2 Engine worth it

[BaoBaB]

I find that sometime you need an extra push so i put a second engine , but i'm itching for a third one for some route that have steep angles. Would it be an over kill and a waste i'm not sure any thoughts. Thanks for your time.

[Autocoach]

There is no way to answer this question . You can check the power rating on a train and judge for yourself . This one can only reach 12mph and it will take 27 minutes to do so on the flat . I think 'not enough power' means the train won't be able to maintain any speed except dead slow on a long enough up slope.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2251987313

[General Tso]

I play sandbox most of the time so I'm not 100% certain that this is true all of the time. But as long as there's not a problem with congestion. I usually find that it's better to have a larger number of shorter single engine trains than a smaller number of longer multi engine trains.

[Forkboy222]

Yes, worth it. Long trains with multiple engines is the way to go.

[General Tso]

Making long trains with multiple engines is definitely fun. And I do it often. But do you actually make more money doing it that way?

[Forkboy222]

Originally posted by General Tso:

Making long trains with multiple engines is definitely fun. And I do it often. But do you actually make more money doing it that way?

Longer trains maximize station utilization and make it easier to manage multiple trains on a single track, so I think they do help make more money that way.

[Tarazed]

From my experiments a while back, there's no difference in top speeds, acceleration and rate on a line between having multiple trains on it and combining them all into a single train. For example, there's no theoretical difference between having 3 trains on a line each with 1 locomotive and 5 wagons and a single train with 3 locomotives and 15 wagons.

In practice, the single train will work no worse than the 3 train case and may work better because it'll never have to wait at a signal for one of the other two. Also in early game it means that you don't need to add passing loops or double track saving a bit of cash to expand elsewhere.

[bballjo]

Originally posted by Tarazed:

From my experiments a while back, there's no difference in top speeds, acceleration and rate on a line between having multiple trains on it and combining them all into a single train. For example, there's no theoretical difference between having 3 trains on a line each with 1 locomotive and 5 wagons and a single train with 3 locomotives and 15 wagons.

In practice, the single train will work no worse than the 3 train case and may work better because it'll never have to wait at a signal for one of the other two. Also in early game it means that you don't need to add passing loops or double track saving a bit of cash to expand elsewhere.

True, but you are ignoring the frequency. If the line is just a single point to point, with a supplier and consumer on each end that use 100% of the transported items, then yes, 3 short trains vs 1 long train makes no difference, but once you add more pieces it matters...if your line has a huge rate but 30min frequency, then you will end up having everyone wait on the train to arrive, which in turn will probably cause other congestion in addition to the idle money spend while they are waiting. Having 3 short trains in this case would mean everything keeps running without having to wait for too long...

Your other piece, yes combining trains can help with your line congestion, but you can also just add more signals.

In the end I think huge trains look terrific, but you actually need a reason to use them, otherwise they turn into bottlenecks of your network.

One awesome use for huge trains is supplying a steel mill...double coal and iron will allow you to haul a lot of goods that can be used right away, and shouldn't cause much traffic at that end.

[Nolivfr]

I don't understand the frequency thing, I play with only one train for each basic source but pax, (with the right number of wagons matching the production) and the secondary production sites are never waiting for raw products, they never idle.
I use trains with single or multiple units, depending on the traction rating. I never use trains that go above 120kmh/80mph for freight,

[Forkboy222]

Originally posted by Nolivfr:

I don't understand the frequency thing

Basically, if the time between trains is too long, you could end up with empty delivery trucks sitting around waiting for the train deliveries which wastes money. Fix for this is to have larger truck depots that can hold enough product to keep the trucks busy until the next train delivery.

[Forkboy222]

Originally posted by Tarazed:

For example, there's no theoretical difference between having 3 trains on a line each with 1 locomotive and 5 wagons and a single train with 3 locomotives and 15 wagons.

There is if you factor in the time required for train to enter/leave a station. In other words, it will take more time for 5 short trains to enter/leave a station than it will for one long train. For example, I have one line that has 8 trains, each with 40 cargo wagons that stops at 4 different stations. If I were to break that up into 32 trains, each with 10 cargo wagons, would be chaos on the line, and there is no way the stations could handle the traffic.

[bballjo]

Originally posted by Nolivfr:

I don't understand the frequency thing, I play with only one train for each basic source but pax, (with the right number of wagons matching the production) and the secondary production sites are never waiting for raw products, they never idle.
I use trains with single or multiple units, depending on the traction rating. I never use trains that go above 120kmh/80mph for freight,

I'm not talking about the production sites...when you have a POINT TO POINT CONNECTION where 100% of items are used then there is no issue. I'm talking about additional connections after the point to point connection.

