Feeding the beast

[ccomley]

Past efforts to "max out" a line running goods half way across the map have been thwarted, always end up with either running out of goods to feed onto the trains, or, the station is half full of trains arriving with feedstocks (grain, steel, etc) so I can't get enough goods trains in... I've tried several ways, running multiple stations clustered around the factory, for example, but always run out of space.

Now I've been playing with a new idea. Pick a factory on the shore of a large lake. ONLY run goods trains to its station. Put the feeder industries around the lake and have ships bring the stuff in.

lake.PNG

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In fact in this variant, there wasn't a factory suitably placed, so I just put the goods station on the shore (bottom left with the 8-track station) and the factory itself is elsewhere. (3 o'clock location). Ships bring the goods across from this and the two sawmills (both at the top) whilst other ships bring steel from the steelworks (11 o'clock up the river) to the factory.

So far so good - already running more goods (only) trains than I've previously managed.

Of course, the cost of all the ships means it won't show as much profit but I care not - ship finances are always skewed on TTD anyway.

Really it's taking advantage of the fact that you can have an unlimited number of ships at a dock at the same time.

[Kevo00]

Nice shot. I like using ships, especially with FISH2, because of the effectively unlimited capacity. They can be very profitable when running the whole length of a delivery - the problem can come when interchanging with land transport.