Transport Tycoon Forums

For the past three game years Green Victory has been working on a coal run from an ideal spot (between two productive mines).
But in its time period,the underpowered available equipment is reduced to 1 mph taking laden trains uphill.
Stronger engines will be available soon...but loading-station ratings are hard to keep up and productivity has flagged.
Is it best to have really low ambitions while the engines are weak,and let the mines fade away?

Either shorten the trains, or add second/third engines to each trains, assuming you don't want to change the weight multiplier and slope steepness settings, which are really killing these early engines.

Consider tunnels or going around that hill. Those are steep slopes even 100 years later. I rarely place a slope within 5 tiles of another slope.

There wasn't money for tunnels,but I cut a ravine to reduce the up-slope.Everyone's been saying trains should be max length...I had not considered double-heading,which may actually be economical given the much higher running costs of the alternative engines...I am thinking that when the Goods engine comes out and reaches peak reliability I can use it to replace the Long Boilers and Tanks.(Now 6 trains in the group).

Double-heading has helped,there and on a passenger line nearby that also had the 1mph problem.

Ha, just brutally straight up the mountain eh?

You can do it with one engine too for the passengers train (as the cargo is not so heavy), just by adding some track: Put your signals at some distance from the next slope, so a stopped train has room to make some speed (although it doesn't seem really needed here).
I only changed the track upward, as openttd allows you to go straight down without danger for derailment.

You can of course change the down track too in a similar way, so it looks more realistic.

Do the cost of the additional infrastructure for the long roundabout route and the resulting loss of income for the slower passenger arrival allow for a net gain when offset by not buying another locomotive?

I don't know, but it looks great. Double steam engines also look great though, so it's a tough choice

Infra structure costs raise very rapidly as your company grows, so at some point I guess just more engine power will be cheaper.


Note that you only get this zig-zag pattern due to the steep hill. In your coal example, you can go around the mountain without zig zag tracks.
It's a little longer, but not that much.
(I tried it, but the load is too big, you also need shorter trains there.)

The cut through the mountain made the coal line work,along with the new Goods engine (my first train had a lone Long Boiler).

If you REALLY want to see an early railroad constrained by weak equipment,see attached game save as of the day of Queen Victoria's accession...the other save,as of the day of her death,shows how the options changed in her time...

There is no need to go up and down over mountains by Queen Victoria, the two stations are just a few levels different in height, so it can be a mostly level journey.

The track around the mountain looks similar in length, the track around the valley is a bit longer, due to the large bend next to the town. You can make it considerably shorter by raising some land a level, but I prefer to play around land obstacles.

That last save crashes with a message about an unreferenced town name?

Ugh, no idea

I'll attach a picture instead.

Edit: I left your tracks as they were, so you should be able to use those for reference.

The advance in equipment technology has provided Green Victory RR with the tools it needs...now 8 trains in the group,the newest with two-bay hoppers.
Just in case anyone wanted to see an update of how things had gone on the "Coal Mine Run" from Nantditch Mines.

See the "Financial Effect of Start Year" topic for another updated condition of the Coal Mine Run,now 16 trains with ro-ro loading.Double-heading is finally becoming obsolete,with the new standard Texas engine hauling 50-foot gondolas now set to replace the still-preponderant double-Freight-engine set-up.

The Coal Mine Run,after over 165 years of operation,has now traded its Brush 92s for maglevs.
The tools are there!

Turns out the Green Victory Railroad's problem with early steam engines can be experienced even by 1970s electric engines of much greater power,if the train is heavy enough...get a load (ahem) of Train 12's predicament.
To some extent I "overbuilt" this line,laying it out fully double-tracked though there are currently only two trains and that's been enough to make sure a train is always loading (the mine was more productive when I started building than it has ever been since the beginning of service).But perhaps I've gone overboard embracing the capacity offered by high-payload cars...I am not sure which of the numerous engines available might work better than the GG1,or if double-heading is unavoidable...but a higher freight multiplier and the train would basically be just as if it had no wheels.Would a larger number of shorter trains be better?

Cash however makes up for the lack of other tools.I've now essentially eliminated up-slopes entirely from the ore-delivery side of that route.Cost millions but works.