Is multiple short trains or fewer long trains better?

[Gnasty Gnorc]

Doing an 1860 start, so I have the low end trains rightnow. I'm up to 1875, so I have the 2-8-0 available, but I'm curious as to if it's better to run multiple smaller trains for deliver to production facilities, say grain to food factories, or if it's better to have just 2-3 very long trains with an extra lower end engine for the HP.

Thanks.

[Autocoach]

When you are counting the pennies in early game longer trains make sense as you need less tracks or fewer passing loops - full double track not required. Double heading is always an option of course.

[Gnasty Gnorc]

Originally posted by Autocoach:

When you are counting the pennies in early game longer trains make sense as you need less tracks or fewer passing loops - full double track not required. Double heading is always an option of course.

I'm at a point now where I've just paid off all 10 million I borrowed, just about to hit 1900. I have found that it seems early on longer trains are better. Is that something that doesn't really matter as you get further along and just have tons of money to play with?

[joeball123]

Generally speaking, I prefer to run a small number of large trains instead of a large number of small trains, as this tends to produce less traffic on the rail lines and at the stations. Longer trains are also potentially more cost-effective, though this is perhaps not as true in-game as in reality since locomotive running costs within the game are strongly correlated with engine power so there's not as much of a difference between running a single powerful locomotive pulling twenty wagons and running two weaker locomotives that each pull ten wagons as might be expected.

It also bears mentioning that passenger and freight car operating expenses are dependent on the rated speed of the car whereas passenger and freight fares are dependent on the rated speed of the consist and locomotive running costs are largely a function of rated power, so it's usually better to run consists whose speeds are wagon-limited rather than consists whose speeds are locomotive-limited. The 2-8-0 Consolidation is the first locomotive in the vanilla American vehicle set which can achieve the 50km/h rated speed of the starter passenger and freight cars, so it's normally a better option than either the 4-4-0 General or the Baldwin's Six-Wheels, with the only exception being for consists that are too light to really justify using the more powerful locomotive. Freight trains can almost always be made big enough to justify using a Consolidation; passenger trains are somewhat more iffy, but if you have enough demand that you can fill four or five of the starter Passenger Cars then it's probably reasonably safe to switch over to Consolidations there as well. Consists pulled by more powerful locomotives also tend to handle slopes better, at least within certain limits, so something like the 2-6-0 Mogul or the Ten-Wheeler can in practice be a better freight locomotive than the 2-8-0 Consolidation despite the speeds of freight trains pulled by any of these three locomotives nominally being wagon-limited until the turn of the century despite it nominally being about as efficient to use one Ten-Wheeler to pull ~40 freight cars or a Mogul to pull ~30 freight cars as it is to use a Consolidation to pull ~20, in large part because shaving N cars off the consist so that it can handle a slope better has a bigger impact on the income:expense ratio for the smaller consist pulled by the Consolidation than on the larger consists pulled by the Mogul or the Ten-Wheeler.

[Gnasty Gnorc]

Originally posted by joeball123:

Generally speaking, I prefer to run a small number of large trains instead of a large number of small trains, as this tends to produce less traffic on the rail lines and at the stations. Longer trains are also potentially more cost-effective, though this is perhaps not as true in-game as in reality since locomotive running costs within the game are strongly correlated with engine power so there's not as much of a difference between running a single powerful locomotive pulling twenty wagons and running two weaker locomotives that each pull ten wagons as might be expected.

It also bears mentioning that passenger and freight car operating expenses are dependent on the rated speed of the car whereas passenger and freight fares are dependent on the rated speed of the consist and locomotive running costs are largely a function of rated power, so it's usually better to run consists whose speeds are wagon-limited rather than consists whose speeds are locomotive-limited. The 2-8-0 Consolidation is the first locomotive in the vanilla American vehicle set which can achieve the 50km/h rated speed of the starter passenger and freight cars, so it's normally a better option than either the 4-4-0 General or the Baldwin's Six-Wheels, with the only exception being for consists that are too light to really justify using the more powerful locomotive. Freight trains can almost always be made big enough to justify using a Consolidation; passenger trains are somewhat more iffy, but if you have enough demand that you can fill four or five of the starter Passenger Cars then it's probably reasonably safe to switch over to Consolidations there as well.

appreciate the thorough input, thank you!

[joeball123]

One other factor to consider when deciding between longer and shorter trains is what's happening to the cargo when you drop it off. If you're delivering directly to a consumer, it probably doesn't matter, but if you're transferring it to one or more other lines then you need to ask whether or not the station(s) hosting the other line(s) can reasonably accept all of the cargo that you might deliver at any given time. A station can only provide as much lossless cargo storage for a single line as one platform can hold, plus however much of the shared storage from station buildings is available, and it can be pretty easy to overwhelm that, especially when transferring from a high-capacity low-frequency service - like a large train - to a high-frequency low-capacity service - like the trucks or wagons you might be using for local distribution in a town. This can also be an issue when you have multiple lines making transfers at the same location, because a couple of big deliveries that arrive before "enough" stuff gets shipped out can overwhelm even fairly generous amounts of station-storage (especially at truck stations, both because they often don't have that much space for station buildings and because the platforms and station buildings themselves don't provide that much storage) or when multiple lines picking something up from the station share a primary platform.

