Most efficient trains in early game

[Nostra]

Hi,

I don't have a lot of experience yet but I'm getting there. I was wondering, do you have some 'must have' train locomotive where you always invest in for certain reasons? As the prices are pretty high at the start of the game, choosing the right locomotive seems important...

[Huperspace]

there is only 1 loc at "early"(1850) start unmodded, only 1 zone.
the rest is simply "how to make most money with trains", which is explained in all -How to play/make money on (very) Hard mode- guides/dis.

[Nostra]

Yes ok that's the very start. But let's say in +/- 1920 or something...

[Danarchy317]

I look at the speeds. If you got a top speed of 99 on cargo trains that max at 50 then your wasting money on maintenance. At 1920 I think its the Atlantic maybe or Is the Makido out around there? Either way practice trimming your expenses. Never deadhead if you need to get grain to a food company then look for something like Ore or Rock you can take back. One thing I do is never connect cities to your goods till your moving enough product around. If a city only demands 60 tools and the plant can make 100 then you will see the logs and planks will produce less.

[RadiKyle]

Hi, I think when I first started playing I tried to figure out the "best" locos, especially for heavy freight trains, but since then I've started using a lot more of them.

The vehicle's top speed rating is one factor that determines the delivery payment. Higher top speed rating will earn more income, so often I upgrade to get something faster when available. (Note the wagon speed matters too, and those only change when new generations are released every 50 yrs.)

Next, I look at how a train performs. If it's taking a long time to accelerate, then I add more power (extra locos or better ones). This helps increase the line rate, earning more income, and reduces track congestion, etc. (You can largely ignore the tractive effort rating in this game, it's only a factor at really low speeds.)

Based on all that, I use pretty much all of the steam locos (american set), especially if I'm playing with the date speed slowed to 1/2x or 1/4x so it takes longer before new locos are released. If I'm playing at 1x, new locos come a little too fast and I skip some because better ones show up shortly after.

Also since passenger wagons have higher speed ratings than freight wagons, then some 1800's locos might only get used if I do passenger lines. The 2-6-0 Mogul is one example.

Once modded locos are added, all this blows up. For example I'm trying Neighbour Kid's 4-4-0, 4-6-0, and 10-wheeler locos now. They're incredible models, fun to use. But they show up at a time when their power levels are wayyy above the vanilla offerings. They're so OP it feels game-breaking..., like I'm pulling 40-car trains in 1860s 😁 They end almost every vanilla 1800s loco.

But even with mods, I still use all the above considerations to choose which loco for each line.

Cheers!

[joeball123]

Originally posted by Danarchy317:

I look at the speeds. If you got a top speed of 99 on cargo trains that max at 50 then your wasting money on maintenance.

An Atlantic rated for 700 kW and 100 km/h is only slightly more than ten times as expensive as a Baldwin's Six-Wheels rated for 70 kW and 40 km/h despite being both ten times more powerful and two and a half times faster; a Mikado is about 67% more powerful and 65% more expensive than an Atlantic; an HHP8 rated at 200 km/h is less than 9% more expensive per kilowatt than an SD40-2 rated at 105 km/h.

Speed strongly influences the cost of wagons/carriages, but it makes very little difference to the cost of the locomotive; assuming all available locomotives are at least about as fast as the wagons you're planning to use, the most economically-sound choice is to go for the locomotive whose power is most suitable for the task you need performed. You want to pull twenty or thirty gondolas of ore long distances? Mikado's probably better than Atlantic. You want to pull five or ten boxcars a short ways up the track? A Decapod (Ten-Wheeler) or even a Mogul could very well be a better choice than either the Atlantic or the Mikado.

Originally posted by Danarchy317:

One thing I do is never connect cities to your goods till your moving enough product around. If a city only demands 60 tools and the plant can make 100 then you will see the logs and planks will produce less.

This is incorrect for Transport Fever 2; factories are always willing to accept the maximum amount of inputs that they can use at their current level regardless of their current output or connected demand. The only way in which connecting end consumers to the network can negatively impact the production of the raw materials and intermediate products required to make the end product is if demand is sufficient to get the end products producer to upgrade but not sufficient to sustain it at the upgraded level - for example, if a tools factory is alternating between levels one and two then a level 1 sawmill will alternate between half and full output and might try to upgrade to level 2 (where it can accept full output from two forests instead of half output from two forests or full output from one) while the tools factory is at level 2.

[Vimpster]

As joeball said, using a locomotive that exceeds the speed of the wagons used is not a problem at all. It does not impact the cost in any noticeable way. I frequently use the Alco PA locomotive (188kp/h) with 120kp/h wagons because the power of that locomotive is most appropriate for my needs at the time. I do not pay any extra for that wasted speed of the locomotive.

Where as if the wagon speed exceeds that of the locomotive, you are indeed paying for that wasted speed. It all comes down to whether or not the unit has a capacity or not. If it has a capacity of any kind then the speed of the unit will have a considerable impact on the cost. Most locomotives do not have a capacity.

