoot for 100 million CBV and 25 Million PNW. I am pretty sure it is possible to do this, because I've managed 91/22 with some mistakes. Of course, this is a totally loony thing to do, but that's RRT3 for ya.

[Gumboots]

Ok this is something I haven't seen before. Was messing around with the south east Australia scenario again, and the station for the Gold Coast was right on the water's edge. Had a steel mill just inland of it and was wondering why the thing wasn't working even though iron and coal were being shipped to the station.

Turns out that in cargo view (the red, yellow and green map) the railway line along the front of the station was actually out of the yellow and in the ocean, even though when the track was laid it was obviously on dry land (wouldn't lay otherwise). The result was that iron and coal would get dropped off at the station, and then start merrily floating up the coast to the dock at Brisbane. That dock wasn't set to give up coal and iron though, so the result was a pack of little black railroad cars loaded with iron bobbing around in Moreton Bay like ducks on a pond.

***?

So that's a trap I hadn't come across before. Be aware of that one.

And before anyone asks, no the floating iron wasn't coming up the coast from another dock somewhere. It was delivered from Warwick by train.

[Gumboots]

Just had another go at a slightly modified version of this map.

As well as some other minor changes, I added in WP & P's wonderful steam engine pack. This gave a better range of steam engines, including the option to buy a decent express loco right up until the end of the game (Class 25).

Being restricted to a pre-war German Class 01 or a Mallard in 1970 just didn't make any sense. These were never imported to Australia, they're too lacking in grunt to handle post-1950 car sizes, and the Mallard would have been too unreliable for this country anyway. It's a long way to the shop if you want a sausage roll. Things neeed to work.

Australia did have a variety of interesting engines, including the AD-60 (a 260 ton, 108 foot long Garrett for heavy freight), and the Class 38 express (ran regular 70mph station to station schedules) so I didn't feel too guilty about using the NW engines on this map. They may not be strictly accurate, but they're more in keeping with the spirit of things than the Chinese QJ.

They also haul a lot more wool really fast.

[kingecbert]

yeah, this scenario is very funny.

i put dedicated trains ans rails in the northwest, built some textile mills and micromanaged some trains and routes according to where the wool was more abundant.

Textile mills are the best industry here(of course). generates good profits and keep the wool price high, so that your trains can run profitable. I used Diesel Locomotives.
NOte that other industries are great too, paper mill and plastic factory for example. I don't like when you are not allowed to issue bonds, but in this case, your PNW must be at least 5 mil, not 20 mil, so that's ok.

i got gold with 6 years to spare.

[TheBonobo4]

Having difficulty with this one. Tried it on Expert, ran nothing but Industry until about 1960, then started running trains (using Steam). They started out fairly profitable but late game Wool barely made money hauling, (so I had to use specialised Wool only trains that made barely any profit and actually cost me money at times due to Fuel and Maintenance), and even with the extra Passenger "bonus" there weren't many passengers. So late game I was barely making cash, and I think I had a Recession (or even a Depression), so I got Silver since I managed about 600 Wool loads but only about $2M Net Worth at Game end (my highest was about $3M).

Not being able to Issue Stock, Buy Back Stock, or take out Bonds really hurts. It is possible to get very profitable Textile Mills (and breweries) but an actual profitable Railroad seems impossible. That or I'm missing something.

And finally, I now realise Diesels would be better than Steam, since the "bonus" requires a $50k a year payment, but I can't tell if that's a bug, and even if you keep saying Yes there aren't that many passengers (I had lines from Coongoola to Bathurst, with stations along the way in Orange, St George, and other places I can't remember the names of).

[Gumboots]

The only way you'll make real money hauling wool is if you haul it directly to the coast. It's normal for most of your wool haulage on this map to generate very little profit. You have to make money in other ways.

Express is only a small sideline. Industry gives your company a good base. Try to pick an industry option that will give you about $400k profit, or more, in the first year.

You'll also need to buy stock early and heavily. You need to figure out how to buy on margin, without sinking yourself or the company.

