General Concern for Solo play

[Horsa]

I have played enough of this game to think I have gotten my money's worth.
After unlocking my last major goal of Andrews, I was quite surprised to see how randomly distributed the loads were for each interchange. They were also far more mixed than before. Now that there are 2 interchanges, it seems there should be some reason for a load to go to or from a particular interchange. The chaotic distribution seems so unrealistic and there is no through traffic which struck me as odd.
The map is rather frustrating as it can only cover a portion of the line at the moment.
After Run 8, I am ashamed to say that I really miss the abilities of OTTO.
With so much going on, it is almost impossible to find the time to jump on a train and just enjoy the scenery.
I look forward to seeing how this game develops. I plan to take a break from Railroader as I cannot imagine it resolving my issues quickly if at all.

[Jasper T. Reynoldois]

Originally posted by Twelvefield:

Riding the mighty VIA Canadian across country, it was frequent that we were stopped for freight, and then we'd sprint like mad to make up the lost time. We spenT twelve hours on sidings... However the heavy loads are way more profitable than squishy people, so I guess that's why humans have the lowest priority. That was educational.

Thanks for this comment: I learned something! I guess I had just assumed passenger services would be the priority but it make sense that railroad operators would follow the money!

[CMDR Sweeper]

Depends on where in the world you are, in the US and Canada the railroad often makes passenger trains yield to freight.
In Europe, you often have freight trains pull into a passing siding to let the commuter train with passengers pass.

The reason for this can be traced to size, cultural focus on cars for transport which caused US passenger operations to fall out of favor when the Interstate road network got big and airlines solved the cross continent problem of distance.

Across the pond with older cities, we do not have the luxery of a lot of space to focus on the car / fancy road networks, and older cities aren't something you can just knock down to make room either.
So the train have gotten a lot more favor and accepted as a means of transportation throughout time.
Also the trackage is often owned by the government rather than a private company in some cases even interesting state owned companies.
This does mean that crossing borders with trains in Europe can get... interesting with different signalling equipment / electrical systems, although there are some standards happening, it is far from universal.

All in all, this means that on this fictional part of the US we have to operate, you can do either or operations you want.
I really like that you do not have to worry about passenger opinion or timetables...
Especially as we had a derail and had to put two cars in the repair shop for a couple of days... FULL of passengers! :D

[bfcmik]

Originally posted by Jasper T. Reynoldois:

Originally posted by Twelvefield:

Riding the mighty VIA Canadian across country, it was frequent that we were stopped for freight, and then we'd sprint like mad to make up the lost time. We spenT twelve hours on sidings... However the heavy loads are way more profitable than squishy people, so I guess that's why humans have the lowest priority. That was educational.

Thanks for this comment: I learned something! I guess I had just assumed passenger services would be the priority but it make sense that railroad operators would follow the money!

In the US there is a stated priority for Amtrak and other passenger services. However, many freight trains are now too long for the passing sidings and thus have to travel long distances on single track routes between sidings or yards that can accept them (or split them).

Here in the UK passenger traffic has absolute priority and signalling staff are assessed on the minutes lost by passenger trains, with the distinct possibility of a meeting with the regional controller if their minutes lost are high or are above minimum on too many occasions.