If you really don't want any goods getting 'lost,' you may also need to consider this at stations where a line both picks up and drops off cargo, especially if you're sharing platforms, as unloading needs to be completed before loading can begin and thus if the line that both picks up and drops off cargo is transferring cargo to another line at the same station there is a brief period of time when the total amount of cargo that needs to be stored at the station is (everything that you just dropped off) + (everything you're about to pick up) + (anything else at the station).

[numbat]

One thing to consider is that your engine is pure cost. It doesn't generate any income at all. The wagons generate the income. So, the more wagons that your engine is pulling, the more profit (or loss) that you can generate. Effectively, you're distributing the cost of the engine across more wagons, so each wagon has to pay a smaller percentage toward the engine.

So, I prefer to have the longest trains I can manage, which means I have the smallest number of engines required and hence I reduce my expenses.

However, in the early game I will often split those into two. Remember, a 2 engine 20 car goods train will generate the same profit (or loss) as two single engine, 10 car goods trains (assuming same engines/wagons). In the early game, it's easier to purchase them individually, and I am getting income twice as often. It's also cheaper to build shorter stations, so I often save by building a smaller station initially, then expand it as funds come to hand.

Once I get into a profitable situation I will then combine the two smaller trains, generally when it's time to do their first upgrade.

Cheers,
Chris.

[joeball123]

Originally posted by numbat:

One thing to consider is that your engine is pure cost. It doesn't generate any income at all. The wagons generate the income. So, the more wagons that your engine is pulling, the more profit (or loss) that you can generate. Effectively, you're distributing the cost of the engine across more wagons, so each wagon has to pay a smaller percentage toward the engine.

This is only somewhat true. The cost of a locomotive correlates very strongly with the engine power while the wagons and cargo usually account for a significant majority of a consist's total weight, so consists with similar power:weight ratios (and thus similar performance profiles) but dissimilar locomotives generally end up being very close to one another in cost per unit cargo and thus, all else being equal, net profitability.

Putting numbers to the example I used earlier, for instance:
- Consolidation with 20 of the 19th Century American boxcars: 284kW, 140 units of cargo, 250t (empty); 1.13 kW/t, $6081/cargo per month.
- Mogul with 30 of the 19th Century American boxcars: 400kW, 210 units of cargo, 422t (empty); 0.94 kW/t, $6010/cargo per month.
- Ten Wheeler with 40 of the 19th Century American boxcars: 550kW, 280 units of cargo, 520t (empty); 1.06 kW/t, $6068/cargo per month.

All of these are wagon-limited consists, insofar as theoretical top speed is concerned, and they're all pulling the same type of wagon, so they all have a top speed of 50km/h and thus the same gross income per unit of cargo delivered; all of them have fairly similar power:weight ratios, so they'll have fairly similar performance profiles; and all of them have about the same operating cost per unit of cargo capacity. As such, you'll have about the same throughput and net profit regardless of whether you're running three Ten Wheelers each hauling 40 boxcars, four Moguls pulling 30 boxcars apiece, or six Consolidations with 20 boxcars each.

[Tsubame ⭐]

For profit does not really matter.

If you are trying to use your existing infrastructiure while avoiding building new supporting infrastructure - i.e. dedicated tracks for every line, quadruple tracks, etc. - then longer consists and lower frequency would be the better choice.

If you want to spread delivery of cargo more evenly over time, then higher frequency would be better.

[numbat]

@joeball123, thanks for those figures, very interesting indeed.

In each of those examples you list, I see you have maximised the number of wagons per engine, which was the point I was trying to make (obviously very badly :-) )

Cheers,
Chris.

[Zapp]

Originally posted by numbat:

One thing to consider is that your engine is pure cost. It doesn't generate any income at all. The wagons generate the income. So, the more wagons that your engine is pulling, the more profit (or loss) that you can generate. Effectively, you're distributing the cost of the engine across more wagons, so each wagon has to pay a smaller percentage toward the engine.

Well, while that thinking is sound in theory, in this game, the cost of engines is directly connected to the engine's performance level.

More horsepower (or kW guess) = more expensive to purchase and run.

Sadly, there is no notion of "this engine is more expensive per kW than that one". There is no such thing as an "efficient" engine.

This means the only thing relevant for the game (ignoring speed for the moment) is:

A shorter engine is somewhat preferable than a longer engine, assuming both have the same statistics. You will find that using several old locomotives can match the power output of a single more modern engine, except the total length of the old locos is longer than the one modern loco.

In reality older model of locos are phased out due to lower efficiency, lack of spare replacement parts and a thousand other factors. The game cares about none of that and you can run your modern trains using steam engines from 1890 just fine.

But length has a relatively small impact on profitability!

Yes, a short train (that still hauls the same amount of cargo) is to be preferred - building longer stations cost money and take up space. Longer trains take longer to clear switches and crossings.

But this still remains marginal savings at best.

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Instead the main reason to run few long trains instead of many short ones is: logistics. Many trains saturate your lines. A train that has to wait for another train is a train that is losing money by not running at full speed.

So yes you should try to run few long trains, but not primarily because the loco takes up space in the train.

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Obviously old locos run slower than modern locos. Since modern cargo cars can hold more goods per meter they are to be preferred. Since these cars can run at higher speeds you should use locos that can match this speed.

Since such a modern train will weigh considerably more, you need modern engines with high power output.

So new modern fast and powerful engines ARE to be preferred, just not directly by the factors that you'd assume comparing to real life.

You can still make a lot of money running old-timey cargo cars headed by old-timey locomotives in a way that's completely unrealistic in real life.

The benefit of modern locos is there, but is MUCH smaller than in real life.