Although I'm new to the forums, I've been playing Transport Tycoon since 1996, and OpenTTD for 3 years. In the spirit of sharing, I'd like to show you all something I've been working on for almost 2 years now, on and off. It's my "completed" network of MyFineShrine's Europe map. This means I've connected every single town on the map, using mostly trains and absolutely NO AIRCRAFT. I hope you like what I've made, and can enjoy tinkering with the efficiency of the network without all that tedious track-laying.
This is going to be a pretty long post, so if you want to get stuck in, you can grab the savegame here: https://www.mediafire.com/?0xsn1i4i6uet48c
Here's how I made it.
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Statistics
Firstly, I made the final save in build 1.2.1, and the only mod I used was the 2CC Trainset v2.0.0 Beta 5.
I began in 1955, and by the time I decided to make the final save, 685 game years had passed (not sure what that is in real time, but additionally there was a lot of route-planning going on whilst it was paused).
I used almost 2,000 vehicles, including 868 trains. Nearly a quarter of a million rail pieces were laid down, with 13,726 station tiles. My vision was one of a network loosely based on present-day technology, as such I only use railways - NO MONORAIL OR MAGLEV. Vehicles travel on the right-hand side.
I've intended this game to be as aesthetically pleasing as possible, so I've tried to tamper with the original map as little as possible (with hindsight, I really wish I hadn't destroyed so many river tiles around London and Paris, but as I progressed through the game, I got better!). I've also tried to keep as true as I can to the geographical locations of the trains in the 2CC set, however some artistic licence was used in order to keep a good balance of gameplay. If a faster train wasn't available in a country, or a train at the speed I wanted, I'd try and pick one which looked like it would fit the theme of that area best (e.g. I use the Czech Pendolinos a lot in and around Poland, because the polish flag is red and white, and so is that train, plus it is a good medium-fast train to use for most purposes). Also, the original town names were their German versions, so I changed some, but many remain in German.
It's not meant to be realistic; just an interpretation of a European rail network within the constraints of the game. Oh, and breakdowns are off, because ain't nobody got time fo' dat.
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Timeline
1955
Kingdom & Co. begins hauling coal up the Welsh valleys to Aberystwyth power station to fund their expenditure for the coming centuries. This will be their one and only freight line.
Construction on the main passenger and mail network then begins in earnest. London is the first major focal point for the company, as it reaches out to Edinburgh, Glasgow, Norwich and Penzance.
2056
Having connected most of the British Isles, the railway expanded across the channel via bridge. Paris and Brussels were the destinations of choice, and out of Paris grew links to Brest, Bilbao, Barcelona, Brussels and Bordeaux. Major destinations not starting with the letter B were few and far between, but lines worked their way down to Marseilles, and eastwards to Cologne. From there, Zurich was connected, and on to Munich, before crossing the Austrian alps down to Milan. It was noted that in order to maximise capacity on the expensive rail network, buses needed to be utilised to transfer passengers from areas out of the rail catchment areas into the stations. From now on, buses would be integral parts of the transport network, filling out train services and maximising profit.
2146
The last part of the 21st century saw most of France being joined to the network, before the 22nd century slipped itself into Italy's welcoming boot and embraced the joys of high-speed rail. Germany was given a boost to its core infrastructure with 2 urban circuits, based on clusters of towns around Dortmund and Frankfurt. Paris was joined to Hamburg via Amsterdam, and from there, passengers could continue on to Copenhagen. Croatia also felt the buzz of the electric train network, with a link from Milan to Rijeka.
2245
Shortly after the Copenhagen connection, a bridge to Sweden was constructed. The major terminal at Malmö served both Stockholm and Oslo, with the rest of southern Sweden joined up as well. From there, focus jumped to Sicily, where a simple loop was built, and then back to the Netherlands, which was fleshed out up to Groningen. Amsterdam was given a 2nd station to deal with more local traffic, and began to take its final shape as a major transport hub. The 23rd century saw Berlin, Warsaw and Krakow getting in on the action, with links between all 3 cities, and Prague and Vienna bolstering passenger numbers.