[TheBonobo4]

You need to figure out how to buy on margin, without sinking yourself or the company.

The amount of times I've gone into negative Purchasing power because of too aggressive Stock on margin buying.

And yeah it seems easy enough to make money, even on Expert, from Textile Mills and Breweries. Having no AI helps as well. And I did think you'd have to haul to the coasts, although what happened with me was I had Textile Mills everywhere making a lot of money, but eventually Wool prices rose to an equilibrium, such that hauling from say, Orange, to Sydney would itself generate little profit.

This is one of those scenarios that I'll have to seriously think through. Generally I don't do well on PNW scenarios, though $5m is low. I can't tell if it's an easy scenario and I'm just failing, or if it's genuinely hard? It seems weird though that Australia's economy would be weak, even in 1950. You'd think Passengers would want a Rail service, and making money from freight would be easy?

And is there any advantage to Steam? Diesel seems like it'd be better in almost every way.

[Gumboots]

There's also good money in logging camps. The ones up near Warwick are classic opening move for this map. If there isn't a lumber mill there already you will have heaps of free logs sitting around. Build your own lumber mill and paper mill right on top of the camps. Dairy farms can be good too, if you by them early when they're cheap. Also keep an eye out for inland bauxite mines. If there are enough of them seeded to run a mill you can do very nicely out of the whole mines/mill/tool and die chain.

Diesel should be easier than steam, but I always just play steam anyway. I like steam trains.

[TheBonobo4]

I too like Steam, but it just seems unnecessary when there aren't enough Passengers.

[low_grade]

Seems to be a major bug with the Steam events that should increase passenger production by 35%, but I can't figure out what the bug is. I paid out the $150k and $100k for marketing, but Company Variable 1 remains at 0, so no chance of the passenger production increase event triggering... So I cleared the conditions and forced the event to trigger. Also right in the event debugger there's a flag about one of the diesel events...

[RulerofRails]

If you stay with one company, the Steam events are setup correctly. But they do have a "tricky" element. If you don't meet the subsequent demands for cash the whole thing is called off: you need to choose to make the 3 payments; 150k, 100k, then a re-occuring* 50k per year. There is no notice of this, but you only need to pay this until you get the notice that Pax Production is increased. The application of the +35% Pax Production is randomized. There's a 60% chance it will fire per check (end of year). First possible check is end of 1952. You need to pay the 50k value for at least two years and possibly three. Total cost is likely 350 or 400k.

You are correct about the Diesel event (Dinojuice) having the wrong frequency as indicated in the Event Validation page. Sure, it's interesting to read the events, but the more serious game bug that prevents an event from actually (the game pretends) adjusting fuel economy rating (no way to adjust fuel cost by a percentage) that even if you activate the event there's no reward on offer.

*Edit: Corrections because I failed to notice that the 50k bill isn't a one-time check.

[low_grade]

Yeah that's why I definitely didn't go diesel, plus in my first attempt there was NO oil so the goal to haul 20 loads was impossible. I guess that was just a bad seed of the ports?

And ah, my bad. Didn't check the effects of choice 2 for the "Steam pest" event, yeah, I needed to pay that one, too. I am actually getting a decent number of passengers on a fairly small network at this point (1961) so I don't what the above comments are about. If they'd known at the time that the fuel events didn't work maybe they wouldn't have stuck to diesel. Well, plus I get to use the DB BR 01.5, a great little engine (I wonder how much it weighs?), but I resisted the N&W Class J's ridiculous performance figures (that's really an engine to enjoy, not employ as a strategy, it's just unfair.)

Rest of the game will be easy, industry start buying a Brewery that made 320k the previous year for 1.3M, then a textile mill that popped up in wool country for $750k, upgraded those, then built an Aluminum Mill to take advantage of the cheap Bauxite right on a stack near Dubbo (where my Brewery was) with an existing unsupplied T&D in Orange. Ah, the rest is easy. Got great income and in a Depression so building the network now, always fun. Some challenging terrain mixed in here.

