Wow, I had no idea the Toyland product vectors were this complicated. I never played it much either, it gives me a headache.
I think in replacing the industries, we should emphasize 1) regional distinctives, and 2) visual appearance as different as possible from what we already have.
I am assuming we can control where the industries appear, since the existing industries work this way - Oil Refineries appear on the shore, Banks appear in cities, etc.
See what you think of this arrangement, it lines up with the existing vectors.
VECTOR SET #1 - Industrial
Customs Import Warehouse (should be near the shore, looks like a port as much as possible). Provides imported components like tires, car parts, etc. Using the "random freight car" feature we can make a wide and ever-changing variety of cars for this one.
Mini-Mill (like a steel mill, but explains why we don't bring it iron ore - it reprocesses scrap metal.) Generates steel. We could use the existing steel car, but it would be cooler to use a more modern sheet-steel car - those big semi-cylindrical green dome things.
Plastics Plant (something big, nasty, and polluting) - generates Plastic components or maybe pellets. Coule be hopper cars, some sort of boxcar, who knows.
The above go to:
Automobile Plant - pretty easy to imagine and have fun with. Of course this generates autos, which you haul to the city using the beautiful new car-carriers that will be out shortly.
VECTOR SET #2 - Agricultural
Rice paddies (work like farms, but look like paddies and have terraces on hills) - make Rice. Rice cars look like U.S. grain hoppers.
Soybean farms (also work like farms, dunno what they look like, maybe like the existing farms with Asian buildings?) - make Soybeans. Soybeans travel in cars that look like the existing Coal cars but they're full of beans
The above two items travel to:
Food Processing Plant - but we could make it look totally different than already exists. This generates food, obviously, but I think we can come up with a better car. The food goes to cities.
VECTOR SET #3 - Hi-tech
Beach (preferably near the water) generates Sand. This goes in hopper cars I suppose.
Rare Earths Mine - generate, well, Rare Earths. This looks basically like the Iron Ore Mine unless someone has a better idea. The rare earths can be in hoppers, gondolas, who knows.
These both go to the
Semiconductor Chip Fab - looks like a big shiny white factory, and (slowly) generates (high-value, extremely time-sensitive) Chips. The Chip cars could be some sort of special shock-mounted car, I've heard of these but never seen one. A boxcar would work also, or even the Valuables car.
The Chips go to the
Export Warehouse. These are found in cities (like Banks).
I'm not totally satisfied with this but I think it gives us some good ideas. Any thoughts?