Station and City Layout

[Sassums]

Anyone have any guides on where to place train stations in relation to the cities they are connected to? A lot of the videos i see have the stations outside of town and was curious what the benefit was

[Tsubame ⭐]

The closer the stations are to the places the stations are to serve, the more people will want to use, and consequentially, the higher the city growth is going to be.

That being said, it can be expensive to demolish a lot of stuff, especially if the land price is very high.

So it comes down to player judgement. If you are playing on for-profit playthrough, and money is a huge issue, then it would be probably be better to build the station in the suburb, and let the city grow towards the station. You can certainly rebuild everything when you have more money.

If cash is not an issue - as in a No Costs playthrough - then usually it would be better to place it right at the city center, at or around where the city name hovers in the map. Everything will just be rebuilt after anyway.

[The Great Chili Shaker]

Building stations farther away from cities can help to keep city pollution lower. Trains can be a major source Pollution in a city and can reduce city growth.

[Tsubame ⭐]

Originally posted by The Great Chili Shaker:

Building stations farther away from cities can help to keep city pollution lower. Trains can be a major source Pollution in a city and can reduce city growth.

The impact from emissions is usually overweighted by the improved desirability from a station right next door, plus, the intracity bus and tram traffic required to service a station in the suburbs also generate emissions of their own.

[nordstern]

Is this really relevant? I thought if i have enough busses to carry the people to the station, they will use it. Yes, busses are not profitable, but they do only bring the people.. the trains are making the money.

[djdavies]

If your cities grow they will eventually get to your stations even building just outside the city too.

[larry_roberts]

I generally prefer to build near residential areas (but this does have the adverse effect of pollution, which impact residents more than industrial or commercial areas). I would definitely not put an Airport close to the centre of a city. But, by building the railway station close to the centre of the city (the city name is where the centre of the city is) people can walk to the station, if you build outside the city you will still get pollution from the vehicles transporting goods/people to/from the centre of the city, so I always build in the centre of the city (even if I have to knock down buildings and roads to do it).

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2172554325

Buses can be profitable, even within a town area:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2277694098

[mrtree]

The initial layout of most cities tend to look like an incomplete grid or a figure 8, with at least one quadrant not filled in. I tend to place my train station along a diagonal across this blank quadrant, so that it can be relatively close to the center but still avoid bulldozing town buildings as much as possible. I also always situate a truck stop nearby, so that I can swap loads from truck to train.

To make all this work, I create my own "Railroad Avenue" city street that is on the diagonal parallel to my station, which is something that happens in real cities all the time, too. In the real world, the train tracks follow topography more than the street grid does, so you often end up with tracks at an angle to the primary urban grid.

[lemming3k]

If you can build it while a town is still small enough you can get it pretty central anyway. You may want to favour the non-residential side since you should start with cargo and emissions only effects residential.
Don't demolish all of one building type ie commercial though.

Really it doesn't make a lot of difference. The cost to set up outside of town can be more (or less) depending on how much real estate you're demolishing to build in town and how many connections you need to ferry cargo/people into the centre. Eventually the emissions will likely be the same anyway as well since even a central station will need some feeder lines from the suburbs and could overlap more.
End of the day towns grow, and you'll need to asses if it's a terminus or through station as this will affect placement as well. You may want just a basic setup early on, then late game try sinking the station down so bridging roads over it is easier. Or the opposite.

[Sassums]

Sorry I guess I should’ve been more specific - the guide videos I’ve seen seem to have train stations on the outskirts of town and then busses/trucks bring all the goods and people in.

I did not however think about placing passenger rail in the center of town to alleviate the need for some bud stops.

Do most people let the cities build themselves or do they turn that function off and build roads where they want the cities to go?

[larry_roberts]

Some of the best videos I have seen are by bballjo (below), I let cities build themselves, of course you are influencing growth by the cargo and passenger connections you make to them, and I tend to add streets to cities to help them grow.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xZUW4qYumo

[TheGreenFellow]

It can be optimal to place your train station nearest to the Industrial sector of the city and opposite from your residential area - that will prevent you suffering noise pollution penalties. I'm not 100% on whether commercial does have the penalty in addition to residential.

[Vimpster]

Originally posted by TheGreenFellow:

I'm not 100% on whether commercial does have the penalty in addition to residential.

It is just the residential. You can tell with the emission overlay on as only the residential buildings are colored.

[TheGreenFellow]

Originally posted by Vimpster:

It is just the residential. You can tell with the emission overlay on as only the residential buildings are colored.

Ah, good shout, thanks

[Sassums]

Does it have an adverse effect building a passenger rail station on the residential side of the city or is it better to put it on the industrial side and bus them around town

[Vimpster]

Originally posted by Sassums:

Does it have an adverse effect building a passenger rail station on the residential side of the city or is it better to put it on the industrial side and bus them around town

There are pros and cons. As someone else stated keeping stations away from the residential keeps the emissions down where they matter but it means you have to bus/tram them over to the train station.