Long trains - just for fun or really profitable?

[douglasrac]

Hi,

I've being checking some Locomotion videos on YouTube and there is a lot of long trains. Real long, with 20 cars each and full of materials.

I think the long trains are really nice, but in my game I usually have to put trains with 6, 7 cars top. First, there are not enough materials to load them. Second, financially is much better to have short and a lot of trains (to keep a good service) instead of a huge train with long hauling time.

So, am I wrong? Is it possible to have real long trains, profitable and good service? How? How do you increase the output of a raw material industry?

Also stations. There are stations with 6 tracks on it. How can you load that much materials from it? Like this (http://img267.imageshack.us/i/doublestation24gz.jpg/) How can you get so much out of a mine?

[Zimmlock]

Hi there, longtrains are not realy profitable, but more realistic and they add more complexety to the game. Best is to have short and long trains, the short trains provide the income and the longtrains are for the fun.
To have a game with longtrains its better you create a scenario with, for example, a area with 3 coalmines close together. so you can catsh the output of the 3 mines with 1 station.
Loading/unloading trains on stations shorter than the train ll take more time, not because there isnt enough cargo but because your train sticks out of the station.
The maximum lenght for a long train is 6 locomotives and 40 wagons (normal size freight wagons), thats allready verry tricky. if you make your train to long it ll stall on a strait track.
As you can see in this game with long and short trains i still have a preformance of 100% have about 50 long trains running, but i guess the game cant deal with them so thats why the preformance is at 100%.

[douglasrac]

Thanks for the reply.

Yes the long trains are definitely more fun. When I'm rich, I will start to use them

[Krakr]

Long trains can be profitable.

The key is getting them loaded and out of the station as fast as possible. To do this, provide additional station(s) at the source and have those vehicles drop off at the train station. If you do it right, the profit made by the long train far exceeds the cost of all the non-paid vehicles used to help load it faster.

And it doesn't hurt if you can find a way for them to pickup a load (or even a partial load) on the way back. In the screenshot, the ore train has switched to coal and has picked up a partial load at a coal mine that's within a reasonable return path to the ore mine. It drops it off at a power station near the mine.

The screenshot shows the train exiting the coal mine with a few hundred tons of coal.

Profitable long train

Profitable Long Train 1.png (928.37 KiB) Viewed 7997 times

Yep. It's the 25th century and I just can't stop playing this scenario (Provo). Current cash is 1.2 Trillion. Current income is 283 million per month.

[Emperor Darth Sidious]

Hi there, longtrains are not realy profitable, but more realistic and they add more complexety to the game. Best is to have short and long trains, the short trains provide the income and the longtrains are for the fun.
To have a game with longtrains its better you create a scenario with, for example, a area with 3 coalmines close together. so you can catsh the output of the 3 mines with 1 station.
Loading/unloading trains on stations shorter than the train ll take more time, not because there isnt enough cargo but because your train sticks out of the station.
The maximum lenght for a long train is 6 locomotives and 40 wagons (normal size freight wagons), thats allready verry tricky. if you make your train to long it ll stall on a strait track.
As you can see in this game with long and short trains i still have a preformance of 100% have about 50 long trains running, but i guess the game cant deal with them so thats why the preformance is at 100%.

How on earth did you manage to make such long stations ??

[Badger]

Have a look around the various stickies in the Locomotion area, there's a guide in one of them.

And DON'T bump old topics.

[Emperor Darth Sidious]

Sorry Badger...

But this is what Andel said in another topic about "bumping":
"Anyone who digs up a topic over 4 months old will be called by girls names for the next 6 months and that includes any non-newbies who do this to spite me..."

The last post in this topic was from July 21, 2010...Thats less then 2 months ago. And I looked it up via the search before "bumping" this topic and came up with nothing...So that's why I figured might as well ask it here rather then to start up en entire new topic...

I still don't know how to do the trick...

Edit:
Is there a smiley from a big donkey ???
I found it in the first topic under the Locomotion-Beginners Tab...I can't say that I'm a beginner but what a bummer...

Sorry, for not looking hard enough, but hey...It's a large topic and thing can be overlooked sometimes...
But I still don't think is't bumping when a topic's last post is less then two months ago...but that's just me.

[douglasrac]

How on earth did you manage to make such long stations ??

Once I saw a video on YouTube about it. Take a look: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzJAAwv_z3g

[bwong]

oh yes, Long trains in real life are extremely standard within continental United States, but the thing that make them out of place in Locomotion and OTTD is that the train cars (individual units) are TOO long. Sometimes as large as a building in locomotion.