2347
This century was spent bolstering the web of railways around northern Germany, the Netherlands, and Denmark. With all major routes operational, construction surged forth into eastern Poland and Slovakia. Meanwhile, Norway was breaking new ground all the way up to Narvik from Oslo, via Trondheim.
2449
Midway through the 24th century, it was decided that as the network grew beyond its original scope, new locomotives were needed. 30 years were spent replacing all trains on continental Europe with their newer, more geographically accurate representations from the 2CC train set. As the railways continued their inexorable spread eastwards, Lithuania, Latvia, Russia and Ukraine joined the party. To the southeast, the reach spread into the Balkan states as far as Sarajevo.
2546
This century saw Kingdom & Co really hit their stride in terms of productivity. Now extremely proficient in track laying, junctions, signalling, and future-proofing, from here on in it would be much easier to visualise the goal of having all towns connected, and thus work harder towards the final design. The track now stretched from Helsinki in Finland, right down to Odessa on the Black Sea, via St. Petersburg, Riga, Minsk and Kiev. From Odessa, one could travel west to the major hub of Bucharest in Romania, or round the coast to Istanbul. From there, trains ran to Athens, and anywhere to the northwest.
2581
After only 35 more years, the remaining islands in the Mediterranean had been joined by sea, as well as Tunis in Africa. Spain, Andorra, and the south of France were finished off completely, as was Ireland, and Scottish coastal towns in the Shetlands and Orkneys were given lifelines by hovercraft. Trains now covered Sweden and Finland in their entirety, and to the southwest, pushed on to Rostov and Dnepropetrovsk.
2603
Track laying in Russia progressed quickly and efficiently, although much planning was required. With such vast swathes of land to use, and relatively few towns, main lines and slower lines were constructed to allow for the bulk traffic to travel via express trains, and the slower trains to travel along the outside lines. All the stops on the Black Sea were now serviced, and the network had made it all the way to Volgograd. It couldn't go any further east, so turned back towards Moscow; the final major hub.
2640
Moscow's double-station setup allowed it to serve most towns in Russia, and the wealth of 4-track links across the country will ensure that capacity can be increased for centuries to come. Trains were added after all tracks in Russia were complete, to mitigate population loss in the larger cities.
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Analysis
When I started this game, I was still relatively new to OpenTTD, and particularly complex signal work. My main goal with this map was to create a network that was as close to a continuous railway as possible. That is to say, you could theoretically send a single train to almost any station in Europe from any other station. With that in mind, I'd need to really hone my signalling skills to get the desired effect. Plus, given that I was going for aesthetics, to me there is nothing more satisfying in this game than seeing a seemingly complex station, and watching as trains come and go from all directions.
After I'd connected Carlisle, I had some trains branching off to Edinburgh, some to Glasgow, and some terminating there. By using waypoints and a lot of trial and error, I managed to get a system working the way I wanted it. Similarly in Leeds, I wanted to have some trains continuing from London to Edinburgh, and some terminating. However, given the volume of traffic, I also wanted to allow trains to use any available platform. I came up with a solution that I've since seen on the forums here many times, however it is the combinations and unique stations that arose from my own experience of trial and error that I found most interesting to watch in-game.
Here at Limoges, I have a main trunk line that passes through from Paris to Bordeaux or Toulouse, then on to Barcelona. However, I also have to cater for the slower commuter trains that terminate here from both directions, but also pass through on their way from Bordeaux to Troyes and back again.
My solution to this was to use waypoints and a shorter section of station accessible only from the south, which I've designated platform 1 (or "PF1" according to the waypoint). Note also that platforms 2-5 are electrified, where 1 and 6 are not. This allows express trains to pass by stopped trains at the station (both express and commuter) that may be in platforms 2-5. Terminating commuter trains MUST be in platforms 1 or 6, however the beauty of this station is that with the efficient track design, trains can share track up until they need to enter a platform. The path signal facing towards PF1 allows a train to proceed from the south to PF2 whilst a train is stationary in PF1. The train from PF1 can then turn round and head south once the train on PF2 has passed. The train from PF2 is then routed via "Limoges Outer Line", so it does not accidentally find itself on the main (electrified) line north to Paris.
