Station/dock combinations that can be two units high

[MProoveIt]

What I would like to be able to do is create iron ore/taconite pellet docks for railcars/ships such as exist on the Great Lakes in North America.

The most popular type, the stub-ended docks such as currently exist at:
Duluth, Minnesota,
Two Harbors, Minnesota
Marquette, Michigan

Similar docks existed at many other locations on the Great Lakes but are no longer in use.

Docks at these locations had 2 or more tracks on top over pockets (hopper bins) that fed chutes that directed material directly into vessel holds.

But also, it would be nice to create the type of continuous dumping dock as exists at Taconite Harbor, Minnesota, which was used by Erie Mining Co. (see https://th.bing.com/th/id/R.601e5ae704c ... ImgRaw&r=0)

This dock allowed for dumping ore cars on the move into storage bins, then conveyors would be extended over the hatches on the arriving vessels.

Would these dock types even be possible in OpenTTD? Is it even feasible to create this functionality in OpenTTD (or something similar, like SimuTrans)?

If these are feasible with the current code, I'm interested in learning what I need to know to create these in a NewGRF.

[kamnet]

Won't be able to do anything exactly like that, it's just not something that the game could currently handle. Currently the game has no way to implement elevated rails and stations that raise up over the land.

What a person MIGHT be able to do is create an object that looks like the hopper bins that could overlap a land tile next to it, and then put a station on top of that piece of land, and then connect a bridge to it. It would kinda/sorta simulate it. You'd still need a regular dock tile for the ship to pull up to, though. The sprites would have to be drawn pretty elaborately in order to pull off the realistic effect.

This is a very rough and badly drawn example, but you kinda get what I mean.

[MProoveIt]

Thanks for taking the time to mock this up and explain it. I've played the game off and on since TTD came out originally (and original Railroad Tycoon before that) and I really appreciate the OpenTTD community.

It's good to know how the game's limitations make this essentially impractical.

I wonder if there are any similar games are not limited in these ways such that these dock types would be practical, as I'd like to one day digitally model some of these operations. I have done some actual railroad modeling, but the scale of some things I'd like to model are just too large for anything but digital.