[Emperor Darth Sidious]

Yes I did it !!!!

Only not via this way...I used the Long Station Patch that I have found on this topic:

EDIT by Badger - Link removed, folks will have to search for themselves.

There is one thing tho...I know you guys don't like NO-CD patches etc. But you do need the NO-CD patch from the v1.76. I have bought the original game and it's totally legal to have a NO-CD patch when you own the original game...This is what was written at the start of the website where I got this NO-CD patch:

"You are LEGALLY ALLOWED to make a personal backup of an Original Game CD/DVD as long as you are the owner of the Original Game CD/DVD".

Here's a screen wich I just made for testing if it works:

Screenshot3.PNG (86.46 KiB) Viewed 1223 times

This is my first 'Serious' station:

Screenshot6.PNG (160.93 KiB) Viewed 1223 times

I suppose I could make it longer then this (didn't tried it just yet) but it looks promising !!!

Thanks for the video-tutorial but I didn't need it after all...

[douglasrac]

[...]

Here's a screen wich I just made:

Screenshot3.PNG

[...]

WOW. I wonder where are you going with such long stations. And to transport oil? Will take forever to load the whole train...

[Emperor Darth Sidious]

Well the screen with the oil wells was only a test...I didn't select anything at all in the editor with it myself. I just the first picked a scenario from the game put down a track and build that station. In most games people who make long trains only make one or two tile stations to load the entire train wich takes forever, but when the whole station is build it takes just as long to load a train then when you have a short station with 4 or 6 cars behind it.

The screen with the Coalhampton station is my first scenario in wich I truly build those long stations, it's the Trans Oceanic Scenario wich I downloaded from the forums here. This station has about 100 tiles and I have build it in a few minutes...The station on the track is the Haltegleiss-Station wich I took from the 'Bauplatz-Pack' and added in the TRACKST.dat manually. The rest of the station is build with the 'Digidampfman Station-Pack'

When I could only make 16-tile long stations I had to build the same station out of different stations and it took way to long...In this way the whole station is used, and people are no longer waiting on parts where the train wont pick them up because they where only for eye-candy as you can see in the below screen no all the passengers and goods come and go to one single station:

Old and New.PNG (157.05 KiB) Viewed 1223 times

It's really is the best patch ever created for making more realistic (=Longer) stations ! For realistic stations I suggest you download both packs mentioned above...

[CN_Rail]

Where did you get the iron ore mine in the screen shots?

[Emperor Darth Sidious]

There is no Iron Ore Mine to be seen in the screenshots...Don't you mean the Coalmine ?

The new coalmine can be found here http://www.tt-forums.net/viewtopic.php?f=40&t=48136

Good Luck !

[CN_Rail]

Long trains are very profitable if used correctly. I have a double-headed long train in Swiss Alps 100 year challenge that moves 320 tons of lumber a load. Every time that it runs it gives me up to 45,000 DM, way over my compeditors' trains that move only 220 tons of lumber a run and give them only about 33,000 DM. The year is 1927.
Take my word for it, if you want to be a tycoon, running long trains really helps.

[noofnoof]

I don't think many other players count 16 flatbed wagons as a long train. try something like 1'200 tons of coal, maybe.

[Zimmlock]

Long trains are only profitable if you dont run a to long distance, in my games my long trains travel mor than a year to get to there unload stations and the running costs exceed the profit, but its for fun and the complexety of the network, long trains require a different approch. uhu 1200 tons trains are my small trains.......... ha ha ha try this....................... i didnt cheat with the wagons for example the gas turbine coal train has 43 cars

[douglasrac]

i didnt cheat with the wagons for example the gas turbine coal train has 43 cars

You sure cheated with reliability.

[Illegal_Alien]

Erm nope, because they are 100% as it is. So he didnt changed it, as they already come with 100%.

[Emperor Darth Sidious]

Long trains are really nice for eye-catching and complex networks...Today I was playing around with the Peninsular-Scenario from Zimmlock and tried to make trains with 4 locomotives, 40 tenders, a caboose and the flash light behind it. It worked nicely but at some point the train who has a top speed of 70 miles drops his speed now and then to 64 miles (with a free way) or lower then that. There where even trains who didn't move at all...

So now I reduced the train to 40 units. That is 4 locomotives, 34 tenders, a caboose and a flashlight...Now they keep their topspeed of 70 miles per hour. If I put more behind the locomotive these problems occur...

So their probably is a limit in trainlength otherwise the train would not have such problems...or is there a different reason ?