All commuter trains from the north must stop at PF6, in order to keep platforms 4 and 5 free for express services. Again, the path signal facing into PF6 controls the terminating trains, and as we can see in the screenshot, any waiting trains do not interfere with the mainline until the platform is free. The one-way path signal to the south of PF6 ensures nothing enters from the wrong direction, and the suspension bridge carries traffic that has turned around across 4 lines, before joining back up on the correct side of the line (the right).
This is another complex station that carries a lot more traffic than Limoges, and went through a bit more reworking before I found a design I was happy with. This station strikes a balance between efficiency and aesthetics that I find agreeable.
Once again, I have trains that terminate here, and ones that also pass through. In this case, terminating trains only come from the east, so I only had to worry about them being able to get in and out from the north end of the station. However, given that a lot of trains also pass through, I didn't want a cluster of trains towards one side of the station only. In the screenshot, we can see 2 ICE trains exiting to the east. The train higher up in the picture has terminated in Amsterdam because it was at the top half of the station, and can only be in those platforms if it has come from the east. The train below it was in the bottom half of the station, which houses trains from the west. The advantages of this setup are plain to see: both trains are exiting at the same time without using waypoints. This is useful in tight spaces, and especially on diagonal track where you can't put waypoints. This was the most efficient way I found I could lay out this particular station so that trains could find their own ways round it.
This is one of the earliest stations I built, but still one of my favourites. I kept the 'Dash' and SH-125 models because I think they look better than the 2CC equivalents, and I like the mix of diesel and electric track and trains here. Everything works exactly as it should, and it's been going for nearly 7 centuries! I did however find a VERY lost train that was looking for Southampton, but had somehow made it to Victoria and then crossed the channel, bounced in and out of different Parisian stations, where I found it bimbling around near Montauban in the south of France. A few tweaks to the station though, and I got it sorted.
Another of my favourites, Istanbul is incredibly efficient. 26 trains serve the 7-platform terminus, shifting about 2,000 passengers a month. The trains are varied, and travel to Athens, Odessa, Bucharest, Sofia and right up to Berlin. It's just quite a mesmerising station to watch! It also has one of the most efficient bus dropoff stations as well.
Kiev is a very busy station. A double-terminus, it currently serves 41 trains on only 6 platforms. As it is a double-terminus, it can serve many more trains more efficiently than Istanbul (a single terminus - trains can, and do, only go in and out from one direction, thus slowing down traffic significantly when trains cross over multiple lines at once to exit the station). Even so, it's almost at capacity. It could support a few more trains, but would soon need upgrading to ensure trains didn't need to wait outside the station for long. Note also the many waypoints and junctions; there are 5 lines feeding into Kiev station.
Because of its elevated position, Minsk station allowed me to try out a neat little pathing signal setup across the bridge. Slow trains coming in from the southwest are instructed to cross the bridge so as not to cut across the busy north-south mainlines. They only need to cross the mainlines when leaving the station, which is less problematic because most express trains stop at Minsk anyway, so will not lose much speed if forced to stop for a crossing train. Trains from the south and southeast that go under the bridge can terminate at the station, and then turn round and cross the bridge in the opposite direction to rejoin the lines southeast-bound, as we see in the screenshot. At only 5 platforms, Minsk needs to be as efficient as possible.
From the very beginning, I realised I had to keep strict timetabling to prevent 'bunching' of trains, buses, and particularly ships. As such, EVERY vehicle is timetabled to some extent. I typically use the rule of thumb that if it's a single terminus and an express train, I'll keep it there for 14 days, with 7 days for any stops on the way. This allows them to get good and full up before departing. If it's a commuter train at a terminus, I'll stop it for 10 days, with 5 at any intermediate stops. The shorter stop lets commuter trains get a bit of a head-start on the expresses, and hopefully when they've stopped at the next station, the express can pass them. If it's a double-terminus such as Baia Mare in the screenshot above, the platforms are going to be getting a lot of use, so I drop the waiting times for terminating trains down to 10 and 7 days for express and commuter trains, respectively.
