Trains of the Future (2010 to 2100)

[omgits3am]

It seems that most of the newgrf train additions are all adding trains to the "electric" train set, but few if any are adding new trains or more importantly cargo cars to the monorail or maglev sets. It seems if i want to keep using maglevs i need to run the 'old wagons new cargo' grf or just enable multiple engine sets to keep the original trains available.

[kettel]

...few if any are adding new trains or more importantly cargo cars to the monorail or maglev sets...

True.
But look, as we're getting closer to 2010s it's getting more obvious that monorail and maglev transportation systems are not going to be major ones. Honestly, have you seen monorail or maglev vehicles shipping anything but passengers? Do you think it will change in the future?

[Bilbo]

Honestly, have you seen monorail or maglev vehicles shipping anything but passengers? Do you think it will change in the future?

Maglev is much more expensive than ordinary trains, therefore is is used only for things that need to be very quickly at destination. People? Yes, people will always apreciate to be earlier at the destination, for some of them, every minute counts.

Coal? Steel? Oil? Wood? These are not perishable and factories, etc ... usually have steady supply plus some reserves, so waiting day extra for new batch won't do much harm, especially if the batch would be cheaper :)

Food? Perishable, but since the food spent week on oceanic ship taking it from africa, few hours saved with maglev won't help much

Perhaps mail or some parcel service packages could also benefit from being transported by maglev, as these things sometimes need express delivery too.

[omgits3am]

Hi Bilbo, i will be looking at your extra large map patch this should prove a fun addition to the game.. although i'm not sure how long it will take to generate a map of 10,000+ tile proportions I agree with both replies to my post, but sometimes its nice to make fast money sending coal across the map in a fast maglev train ^^ Perhaps adding more horsepower to the electric cargo trains will help them move more quickly. Did i hear someone mention a possible rocket turbine train patch???

[Dimme]

Honestly, have you seen monorail or maglev vehicles shipping anything but passengers? Do you think it will change in the future?

Maglev is much more expensive than ordinary trains, therefore is is used only for things that need to be very quickly at destination. People? Yes, people will always apreciate to be earlier at the destination, for some of them, every minute counts.

Coal? Steel? Oil? Wood? These are not perishable and factories, etc ... usually have steady supply plus some reserves, so waiting day extra for new batch won't do much harm, especially if the batch would be cheaper

Food? Perishable, but since the food spent week on oceanic ship taking it from africa, few hours saved with maglev won't help much

Perhaps mail or some parcel service packages could also benefit from being transported by maglev, as these things sometimes need express delivery too.

I think it would be better for the player to have the option, but it should not be profitable. As many have said before, with coal and oil transportation time should not matter as much as i does.

[Bilbo]

Hi Bilbo, i will be looking at your extra large map patch this should prove a fun addition to the game.. although i'm not sure how long it will take to generate a map of 10,000+ tile proportions ;)

Not so long as you may think. Few minutes?

When I tried generating 16384 x 16384, even for very low number of cities it tried to place about 30000 cities and got "stuck" around 12000-13000 due to inefficiency for town placing algorithm under these circumstances. But now you can specify custom number of cities, so if you place just 5000 of them, the map generations should take reasonable amount of time :)

I tried several times 64x1048576 and it was quite fast. And it allows you to have route that is million tiles long :)

[FHS]

I am a bit late but here are some FMU sprites, pretty good for first sprites.

Fuelcell FMU.png (6.8 KiB) Viewed 3487 times

[NekoMaster]

I am a bit late but here are some FMU sprites, pretty good for first sprites.

Fuelcell FMU.png

They look ok, I guess they could either be used as a commuter or a subway\el train

[trainmaster611]

For starters, why don't we use trains we know are going to be used in the near future? For example:

-AGV
-Ansaldobreda V250
-KTX-II
-Fastech 360
-800 Series Shinkansen
-BR Class 395
-ETR 600

Those are the recent developments anyway.

[NekoMaster]

For starters, why don't we use trains we know are going to be used in the near future? For example:

-AGV
-Ansaldobreda V250
-KTX-II
-Fastech 360
-800 Series Shinkansen
-BR Class 395
-ETR 600

Those are the recent developments anyway.

Could, possible, may just do that. Anyways to those who are watching this thread, I dont have internet any more so I wont be able to reply as quick. So for now you guys come up with ideas and sprites and stuff while I do the same but at home where I have no internet

[ostlandr]

Here are some ideas being worked on in the real world:

Biomass fueled locomotives- use diesel sprites (these are rebuilds) but are actually steam engines.

Hybrid powered-wheel passenger trainsets- power car has a gas turbine and a heat recovery boiler using the exhaust heat. Batteries or ultracapacitors provide peak power. Very high TE, low operating cost.

Larger capacity freight cars as railroads (at least here in the US) upgrade from 286,000 pound cars to 315,000 pound cars.