Reducing town cargo production - gamescript or grf?

[epictetus]

I like to set up passenger services that seems appropriate for the town and city size. This was easier when I was able to bother with daylength patches but I want to stick to trunk releases from now on. This means that a small town outside a city should be able to get railbus service a couple times per month or if it's part of a regional line, that a 2- or 4-car train only has to stop once a month. This keeps clutter down and reduces the actual amount of rail I need to build (I can get away with single-track 2-tile stations in the middle of towns... sometimes a single tile!).

I use the Neighbours are Important gamescript to help manage town growth but I'm willing to give that up since I don't like to mess around with mail anyways. I'm just aiming for aesthetically pleasing networks that actually function. The problem is that the towns produce 10 times what my minimal service can handle and I don't want every little hamlet to need double tracking and trains stopping by every 5 seconds.

Is there a way to reduce the amount of cargo produced by cities so my stations and trains aren't always stuffed?
This is where daylength had been useful because passenger production was stretched out - same monthly production, but my trains were able to visit far more frequently for a game month without excessive infrastructure.


I tried searching the forum, but nothing seemed like the answer I was looking for. Mostly the topics dealt with town growth rather than town production. I don't care one iota about growth - I want stasis

[Eddi]

usually that is done by a patch (there are multiple versions in the development forum somewhere), but that has severe downsides like savegame compatibility.

it could be done by GRF, but then you can only use the default houses (or you have to directly modify the house NewGRFs)

i don't think it can be done by GS

[kamnet]

Ammler's "Early Houses" NewGRF reduced the amount of town population, passengers and mail in games started before 1930. OzTrans' "Canadian Cities" NewGRF also lets you adjust the amount of passenger and mail generated.

[epictetus]

Thanks for the suggestions. Ammlers' GRF looks the most promising.