In the example, the express train "Daniel Negreanu" travels from Bucharest North to Krakow, via Baia Mare. Bucharest North is a single-terminus, so it waits for 14 days. Daniel Negreanu then travels through Baia Mare, stopping only for 7 days because it isn't terminating there. Once it arrives in Krakow, a double-terminus, Daniel Negreanu waits for 10 days before embarking on the return journey.
Trains 643, 645 and 650 are all commuter trains joining Baia Mare from different routes, however they all terminate there and wait for 7 days before leaving. (Incidentally, all 3 of these trains only wait for 5 days at the other termini, given the busyness of those stations.)
Even with strict timetabling, however, I've still experienced bunching with ships and buses, some of which is down to unloading times.
Here's a screenshot of Oslo, my most populous city by 2640, and for some time before that, too.
From the very first connections I made to London in the 1950s, I noticed that population algorithms are very fickle. My city of London grew very rapidly, before shrinking to a shadow of its former self, and even causing stations to stop accepting passengers and mail! (This in part spurred me on with the creation of local bus feeder systems.) I ventured onto the forums here to try and find their underlying calculations, and which factors could keep a city growing. I read somewhere that the first 5 connections in a given timeframe in a town's radius are all that matters, and any beyond that are superfluous to the calculations. It also didn't matter how much cargo was being transported, only that SOMETHING was being taken. With that in mind, I tried to salvage what I could of London and help it on the road to recovery. I did notice that this didn't seem to be the case for all my cities, however, and as I ploughed on through the centuries, I began to notice oddities among my service routes. Take for instance, the small French town of Clermont-Ferrand. It's situated at quite a high altitude, so to begin with I just had a small line with a modest service running from Lyon via Saint Etienne. Here's what it looked like by 2639:
It's so big, it appears in my top 15 most populous towns, and had done for centuries. By contrast, Hamburg was another city I connected early, and that seemed to meet a terrible fate. Here it is in 2466, at a paltry 975 population, after almost 5 centuries of being fully connected! The roads show the extent to which the city used to sprawl to, and notice I haven't touched the 'keystone' at the heart of the city that would prevent any growth - it just doesn't want to grow!
So all these things got me thinking, as the years passed by, and towns waxed and waned. I still had my old savegames from every point I'd saved during this massive construction project. What if I went back, and graphed the populations of some key cities? Could that shed any light on the mystery? Well, I'd already spent so long on the project, why not spend a bit more time going back over the vast wealth of data I'd managed to accumulate? Plus, everyone loves a sweet graph! Here's what I managed to put together from 90 savegames:
From the graph, we can see that London takes an immense spike in growth as soon as it is connected to a network. I'd used 5 rail stations, and so trains were frequent. After only about 25 years or so though, it enters a period of steady decline for about a century, bottoming out at around 4,000, before steadily building up over the next 300 years, and stabilising at around 8,000.
Clermont-Ferrand and Barcelona are connected in the early 21st century. Barcelona is a large terminus with fast trains and at least 2 bus stations, whilst Clermont-Ferrand is only serviced by a small, slow train, and no bus station for a while. Barcelona rises slowly, and appears very stable up until 2300, when it begins to grow steadily. Clermont-Ferrand only starts with 500 people, and by 2350 has 2,000, before rapidly rising.
Hamburg was connected round about 2050, when it was enjoying a population of 4,000. It had 1 terminus to begin with, and a high volume of trains servicing western Europe and Denmark. Even with the later addition of bus stations, and an additional train station, it never seemed to recover. For 4 centuries the population struggled to get over 2,000. It's finally showing signs of growth, but I haven't made any additions to the city or its services for centuries.
Oslo, by contrast, was connected a century after Hamburg, in the 2150s or so. From around 3,000 people, it grew steadily and then almost exponentially without signs of slowing down for the next 5 centuries until the present. Initially, Oslo was just a single terminus with 2 bus stations serving it, before a second station was added in the 2270s. This level of expansion is analogous to Hamburg's, but for some reason Hamburg followed a pattern nowhere near Oslo's.
