How do YOU start?

[Mickeye]

I very often start a game with small amount of money (usually max 200000 pounds) so I always, not literally of course, start with passenger rail between two towns. After I connect other nearby towns or villages, I put my concern on cargo rails. Coal, iron ore or wood are top on my list.

[Railwaymodeler]

What I do works for me, and even if it doesn't seem to be popular, then so be it- it's what I like to do:

I build some transit buses in larger towns that are somewhat near each other, buying a small parcel of land for a rail station and approach tracks. When the towns grow quickly due to the bus service, I connect them with a short passenger train.

At this point, I like to build a few ag routes to a nearby factory, and then transport the goods to town.

The rest is up to chance or the map.

[ShadeSlayer]

I always start with cargo rail...

[feliciafan89]

In my opinion, you've gotta start out small... if you screw around with building rails from the start, you're basically biting off more than you can chew.

Use bus and lorry routes to start off with.

[moki]

I always start with simple cargo rail and one train, maybe two if there's some money left. Trucks may be cheaper and easier to start with, but in my experience, they need a lot longer to bring in the money they did cost in the beginning. Passenger rail is fine too, but I only start with it in games without any industries.

[feliciafan89]

Actually, it can be better to start off with bus systems, because many cities offer subsidies for passenger services between one city to another that's within reasonable road distance.

[sarcasticon]

Recently I've started playing TT on hard difficulty.
Having only 200 K$ at the start, the starting options are limited.

Some combinations that seem to work best:
1) Oil tanker (only 100 K$ investment needed) if possible; can easily make you a profit of 25 - 30 K$ per year --> payback in 4 years. Spend the remaining funds on either a cargo railway line (rather short since you have little funds left) such as coal or wood, or some bus lines if you don't need to build long roads.
2) All passengers early in the game. Advantage: don't need to save for long before you can buy additional buses. Disadvantage: payback period is longer (some 5-6 years on average) and vehicle reliability is not so great. Micromanagement later in the game becomes too much --> this is only a starting solution.
Once your bus stations attract a lot of passengers, connect them through long railway lines or try to fit in an airport.

Heliports are an easy solution so you don't have to destroy half the city, but helicopters are rather expensive, slower than aircraft and later on you'll get queues at each airport since you have to run the helis through airports for maintenance.

[feliciafan89]

Reliability on quite a few vehicles are either mediocre or simply bad. This holds especially true for some airplanes. One minute, I've built one, the next, I find it's no longer on my airplane roster.

[Wolf01]

depends on how i feel when i start the game
sometimes i want to build passenger only routes and i start by building trams on cities to make them grow, then i connect them with hundred of buses
other times i want to make money fast to build a nice web route, i chose for first a coal mine and a power plant or a forest and a lumber mill, far away at least 200 tiles, and start by building one single track with some exchange points

[Zhall]

I start by password protecting my company.

[zanny]

Normaly I use boats first
If I can't make boats (because there isn't any water) I gonna use planes
After that, I use some busses
And then I use cargo trains and passenger trains
No my company isn't very rich !!!

[Sir A. Boey]

I have 3 ways to start a game:

° One: When I want to make a lot of money realy fast than I place 2 airport as close as I can to the city centres and connect them, once I have one plaine flying and it's making enough money to buy a faster model than I replace it and so on(I know this isn't the best way to create the most beautifull network) and once I have a solid line of plaines providing me with enough money I start making my trainlines and connect the cities and industries and than I don't care wheter the lines have a negative income when the industry isn't producing a lot of goods, I then make my network as beautifull as I can...

° Two: When I want to make it "not that easy" in the beginning I start with a coalline or a wheat/livestock line, which gives me a lot of money but not as fast as the plaine line3

° Three: I start with busses/trams and I slowly devellop my trainnetwork.

Bottomline of my post is that I think it's TOO EASY to gain money in this game so I started to make my games more Eye-candy bases than efficiency based, but I try and make the game a combination of both...

[leno4]

Coal by a mile

[Chrill]

If multiplayer, I always look for coal at it makes me money.

If I am playing singleplayer, I am not in it for making money. Moneymaking in Transport Tycoon is a dull timewaste. I simply try to build efficient stations and evolve my knowledge for how to build good systems. I honestly cheat my way to a s*** of cash and just expand. Passengers all way through. Why bother about anything else? It's the way I find most fun

[Wolfie276]

i always start with coal when gras otherwise i start with diamonds, food/fruit/grain OR i start with cola in candy land

[Purno]

I prefer passenger networks, so I usually start with that, unless I know it's barely profitable. I usually do a coal line for the profit.

[Solenoid]

Usually I start with some cargo, the main problem with passengers being the city growth and the decreasing potential expansion space. Passengers are always a good way to make the world more realistic, but money wise it's not needed since later on you've got so much you can nuke the entire map anyway.

When I first start I make a 2 way track to transport cargo which I expand and connect to a bigger network later on.

[smithdwsn]

I am starting with Cargo Rail.
This is the best way!

[Fastphil]

Most times I'll start with oil or coal. I did one that I started with a couple airports in the biggest cities, but I kinda lost interest in that map, so I can't remember if it was making money or not.

[Chris]

Passanger rail all the way.