Why make road vehicles?

[nichopol]

I am struggeling to see the usefulness of roadvehicles vs. trains.
I just started a game in 1950 and did a comparison for delivering wood.

The cheapest train = 1650 $ a year
the wood truck = 850 a year

train hauls 30 ton
Truck hauls 22 ton

and the train is 10 mi/h faster

I know they cost a little more, but dont this make investing in roadvehicles a bad idea?

[planetmaker]

I am struggeling to see the usefulness of roadvehicles vs. trains.
I just started a game in 1950 and did a comparison for delivering wood.

The cheapest train = 1650 $ a year
the wood truck = 850 a year

train hauls 30 ton
Truck hauls 22 ton

and the train is 10 mi/h faster

I know they cost a little more, but dont this make investing in roadvehicles a bad idea?

What about the purchase cost of the engine, the big(er) station, signals and the tracks of the train?

For small cargo amounts a short truck connection might be more worthwhile than building a tiny train connection. And that's even disregarding the practicality of you making more money when spending time on building the really important long-distance rail routes instead of getting it right for tiny nearly unprofitable ones.

[wallyweb]

I am struggeling to see the usefulness of roadvehicles vs. trains.

Another consideration besides Planetmaker's excellent observations: Use road vehicles to feed cargo from an industry to a train station.
1. While waiting for a train, an industry's cargo accumulates and service levels deteriorate. The industry may even close.
2. Keeping a train at an industry's station can be costly. It is always more profitable for a train to collect a full load immediately.
3. The solution is:
- Build a train station with the industry just beyond that station's 4 tile catchment area.
- Build a truck station next to the industry and build a road to connect the two stations.
- Buy enough trucks to have a constant service at the industry.
- Send the trucks to force unload at the train station. Cargo accumulation at the remote train station will not affect the industry's service levels.
4. With some careful planning you can assemble a train that is just long enough so that on the return leg of it's round trip, there will be just enough cargo waiting so as to keep the train's stand-by/loading time to an absolute minimum.