Trains and profit?

[alexanderzero]

Hey everyone. I've been looking at some pretty inspiring screenshots of people with mega train stations that pull in huge profits and stuff. Whenever I try this though, I have to send my trains pretty far and wide to collect enough cargo to fill up the station to it's full potential. I usually get many trains that get a negative profit. Also, is there any way to profitably transfer oil from the middle of the map to the refineries on the edges?

Once my trains go too far they get very little profit and sometimes even negative. What is the max distance that a train can go and pull a good profit? How do people get such huge stations without having trains that get negative profit?

EDIT: Also, are transfer stations useful? I know some people like to transfer everything to one station. What is the reason for doing this? How is profit calculated for trains that only transfer, but never actually deliver good and get paid?

[Sarin]

Hello,
It's prolly because you either use too slow engines, too few carriages or you have too twisted lines. Speed is very important.

[CommanderZ]

EDIT: Also, are transfer stations useful? I know some people like to transfer everything to one station. What is the reason for doing this? How is profit calculated for trains that only transfer, but never actually deliver good and get paid?

If you set the order to "Transfer and leave empty" instead of simple "Unload", trains will get paid for the part of the route they have travelled.

[nezzybaby]

There could be a lot of reasons for this, I will try to address as many as i can think of.

The further a train goes the more it will make. However if the journey takes more than a year then it will only be in profit every other year. This will make it appear you are losing money even though you are not. This can be solved by using faster engines, or just ignored.

If your trains are not full of cargo they will not make any money. Whenever i play i have trains waiting for full load at one station, and delivering to a destination. Make enough trains so that when the first one returns the last one is just about to leave.

Transfer stations are only really useful if you are changing the mode of transport. For example taking valuables from a bank to a train station using road vehicles. When using transfer orders it will again appear that some vehicles are losing money and the profit is only being made by the last vehicle in the route. Just ignore this.

It sounds like you are making a train go to a few different stations to pick up the cargo, this is not a good idea. Have a train (or more) for each station, and use full load order. If the train has to travel to many different stations the journey will take longer than for a direct route and you will lose money.

I hope this helps.

[iseedeadpeople]

Hi


You might also want to use the feeder stations. make 1 big station in the center and have small trains transfer the cargo there by the quickest road, then have a big long heavy lifter take all the cargo from there to the destination, that what i did, and it pays out pretty well: you dont have a
"pacific coal express" running through all the small stations loosing time, and money.

BTW it works with the passanger stations pretty well also, personally I have 6 bus stations and 4 "metro rail" stations moving people from all over the city to the Central Station, also I use it if a mega-station is standing between 2 large cities...

[Laukei]

I have a question related to trains and profit, though not over long distances: rather, over short ones. I thought I'd ask here rather than start a new thread on almost exactly the same topic.

I have trains loading and transfer-unloading wood from feeder stations to a central site. From there, it is transported across the sea via cargo ship, where it is transferred to another train station. A large train then moves the wood 20-odd squares to the sawmill. My cargo ships make ~£40k per drop, and my feeder trains make ~£30k. The final train makes anything from £9000 loss to tens of thousands per trip.

What part of the journey is the most likely cause of this loss? The short distance travelled by the final train, or the ships going slowly?

NB: I realise that while the final train makes a loss the journey as a whole is profitable, I just don't like having trains making losses.

Laukei

[alexanderzero]

Thanks for the replies guys, they are giving a lot of insight. I'll be sure to take a look at the profit of my long distance trains over time (if I can find a chart). I imagine some of them make trips that take over a year. I do use the full load feature and have one train per station (or two, for farms) already. Also I'll try using the "transfer and leave empty" feature for any transfer stations that I might make later on. ^_^

[Rainer]

Hi everyone,

please also see my post on feeders

cu
Rainer

[audigex]

Ideally you want a train to arrive just when the station has enough cargo for its capacity. If you have more than one train-load at the station at time, you don't have enough trains... if you have a train sat waiting, you have too many.

A few trains (passengers/mail/valuables) depend on time, try something like coal and you'll have longer.

Always start with coal, on the longest route you can afford to build. This gives more time for the coal to build up between visits, and maximum profits.

If you have a train with lots of stations with only a few people from each, then set the orders to "transfer and full load" at each station apart from the ones at each end... they make more money that way (since each passenger travels more than one station). Then when the stations get more full let the train unload halfway, then every other station, then every station.

[Flamelord]

Uh, you don't want cargo sitting around. Always having a train loading keeps your transport rates up, which (IIRC) causes industry production to increase faster. So, you always want one train loading, not none.

[alexanderzero]

I am not worried about negative profit any more, but I have had a little problem with a few trains (namely all of my oil trains). So factories and farms and stuff can go out of business if you don't transport anything to them. They announce "imminent closure." First of all, can this be turned off via any plugin? Also, I've had oil wells and I think one forest go out of business while I had a train loading from them. Why does this happen?

[audigex]

Sometimes it's because you build too slowly.

Personally I think that if you build a station nearby, you should get a few months to start servicing it before it goes bankrupt.

[Flamelord]

Land-based oil wells eventually just run dry. I don't think there's anything you can do about it.