Why do people start with industries?

[Gumboots]

You should be able to do Rhodes with everything under 6% if you want to. IIRC I went over the mountains (Nairobi to Juba) without exceeding 5%, although it may have hit 6 in a couple of short spots. But yeah I only play steam, so tend to lay track accordingly.

[low_grade]

I've found that a couple sections of steep grade don't much slow trains... but yeah, sections of 10 or more will noticeably. But also as referred to above, most of a train's time is spent loading/unloading and taking on water/sand/oil. And accelerating in between, rarely getting close to top speed. I'm not that afraid of a few steep grades, but I will choose trains accordingly.

[RulerofRails]

Because I accept that industries are the best return on investment in the game . . .

Quoting my last post in the thread. Well, my tune sure has changed in the 22 months since.

Of course industries are consistent and safe for good ROI over time of ROI of 20-25%, but with the right conditions and good technique rail revenues can give equal or better ROI than the say the $500k a Lumber Mill on a pile of $0 Logs might return. The comparison is quite apt because with rails you get more benefit in the first year from those assets (investment) than in the subsequent years.

---

Tips for company growth fueled by rails:
The main condition is sufficient cargo supply. This could either be a map with plenty of suppliers (farms/mines/etc.) for its size, or it may be a map with average density for suppliers but having a pocket with some close cities that have 3 or so full-output industries and maybe even a port. Said pocket or area needs to have enough cargo with a good delivery value. I have referred to this as high-value cargo in the past. We are looking for a total sum of the price differentials of 600k+ that can be transported on a network that you can build with a normal cash + bond starting amount of 1.5M (factors such as cost of track, geography, engine cost etc. limit pocket selection). Sometimes this will be more exotic cargoes like Weapons, Ammunition, or Uranium over greater distances, where in that case we will build the long line first and flesh it out later.

By not building building service facilities when placing track, but waiting until they are actually needed, you can not only expand sooner with that cash in the bank, but also trains will be working without interruption for longer. Maybe a Water Tower or two will be needed later in the first year, but Maintenance sheds can be built later. Reliability is very good on all levels for the first two years so it's no problem to run down to a 10-20% Oil level. First year profit is incredibly important for determining credit rating for second year bond issues. But, the tricky part is formulating a plan for the second, third, etc. years of the game. This should be considered right from the start, but I made it a new step to simplify.

To keep 2nd year ROI higher than the 20-25% average of industry requires new price differentials similar to what got the company started. It could be that you have lots of bonds and new areas of good supply to connect to or you may have to work with what supply you already have.

Suppose we have 2 cities making Textiles, when choosing routes it's best to ship as much of their output as possible to one city. This will cause the price there to drop faster. Meaning you can re-haul this cargo again sooner. Purposely preventing auto consist from hauling this cargo away to let an even better price differential develop I call "delivery timing". This is most useful when combined with new expansions so management of supply stays simple.

Even without delivery timing, clever route choices often help prevent the cargo being dragged between currently connected cities at a meager profit until we get enough financing to connect to a new city (hopefully a full-strength demand). Here we are considering only one cargo. It often becomes a juggling act to get as many different cargoes as possible to go to one place that is the best overall. I am not talking about sacrificing much profit. Just 5k or so per load on some cargoes. All cargoes available in sufficient quantity (4.0+) should be considered.

When choosing a new city to connect, often there is a goal to eventually reach a new supply area. If there are multiple routes or there is no specific destination we can also juggle the interests of the cargoes when selecting the one with best demand for what we have available. All cargoes with sufficient price differentials 15k+ (higher number if distance is far) should be shipped to a new station as there is a 22% bonus on the trip revenue. On Expert level, shipping to a new station will pay 10% more than a 1 year old one or 20% more than a 2 year old one. (The effect of age is slower after year 3, bottoming out at year 20 when you receive just 75% of the displayed trip revenue).

The other big help in expansion is express (the amount varies with the map settings and time period). By June of the third year, there should be a build-up of passengers/mail in cities surrounding your network. You wont see them until you connect, but they are there just waiting to board one of your trains. The number builds up during each year before a partial reset at each year end. A bigger city is better (use the "star ratings") but distance to nearby cities whether connected or unconnected is important too. Closer cities generally have more express traffic as the odds of passengers starting a journey are higher. If done right you should be getting 4 to 5 carriages ready to load and in better circumstances a full train or more.

Upon connection, take a look where these passengers want to go and use the "load express only" option when routing the train. After you buy the train, run the game for a little second until the passengers begin to board. Then, go back into train routing and set the train to load "any cargo". Also, if the train is full consider adding a diner. Using a hub on your network (a large city with connections in 3 or more directions), will help create a high demand area where many passengers want to go. Build a Hotel there, preferably in the second year of the game.

In practice, I will buy some industry in an ideal game where rails drive company growth but they must be top quality (ROI 25%) in the early years. Sometimes these are farms or I might buy an industry that is currently making a loss, but my latest connection is going to soon supply it (ROI 30%). But, a railway that is fueling company growth needs to be expanding so the first concern is expanding it at an appropriate rate even once all supply cities with decent, producing factories have been connected. The railway acts as a whole, if it always has new centers of demand (from new connections that don't supply much) cargo will move better over that portion of the network.

If a map has decent express the demand centers really have a supply of express and should be connected as the economics of supply dictate. With little express I will try to connect at least one new demand center per year (typically these are out-of-the way on "spur" connections. Sometimes a large network can be expanded in two or even three directions. Thus, cargo flow is facilitated over most of the network. In the case of little express I will start building industries to make use of any untapped resources while making making sure that my network has a new demand center or two each year.

Naturally, once new connections stop, there will be a period of readjustment when profits from freight will stagnate and may drop slightly. As I develop the map by building profit-producing industries these rails profits will come back, but be slightly tempered by the drop in trip revenue from the time that has passed. I call this a "flat spot".

Express will still increase for a couple of years after expansion stops. In maps where there is plenty it will soften the blow of the flat spot. I tend to develop for express (build Hotels, sometimes a new train) a bit behind normal expansion (maybe 3 years), so I continue to do this as I move into developing the industrial potential.