Whittier Saw Mill Strategy

[[FBP]PoryX]

As of my third run, I decide to share my Whittier Saw Mill business strategy after having a learning "How this game machine work" in this game twice. especially from the start. Of course, a main branch, company mode. But after the test of the experiment branch in this run, I'm afraid to go back. I can't live without AEWP.

At the start of the game,

just repair No. 1 (Ten Wheel) and used it to be a passenger train. Just send it to Ela and end the day.

Now we have 110% reputation established for a Saw Mill T3 contract. Send the passenger train back to Whittier, then wait until midnight. At this step we can have a T3 contract to work with.

Or.

Before take T3 contract. Loan to buy K-35 Logging Mikado and 4 skeleton cars with $17,000 in total, set 8 skeleton starter cars with Connolly Creek L2 and new 4 cars with L1, then coupling L2 first and L1 later.

TIP:

Change the color of skeleton cars according to the loading track so it can determine where to decouple when parked at the destination. For example, white to L1 and yellow to L2 cars.

Go load at L1 decouple and move to L2. Wait around 1hr for full load, go pick up L1 cars, head back to Saw Mill, park at R1 and wait after empty go back. (Now you known how to operating routine)

Take T3 contract and wait until midnight. If not yet.

K-35 Logging Mikado can do load/unload around 4-5 trips before refueling.
NOTE: Manage fuel supply or milestones or another train job by yourself.

Using No. 2 (Mogul) to perform a switching job at the back track of the service building. Remember that this tack can take up to 425 ft in train length.

C2 can park 3 small gondolas or 2 big gondolas. SO1/SO2 can park 6-7 cars. It is determined by the size of the car; if longer cars are more present, just send 6; otherwise, 7 cars. Then for surplus cars, park on the C2 track. You will understand what I want to tell when performing the delivery. (If interchange blocking is default: By destination).

Use K-35 Mikado haul shipping cars to interchange; it can manage up to T4 for all cars and T5 by the section (I mean, when one of SO1/SO2 tracks is full, just haul to interchange; don't wait for another).

Save money or loan to buy another set of Mikado and skeleton cars, totaling $22,000 (with change). Also, money management is needed to avoid bankruptcy.

Then set the load/unload the same as the first train or move to L3; however, at L3 you need to shift the locomotive (I mean move the locomotive from front to back), the divide to 6 per round. The choice is yours.

Move a contract to a T4. T5 is too early at this moment.

After saving money or paying off the loan. Time to plan a locomotive upgrade.

EMD SW1 for the switcher/hauler. Can take the jobs of L1 and L2 trains.
Or
EMD GP9 for hauler. Can take all 24 full-load skeleton cars; also can uphill couple L1 with 20 full-load skeleton cars. and surprise can pull all shipping cars of T5 (16-18 cars with a weight around 1,300 tons and around $1,500 paid) in one go.
Or.
Your choice.

For train of 24 skeleton cars after parking at R1, you can park the surplus 12 cars on the main road (track that does not lead to interchange).

Be cautious with the T5 contract that needs 30 cars delivered per day. My strategy is made of 1 round trip with no additional for the R1 track, so the load at Connolly Creek will be a scare of logs (except L1). For a solution, 1). Make another train for L1 only. 2). Move to Walker Logging and buy another train set.

If 2 is selected, the Walker Lower can take 12 cars, 6 for each track. And Walker Upper is 8 cars, 4 cars for each.

When buying a new locomotive, sold the oldest or replace the desire one to other jobs, such as passenger or switcher, until meeting your ideal train fleet.

If continue logs feeding at R1 and T5 contract, you can generate up to $5,000 per day.(The Saw Mill eat logs up to 91 at max)

Any suggestions?

[Axehandle]

I'm on Sawmill Tier 5. That contract alone nets $7,000 daily and basically finances the rest of the railroad. Some disagree but i use Walker to supplement logs. Its there, gonna make trips to Bryson anyway,, then why not use it?

[x1Heavy]

I am on T4. Sawmill does well with around 22 logs a day requires while receiving about 57 logs a day. Managing to support 12 or so outbound shipped loads daily to and from Slyva. And one to two of sawdust.

