What's The Secret?

[Timberwolf]

I have made several attempts at making a rail company capable of paying the interest on debt and eventually paying off the debt, but have always failed at the first goal, let alone the second.

I have tried building intercity lines, subway/tram systems in large cities, and subway/trams in multiple cities. All have failed to generate enough cash to pay interest.

I start by taking a $3B loan and paying off the original immediately.

So, what's your secret to success?

[MineRickStar]

I got it on the third attempt, I took 9 Billion and build i a lot of big cities, where there are a lot of people tha use it, than when I made enough to repay the loans and have money left, I built between the cities

[YodaJosh]

You need to pause right away. Spend nearly all your money building a system in a large-mid-size city where you can build mostly cheap ground-level track with lots of stops in good areas and cheap trains. Set ticket prices to $6 per ride or so. When it's all ready, unpause and place the speed on max. You should be making enough of a profit that in a few year of game time you'll build up enough to pay off the loan balance, which you should do as soon as possible. Then it's easy sailing.

[david_neibig]

Alternatively start by building a high speed line between 2 large cities at a mid distance between them (150-200km). Then build a tram network with tram stops covering every bit of each city with station coverage to essentially force feed people onto the high speed line. Then just wait a while.

[t.schmidt]

My current setup works with two large cities 2000km apart (like cairo and kinshasa) the 9 billion loan is spend for 1 supportline with about 20 stations in each city and of cource the two main stations in the two big cities. The money for short track in the cities is almost meaningless. I focus on the one long distance ride between the cities. And i take 80 cent per km. Schedule is (in the beginning a bit longer) 2 min for all trains. After the payoff for the loans I built up to trree supportlines per city, so the intercity train is filled properly. With this configuration I' making 3 Billion a week.

[Proteus]

The secvret IMHO is, lust like Yoda.Josh said, to actuially build an intrerconnected system of fast, regional and tram rails.

I for my part am on my 2nd game of connecting Ruhr Valley (region in germany with lots of large cities close together). In both of my games, money really started to flow in, when I built tram lines connected to my train stations (which actually is the way large train stations are set up in reality (at least in germany), i.e. practically always being connected to subway or tram stations)

First I started with the largest train stations in my network ... Cologne and Düsseldorf ... to have tram service as well, but now (due to the money flowing in) I also build tram networks areound many of the smaller regional stations.

In my obwservatrions it is this (i.e. enabling your poassengers to switch from train to tram) which increases startion traffic by a huge degree and makes money flowing in.

(In my current game, for example, after 1 year of game time so far I have 3 networks:
1. Fast ICE connecting COlogne, Düsseldorf, Duisburg and Oberhausen

2. 3 Regional Train lines that serve the local train stations between the large maion stations (and running on a separtate track apart from the high speed rails, but usually close to the high speed track)

3. Cologne, Düsseldorf and 2 local stations near Cologne and Düsseldorf have 2 tram lines each (with the starting tram stations being connected dfiretly to the train station) that connect the region (usually in form of a circle (actually it is 4 tram lines each station, as I have separate tram linbes running each circle clockwise and counter clockwise)). and those stations connected to tram are the busiest stations in the network.

With this network I currewntly make around 250 mio in fares a month (with around 16 mio in maintenance and running costs), so paying the monthly interest and credit isn't actually a problem for me (I could actually pay back the whole credit at once by just waiting 4 months without doing any additional constructions, but currently it is more worthwhile to invest the money I earned)

Aside from this, it, of course, also is important, to consider the amount of fares you demand from your passengers.
See this thread of mine, for an informative discussion about the amount of fares people demand:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1134710/discussions/0/3148556875498871188/

[senorsoupe]

In addition to the things mentioned, you want to make sure that you have frequent services on your intercity lines, with good capacity on each train. I would suggest perusing the workshop for some train mods as there is much more variety than the original game.

[[HOONIGAN]]

Check that ALL your lines are charging customers fares. I made the same mistake. Setting a line is easy with the 3Bill, but if you dont charge your customers fares, you wont generate income. Unfortunately, this is an easy game if you just want to make money (at the moment). I find it more an aesthetical, precision game. I hope there is more to come, more diversity

[Timberwolf]

Wow! Lots of great input and ideas for my next attempt at a successful empire. Thanks to all that have participated, and, as always, I welcome more responses with thanks in advance.

[t.schmidt]

And how are you and your next attempt doing?

[Shane]

i have a single line (real life network) sheffield (to) doncaster...
8xkayou TTO trains running on it...

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2491641694

then put the game on the highest speed possible went afk, checking back every so often until the debt was repaid, and then repeated that until i had saved up the same amount, saved the game as a template.

now im in the process of repeating it but constructing the addition network via google maps

[The Bas 15501]

The quite lucrative way I have built is to have both suburban lines with high coverage and longer lines that still have high coverage, but a lower station density. Only if you can afford faster trains, you should start building (more) intercity lines.

[KentoTheGreat]

I found that having a popular line between two or more close together cities, set at just the right price, can make a decent profit, so far in my game, My most successful routes include a Highspeed route from Calais to Dunkirk, made in 2023, The original normal train line between Calais and Dunkirk, and a Line from Dunkirk to Lille made in 2024, the success from these lines, atleast as far as I could tell, came from the demand, relatively cheap prices I was giving (giving prices below what people expected), and making sure that the people on the route were happy, usually fixing the problem of why they are happy.

My Prices for each route is
-Local Train Route
I give a base price (generally depends on the distance), and a base cost per mile, usually 0.5
-Regional Train Route
I do a similar thing to the Local routes, but have the base price higher
-Long Distance Train Routes
I usually find having a small base price ticket, with a high cost per mile usually does well if there is a lot of stops, if there isn't that many stops (assuming they are pretty far apart), then the base price can be higher

[JimsterGaming]

The easiest way to make a huge bunch of money is to
1. Build a high speed line between 2 large cities a decent distance from each other, set the price to $10/km. Example Hamburg-Berlin.
2. Build feeder lines in both cities with price $0,5-0,6/km
3. Wait a couple of days and the many millions a day will start rolling in.
The high price on the high speed line will discourage passengers to start from that station, but the passengers from the feeder line stations will not see that, they will just get on and pay up.

This exploit worked in 1.1, I haven't tested it on 1.2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DFp7t0_Fh8&t=1s