Currently 77.2 wool sitting on top of my two upgraded Textile Mills in Bourke, lol. Connections to all the other towns with textile mills to meet the haulage requirements. Should come by 1970 at the latest I'd guess, without too much more attention. All auto consists of course, 7 + caboose (even with the DB BR 01.5's Outstanding rating I just hate crashes, and haven't yet doubled any track.) Way too much cargo on this map, easy win on Expert with a decent start, even with just the QJ.

[Gumboots]

There's often good returns on hauling wool direct from Dubbo to Newcastle. A steamer will just make that run in one go without a water stop (you'll run out about ten yards from the station).

[RulerofRails]

Ports can be flaky at seeding because they are sensitive to how the coastline is shaped, but they should show up especially if you are running trains to the coastal cities.

Steamers give a better challenge as almost all the Diesels are a bit more economical than Steamers in the time periods when both are available. In addition they don't need water stops meaning they will do more useful work. You can see the story here. You will notice that towards the end, Steam drops to a similar level, but that's only thanks to the QJ, Kriegslok, and Red Devil.

Maybe I should make up a simple reference sheet for the existing 1.05 locos without a consist (that's constant) with info on how to calculate for a given consist. If you have a suggestion (would that be quick and simple?) let me know, but I've been more focused on trying to gather information so that we can do a half-decent effort at a re-balance for the improved weight scale.

If you want to calculate fuel costs yourself (other option is to use this unwieldly sheet):
The fuel formula is: 0.000068 * Train weight * Mileage traveled * Fuel Economy Rating

By assuming a mileage of 1 we can get a value per mile which is easy to use for comparisons.

The weight of the engines is determined by the last value (Floating Point format) in their .car files. Remember that Steamers also have a .car file for the tender so that counts too. This weight counts just the same as the weight of the cars the engine is dragging, so we sum the weight. But really the difference between engines of the same rating is any difference in engine+tender weight.

[low_grade]

On a tough scenario I do check your spreadsheet to see the weights which you have listed for almost everything I use, but the DB BR 01.5 isn't included there and I'd have to get a hex editor and remember how to use it to read the .car files in order to get the weight for the DB BR 01.5 and its tender myself. Ach I should stop being lazy by asking others to do this stuff for me, lol...

Update, just running on very fast for a few years, made the gold in Jan 1972. I'd gone ahead and sold off shares so I had no personal debt and $7M in stocks in 1966 or so, so no more worries about stock volatility or even company performance, as CBV was already $40M+, and just made connections that would likely automatically haul wool, with only two stations by river streams of wool for some extra catchment (is that a word?)

[low_grade]

Okay, got a hex editor, and saw a thread about the DB BR 01.5, says based on the Class 01, and sure enough both .car files have the same last hex values 00 00 16 43. So I'm going to say the DB BR 01.5 also weighs 180 for engine+tender. But remind me again how I convert hex float to decimal?

[RulerofRails]

. . . for some extra catchment (is that a word?)

I use it all the time.

I don't bother with the manual calculations (too complicated/time-consuming for me). I use the editor called: HexEdit. There is a toolbar called Properties (View->Toolbars->Properties) that can display all the different types of values. For Floating Point use the "Real" tab. The value displayed depends on where the cursor is, so just make sure that you place it in the right spot.

You can also make changes easily. Simply enter normal numbers in the "Properties" box and the program will automatically convert them and update the file when you push Enter. Note: if the background is grey (can't be edited), I just re-do one of the 00's in the file directly. I get asked, "Do you want to allow changes?", chose "Yes", then it will work.

You are correct, the BR 01.5 isn't in the sheet, I didn't put all the latest custom locos into the spreadsheets. Probably should do it at some stage, but as I said I'm more focused towards trying to understand as much as possible about what PopTop did. As in the case of the BR 01.5, custom locos seldom have a modified weight (the info just wasn't about for fan-creators to know that this made a difference). Identical weights and economy ratings mean that the Class 01 and BR 01.5 have the same thirst for fuel.