[RadiKyle]

Originally posted by joeball123:

An Atlantic rated for 700 kW and 100 km/h is only slightly more than ten times as expensive as a Baldwin's Six-Wheels rated for 70 kW and 40 km/h despite being both ten times more powerful and two and a half times faster; a Mikado is about 67% more powerful and 65% more expensive than an Atlantic; an HHP8 rated at 200 km/h is less than 9% more expensive per kilowatt than an SD40-2 rated at 105 km/h.

Yup, locomotive price is almost directly proportional to power. All the american locos range from about $3.6K to $4K per kW, with most around 3.7. (That's pure locos, not units with passenger capacity.) It's so consistent that I consider price to be based directly on power.

Also FWIW running costs (at Normal maintenance funding) are 1/6th of purchase price, so that can also be considered as directly based on power. (Again, that's for pure locos with no pax capacity.)

Cheers!

[RadiKyle]

...Forgot to add, cargo wagon prices are also nearly proportional to rate, which is speed times capacity. Ranges from about $0.58K to $0.62K per km/h*tonne.

[joeball123]

Originally posted by Vimpster:

I frequently use the Alco PA locomotive (188kp/h) with 120kp/h wagons because the power of that locomotive is most appropriate for my needs at the time. I do not pay any extra for that wasted speed of the locomotive.

You do and you don't - the Alco PA is (slightly) more expensive than a hypothetical 120km/h 1680kW locomotive would be, but if we're sticking to the unmodded American vehicle set then there's also nothing else in the same power class that can manage 120km/h or more - a GP-9 offers 1305kW at 105km/h, a pair of Atlantics offer 1400kW at 100km/h, three Ten Wheelers offer 1650kW at 100km/h (and require some workarounds since Ten Wheelers aren't readily available by the time 120km/h wagons are introduced), any other option offering similar power (e.g. Mikado + HH 600, 1623kW at 80km/h) is too slow to gain any speed by using 120km/h wagons instead of 80km/h wagons, and everything in the set that's capable of at least 120km/h and isn't an Alco PA is pushing 3000kW or more.

Basically, the Alco PA's a bit of a bad example because the reason that you're not losing money by using it isn't so much that it's just as cost-effective as any other option in the same power class as that there isn't any other option in the same power class - certainly not if you want to take full advantage of the 120km/h speed rating of the wagons that become available in 1950. A better example would be something where there is a more or less reasonable alternative in the same power class - e.g. Class 9000 and PRR GG1 pulling 80km/h wagons, EP-5 and C40-8W pulling 120km/h wagons, or two HHP 8s and three E60C-2s pulling 160km/h wagons; there's also a couple easy comparisons in the other sets, for example Re 4/4 and BR 218 pulling 120km/h wagons in the European set, or China Railways JF1 and Russian Class SU pulling 80km/h wagons in the Asian set - where we can look and see that while, yes, one of these options is more expensive than the other, the difference is pretty small even just compared to the cost of the locomotives, let alone the full train, and certainly shouldn't matter next to the income we're expecting to see if the train we're running is appropriate to the line it's on.

[Vimpster]

Originally posted by joeball123:

You do and you don't - the Alco PA is (slightly) more expensive than a hypothetical 120km/h 1680kW locomotive would be, ...
...Basically, the Alco PA's a bit of a bad example because the reason that you're not losing money by using it isn't so much that it's just as cost-effective as any other option in the same power class as that there isn't any other option in the same power class

I already said that it doesn't impact the cost noticeably before hand. So I figured my saying I pay no extra for it later is already in the context of 'the difference is negligible'.

I think the Alco PA is actually a really good example for the very fact that there is nothing else in that power class at that time. Players who do not realise they are not paying for the speed of the locomotive (In any meaningful way) are likely to dismiss it because of it's top speed despite it being the most appropriate locomotive to use because of its power.
I guess it depends on what exactly you meant to point out with the example. Your examples are better at proving that the power is what you are paying for while my example seems to be better at pointing out where that knowledge can be put to good use, which is the point I was trying to make.

[joeball123]

Originally posted by Vimpster:

I think the Alco PA is actually a really good example for the very fact that there is nothing else in that power class at that time. Players who do not realise they are not paying for the speed of the locomotive (In any meaningful way) are likely to dismiss it because of it's top speed despite it being the most appropriate locomotive to use because of its power.
I guess it depends on what exactly you meant to point out with the example. Your examples are better at proving that the power is what you are paying for while my example seems to be better at pointing out where that knowledge can be put to good use, which is the point I was trying to make.

The problem is that when something is the only option, using it doesn't say much about whether it's a good option or a bad one. Everyone who runs trains prior to 1858 in the unmodded game while playing with the American vehicle set uses the Baldwin's Six-Wheels. Is the Baldwin's Six-Wheels a good locomotive? Not really; it's at least arguably the worst locomotive in the game - it's slower than any of the available carriages in the American set and it's the most expensive of the starter locomotives - but until the General becomes available in 1858 it's also the only locomotive you have, so if you want to run trains it's the locomotive that you have to use. An Alco PA that costs $1.5 million/year instead of $1.1 million/year would still be a more suitable locomotive for "short" 120km/h freight trains than a C40-8W that costs $1.9 million/year, and since it's the only option at that combination of speed and power in the American vehicle set you'd probably still use it, but it wouldn't be a good option, it'd just be the only one you have.