How to build a realistic railway network step by step.
I read here and there in the forum questions about how to create a realistic railway network with OTTD. Now I desire to write a simple step by step tutorial about how to build a realistic railway network. Of course, my way cannot be defined the right way to play OTTD, it's just my way: everyone is free to play and enjoy the game as he/she wants
.
Step 0: some advices before to start to play
Too often I see OTTD games full of four track railway lines but with few trains running on them. In real life the proportion in reversed: often there are too much trains and too few tracks as rail infrastructure is very expensive to build and maintain. To be closer to the reality I suggest to use pb_build.grf that increases building costs forcing you to place few tracks. Of course few tracks can jam quite often; this was a big problem before PBS as after a while trains reversed in front of red signals and went lost. Now with PBS it's possible to disable this typing in the console "patch pf.wait_for_pbs_path 255": from this moment all trains wait in front of red signals until they have a free path. Remember that this works only with PBS signals, so don't use anymore the old block signals. Finally, remeber also in the difficulty setting to set train reversing at end of line and at stations: more realism and more flexibility!
Step 1: the first railway
I've just started to play on my scenario "Bay Minette"
available here, so I use this game to show you this tutorial. The good ol' traditional way to start a TT game is coal. In the northern corner of my scenario there is an important coal field called "Powder River Basin"
; there is nothing easier than to start there, linking one of the coal mines with the power plant. I placed a single-track station close to the mine and another single-track one adiacent to the power plant. Then I linked them with a track avoiding narrow bends, see next image:
- From left:
1) minimum mainline radius
2) minimum radius for secondary tracks or for mainline in mountain areas
3) to use only if there is no other possibility - bends.png (12.53 KiB) Viewed 4610 times
In OTTD trains don't shunt; in reality at terminals the locomotive runs around the train to come back, so stations has or a shunting loco or a passing loop. To resemble as closer as possible the real life I chose to build runaround tracks at both termini; these tracks will become also very useful if a second train will start to run on this line. Now let's go to see how I built the stations.
- Point Clear Mines station. See the runaround track BEFORE the mine. The layout will not change if a second train will be added to the line (i.e. I'll not add a second track to the mining station) as it isn't good to load two trains together as they will take more time to become full.
- 1903-PointClearMines.png (104.29 KiB) Viewed 4618 times
- Powder River Power Co. station. As here train must unload only, I built the runaround around PRPCo. If a second train will be added I'll put a second track to the station, too, allowing two trains unloading simultaneously.
- 1903-PRPCo.png (112.47 KiB) Viewed 4616 times
Dont' forget to give names and numbers. In this game I'm using both the Canadian and US trainset as I want to simulate more railroad companies although I'll run them under the same player. I give to this first line a fictional but plausible name: Powder River Railroad (PRRR); I also assing a number to the locomotive calling her PRRR 1. Next locos will be PRRR 2, PRRR 3, etc.
) and to replace route H with a second S-Bahn line (route S2) while route M is now bus operated avoiding the Siemensstraße level crossing. You can spot the two articulated buses in service on route M and the six-car train that shuttles along route S2. Somewhere the old tram tracks are still in place but the overhead has been completely removed.
). Now let's go to see the latest news.
