Los Angeles

[jrbrockm]

Hi All,
Just wanted to let you all know that Hawk has posted my map of Los Angeles. I think you will find it enjoyable, and I would appreciate any suggestions for improvement. Let me know if you have any questions.
JB

[Hawk]

I moved this thread over to the Reviews forum.

[KevinL]

Alright, another California map. I cant wait to try it.

[belbincolne]

Found this pretty hard and only got Bronze on Normal. Connected all cities o/k but only had some 750 passengers carried - and most of these very late in the game. Main trouble proved to be speed - finished with 27mph despite all passenger trains being limited to 4 cars plus diner. May try electrifying next play but as you need to build tunnels this could give connection problems.

Anyway really nice scenario and will give it another try after I've had another go at Hub2.

[Wolverine@MSU]

Were you using the "Spur" method for service (sand/water/oil). It also helps to run dedicated PAX trains with priority and only freight on the other ones with normal priority. I ran pretty much all electric and was able to have avg speed in the high 40's by the end of the game. Made Gold on Expert with not much sweat. I kept everything in the LA area (west of the mtns.) until I had the PAX req. met, then banked some cash and laid "burn" track to the outlying cities (Barstow, Bakersfield and the other one east of the mtns.) at the very end.

[belbincolne]

Very weird. Didn't electrify but with better strategy had no trouble making speed on 2nd attempt but still couldn't get enough passengers despite dozens of custom consist priority trains - mostly sitting at stations Finished with around 750 carried. Had some hotels etc to encourage passengers and double lined but cant think of anything else I could have done to get more. I put in Bakersfield/Barstow pretty early cos they're real profitable cities. Anyway main thing is I enjoyed replaying

[Wolverine@MSU]

I've found the big secret with Express trains, especially when trying to maxamize number of loads hauled, is to leave the minimum at "0" so the train doesn't sit around waiting. I have a multi-multi-station route for each train, so it won't be empty most of the time. For instance A-B-A-C-A-D-B-D-C-D-C-B and so on. Some of them have more than 20 stops on their route, and most of them carry something most of the time. I started with dining cars too, but dropped them fast when I saw that a lot of trains had the max cars, and decided it was better to have the extra car carry PAX rather than meals. After all, the little extra revenue from diners (in this scenario) aren't worth it when you're trying to get as many PAX as possible.

[jrbrockm]

Something else to remember to keep up the speed of your express trains is to make sure that they service only when you want them to. Nothing kills your speed faster than having a full express train stop twice for service during it's route. My strategy was to have my service towers and maintenance sheds placed on the opposite side from the main entrance/exit of my main hubs. For example, a train coming into Los Angeles from Long Beach would pull into the station to offload, then pull THROUGH to the other side of the station where my service/maintenance is, then reverse back to LA to pick up express to head out to Long Beach again. Make sure you specify these facilities in the train's route (just like you would any other destination) in order for this to work. It's not a very efficient use of time, and stations can get crowded REAL fast if you don't double track, but it helps keep that speed up.

If you notice that an express train is consistently hauling the maximum number of cars that you've set (for express only I'm usually up there to 6 or 7 with a caboose), that means there's probably more express to haul being left at the station. Double track it, copy the train and run two trains (wait until one train is at one end of the route, and then create the other one, starting from the opposite end). Make sure they're marked at high priority so they're not stopping for your freight trains. Your main line from LA down to Anaheim is a perfect example.

Don't be fooled by the price of the neighboring counties. The prices are not set to guide you as to which one to purchase next. Even though OC costs a million, it's going to make you TONS more money (and help you more with your passenger quota) than say, Ventura or San Bernardino counties.

Thanks for the feedback!
Happy playing!
JB

[belbincolne]

I ran my expresses (at end just passengers tho early ones were mail also) with 4 or 5 carriages min carry 3 (this gets you 2 each carry as, of course, partial loads dont count). Rarely had a full train. It's interesting that JB and Wolv's systems are at the opposite extremes and they seem to work better than mine! Its also interesting that you've both often had full train loads when I haven't and I cant think of any reason why.

One other thing - in RT6 (at least my download of it) trains run just as fast without oil/sand/water so that there is no need to build services and go to the lengths that were needed in RT3 to get fast express speeds as JB describes.

[Gandar]

Very weird. Didn't electrify but with better strategy had no trouble making speed on 2nd attempt but still couldn't get enough passengers despite dozens of custom consist priority trains - mostly sitting at stations Finished with around 750 carried. Had some hotels etc to encourage passengers and double lined but cant think of anything else I could have done to get more. I put in Bakersfield/Barstow pretty early cos they're real profitable cities. Anyway main thing is I enjoyed replaying

I thought I had sent this note yesterday but I must have pressed the wrong button.

I saved the map after starting. On my first try I had the same problem as belbincolne, after 3 years my passenger count was up to 1 and I was losing money, time to reload. Second shot, time to get tricky, cover LA with 4 medium stations plus a couple of other connections and I am assured of good passenger counts. Result no passengers and no money, one big bust as far as running a profitable railway. Its obvious that industry is out it must be rail. So third try, two large stations covering LA, two other stations and electric track. And the people came and the cargo came and it was profitable and all connections were made and I hit gold in 1993 I laid double track around the stations but it was mostly single track with one train to 3 stations for the early years and I laid dedicated express track in the later years.
It was fun but I have no idea why my initial start did not produce passengers or cargo, it wasn't all that different from my successful third try, the only difference was having one, rather than two stations covering LA, and it should have produced more traffic because it covered a more productive area of the city.
Oh well who could ever figure out the people in LA

[Wolverine@MSU]

Its obvious that industry is out it must be rail.

Not really, I started with industry for the first three years or so, and only then started rails. At first, after building rails, PAX were very few and far between. It seemed that the more cities I connected, the faster the demand rose. It took a few years to build, but within 10 years, I was running lots of express only trains that were pretty much filled.

[KingSooper]

First post here.

This is a great map. Industry isn't a total bust. If there's a lot of wool west of Simi Valley, a textile mill on the LA County side of Simi Valley is good for some quick early cash flow. Another option is to build a lumber mill in Pomona if there are 3 or 4 logging camps nearby with the nearest sawmill in Pasadena or San Bernardino.

You will be taking on a lot of debt to get stuff built, so don't be too surprised. Try to get it either paid off or refinanced.

Once you get a decent network built up around LA, get into Orange County right away, and start running dedicated 6 to 8 car expresses between LA, Long Beach, and Anaheim. Towards the end, it's not unheard of for me to have 100+ passenger loads/year. For some reason, Torrance is big for passenger throughput. My rail system ended up looking a lot like the LA freeway network.

[OilCan]

This map was more entertaining than I thought it might be. I believe that having seen southern California a few times, having a mental image of the LA area greatly added to the entertainment of this particular game.

I ran a hybrid system: electric only in the LA area and non-electric in the mountains. One could have done just as well with all non-electrics. Spur service lines for all routes. Express only trains and freight only trains. 2 stations for LA. As with other posters, I had no problem of surpassing the minimum speed nor connected to all the required cities.

I will admit to using Wolverine’s tactic of ‘burning track’ to the last two distant cities. I also liked Wolverine’s advice to set the PAX trains to zero minimums and for a single train to stop at many stations. I ran up to 8 station stops (4 out and 4 back) for a PAX train with a hotel at every station. Most long routes had 3 PAX trains. Early investment into industry and multiple freight only trains per route were my financial cornerstones.

I reached the passenger quota for gold in 20 years & the city connections in 22 years.