Simple example: supply everything to a food factory, at 100%, so ship in 800 units of crops, you get 400 units food. Now transport the 400 units of food with 1 train that matches that output...if you take it to a station, that covers a city that requires at least 400 units you a golden, all food will be used right away, no other transport required. However, if you have 4 different cities requiring 100 units food each, then you will either have to drop of in each city with the train and cover as much as you can OR you need to employ trucks for the next part of the delivery. If you only have 1 train transporting everything, then you could drop of 400 units at once at a truck stop...even at max truck stop length this could max out the terminals and you will loose goods. Also, if your truck stop is close to the cities you may have only a short trip, which means you would use only a small number of trucks, which means most of the dropped of food will stay on the platform for longer, which could mean you loose more products. You can avoid that by increasing your trucks, but then they would be empty for longer, or until the train arrives again, but more trucks will mean more traffic, which means clogged roads.

If you use more trains, and with that increase your frequency, you will only drop of smaller amounts that are easier to handle in the above, since you then loose less products you will make more profit.

This is simplified, every city needs at least 2 products, so the sample above gets more complicated as you add products.

Ergo there are good reasons to use huge train capacity, but you can't ignore the frequency

[Nolivfr]

Originally posted by Forkboy222:

Originally posted by Nolivfr:

I don't understand the frequency thing

Basically, if the time between trains is too long, you could end up with empty delivery trucks sitting around waiting which wastes money. Fix for this is to have larger truck depots that can hold enough product to keep the trucks busy until the next train delivery.

Yes, I know that, but if I have high frequency it can also mean that I'm losing money (empty vehicules)

[Nolivfr]

Originally posted by bballjo:

Originally posted by Nolivfr:

I don't understand the frequency thing, I play with only one train for each basic source but pax, (with the right number of wagons matching the production) and the secondary production sites are never waiting for raw products, they never idle.
I use trains with single or multiple units, depending on the traction rating. I never use trains that go above 120kmh/80mph for freight,

I'm not talking about the production sites...when you have a POINT TO POINT CONNECTION where 100% of items are used then there is no issue. I'm talking about additional connections after the point to point connection.

Simple example: supply everything to a food factory, at 100%, so ship in 800 units of crops, you get 400 units food. Now transport the 400 units of food with 1 train that matches that output...if you take it to a station, that covers a city that requires at least 400 units you a golden, all food will be used right away, no other transport required. However, if you have 4 different cities requiring 100 units food each, then you will either have to drop of in each city with the train and cover as much as you can OR you need to employ trucks for the next part of the delivery. If you only have 1 train transporting everything, then you could drop of 400 units at once at a truck stop...even at max truck stop length this could max out the terminals and you will loose goods. Also, if your truck stop is close to the cities you may have only a short trip, which means you would use only a small number of trucks, which means most of the dropped of food will stay on the platform for longer, which could mean you loose more products. You can avoid that by increasing your trucks, but then they would be empty for longer, or until the train arrives again, but more trucks will mean more traffic, which means clogged roads.

If you use more trains, and with that increase your frequency, you will only drop of smaller amounts that are easier to handle in the above, since you then loose less products you will make more profit.

This is simplified, every city needs at least 2 products, so the sample above gets more complicated as you add products.

Ergo there are good reasons to use huge train capacity, but you can't ignore the frequency

For final deliveries, I don't use big trains and also use only one train per city or one train for multiple cities sharing the same demand.
My cities' depots are always next to the industrial or commercial zone, hence I never lose goods. I also don't use trucks, too small for multiple stops in town, I use cargo trams.
I never thought of maxing the cities demand, I will try next time.

[Tarazed]

Originally posted by bballjo:

True, but you are ignoring the frequency.

Correct, I ignored a lot of things, and I thought I highlighted this by the use of the word 'theoretical'. For example, if you're doing a there-and-back journey, I ignored the fact that reversing at each station is instantaneous and when the longer train flips, it starts the return journey slightly closer to the next destination than a shorter train does.

My post was just to help the OP with a simplified example of running with multi-locomotive trains. Yes, there are other considerations, but they are usually relatively small in effect and are often specific to the particular situation.

[bballjo]

Originally posted by Tarazed:

Originally posted by bballjo:

True, but you are ignoring the frequency.

Correct, I ignored a lot of things, and I thought I highlighted this by the use of the word 'theoretical'. For example, if you're doing a there-and-back journey, I ignored the fact that reversing at each station is instantaneous and when the longer train flips, it starts the return journey slightly closer to the next destination than a shorter train does.

My post was just to help the OP with a simplified example of running with multi-locomotive trains. Yes, there are other considerations, but they are usually relatively small in effect and are often specific to the particular situation.

Fair.