Amsterdam was connected along the same line that stretched from Paris to Hamburg, although being in the middle of the line, Amsterdam was served almost twice as often as Hamburg by trains along the line. Amsterdam gained its second station in the 2190s, which we can see caused a growth spurt, then after a small decline, it rose again until the population stabilised at around 9,000. This may be due to infrastructure around Amsterdam hemming in the city growth, so it may not be a true depiction of Amsterdam's potential growth.
Finally, Berlin has a very interesting story to tell. From the graph, you might imagine that I connected it just after London, and it enjoyed a nice period of growth, before falling on some hard economic times. That's far from the case, though, as I didn't actually link Berlin up to the grid until the early 23rd century. For the first 2 centuries of my campaign, Berlin's population had more than doubled to over 10,000 without me doing anything! From the moment I connected it, I feared I'd have another Hamburg on my hands, as the population continued to decline until around 2400, when it turned around and is now steadily growing. I did wonder what was going on though, when Clermont-Ferrand surpassed Berlin!
Upon further contemplation about this population issue, and a bit of reading on the forums, I think that what is happening in the first 50-100 years of the game is that skyscrapers and other 'modern' buildings are being built in the big cities, which increase population naturally. Berlin may have been an extreme example of this, but I think the effect was also occurring in London, and was exacerbated by my aggressive construction. As such, the boom-and-bust occurred over a shorter timescale in London, allowing it more time to recover. Whilst Berlin followed a similar pattern, infrastructure around Berlin was built much later, so it allowed us to see the natural progression of what may have happened in London had I not built anything there for 2 centuries. Once the "modern era" has been reached, city populations stabilise. It's a good job I also noted down the world population when I was looking up this data, because the graph of world population seems to support this theory.
This graph is very useful, as the variance is massively reduced due to the amount of towns it encompasses. Here we can see the unusually rapid growth in the first 50 years (considering that's when I have the least infrastructure), followed by a levelling off of the population curve over the next 150 years or so. After 2200, it begins a steady exponential increase, which is what one might expect, given the expanding infrastructure.
This 'boom' would have happened with or without my network, however it appears the 'bust' only occurred in cities in which I had transport links. Later on in the game, I only sent trains and buses to a city once I'd constructed sufficient vehicles and stations to support its population, for fear of another population crash. That said, though, anomalies like Clermont-Ferrand still remain, even this far into the game. My best guess is that behind the scenes, it has been converted into a city (even though it doesn't say so in the town window), and is therefore growing at a faster rate.
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Over to you!
So, now that the network is complete, what can you do with it?
Well, apart from loading up the file and just enjoying watching the trains go by, you can take a look at what you'd improve or change about it. You can add new GRFs to make it look nicer, or push the network to its limits by adding loads more trains. You could attempt my original idea and have a train travel as far as you can make it go, or stop at as many stations as you can fit into the timetable. I'd like to fiddle about with pre-signals and try and get them to work on some of the lines without waypoints (I have no idea how they work), just to see if it would improve efficiency. You could scrap the lot of the trains, and upgrade the entire thing to maglev, if you're a particularly sick individual!
I've left the whole realm of freight alone, save for the coal mine with Train 1, so why not let some giant freight trains loose on the tracks, and see how much havoc they cause with my meticulously timetabled passenger services?
One game I've been playing is '6 degrees of separation' - pick 2 towns, and see how far you can get on 6 trains or ferries. Can you get from A to B? Which connections would you have to make to reduce the number of degrees of separation? If 6 is too few, try 7 or 8.
There are some 'unfinished' tracks I've left in there as little remnants of my ideas for connections/expansions. They might be good starting points for new connections, or you could just dive in there and make your own.
I really hope you enjoy playing with it,
Merry Christmas!
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TL;DR?
Save file: https://www.mediafire.com/?0xsn1i4i6uet48c
Imgur gallery: http://imgur.com/a/s8ihU
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