The supporting of sawmill requires a switcher on 12 log cars between L1 and L2 in Connelly and one switcher supporting 7 log bunks in L3. Then a third switcher hovering around the shipping at E Whitter. Those things have not taken fuel yet over a week or more of daily round the clock operations. Theres 16000 gallons available at E Whitter.

Dillsboro repair tracks hold extra fuel. Any tank car of diesel can be waybilled and delivered to any town with a fuel stand at any time so I have several of the tank cars stored full of fuel. As well as repair cars full of parts and coal for steam at any time.

Theres two GP9's that has been making round trips from E Whitter to Slvya. They carry 1000 gallons of fuel so it will technically be weeks before they need fuel. I top em off now and then. 50 gallons here and there.

Income is several thousand a day just from the mill. The pax train runs once at least to twice daily.

Tiny contracts not taken. For ela etc. Rolling stock left in those spots and not shipped to Slyva to make the game just provide sawmill stock at the interchange. Its a workaround to prevent excessive clutter.

I have made it to the point of almost opening Robertson Mine. The first 12 hoppers are on the way to it. Between Sawmill and Mine from Slyva daily it should be several thousands a day in income enough to finish the milestones towards Andrews.

The game is self supporting. I am just passing real world days until its updating again to include the experimental waypoints and so on folded into normal company mode in the future. When that happens you are going to see upwards of 10 trains a day across the railroad from a variety of places. at the moment I have to spend each train at a time in groups of two and three on the mainline seperated by signals with AE etc.

I have enjoyed this game very much after reducing tedium in various ways and eliminating wear and tear from consideration and stress. Its too close to work.

I am getting ready to assign a extra engine to Walker. Then take the sawmill to T5 if I can get more than 90 logs to it a day.

The slyvian mills are not successful. I have switched it several times in full and am returning with two trains worth of pulp wood cars to load and am considering cancelling the mills contract entirely. It takes too many hours to switch them. Maybe two to three hours best spent at the sawmill and robinson mine etc.

What I did learn is reduce the pulpwood trains to just 8 cars each for the paper mill and the tannery. They fit neatly into their respective unloading tracks with two engines each.

It took me long enough to reduce the company game to max income per day with the least amount of movements possible. And I cannot "Earn" more until additional track is opened and several more trains are run. Arlaka Jct and Subdivision will have it's own pax car train for example.

After the experimental is updated and folded into the normal company mode and learned I plan on truly expanding the railroad into T3's across the board if not all the way to T5 with the small industry. Particularly after Slyva gets the wye.

I could go to steam dashboard and open up the experimental side and start running these ideas tonight... however I chose to stay in the normal company mode of the game because the Developer is still fixing stuff and updating. I am waiting so that he can make sure that the future update is without problems as much as possible.

[JE55BUNN1]

Originally posted by Axehandle:

I'm on Sawmill Tier 5. That contract alone nets $7,000 daily and basically finances the rest of the railroad. Some disagree but i use Walker to supplement logs. Its there, gonna make trips to Bryson anyway,, then why not use it?

I utilise Walker as well, it's a neat little diversion and it spices up the cargo in and out of Bryson.

[Axehandle]

Originally posted by JE55BUNN1:

Originally posted by Axehandle:

I'm on Sawmill Tier 5. That contract alone nets $7,000 daily and basically finances the rest of the railroad. Some disagree but i use Walker to supplement logs. Its there, gonna make trips to Bryson anyway,, then why not use it?

I utilise Walker as well, it's a neat little diversion and it spices up the cargo in and out of Bryson.

I used to love Walker Upper Logs. The switchbacks are so much fun! Not that I drive them much anymore. Set and forget with AI waypoints.

[x1Heavy]

The AI Waypoint testimony is interesting. Set and forget. Sounds awesome.

[avgwarhawk]

It would be nice to have a log mill past Bryson so utilizing Walker makes sense.

[x1Heavy]

The long lead track at the saw mill SO1 and SO2 tracks should come out to 445 feet capacity. Maybe 450 feet. Can someone clarify that please?

The reason I am asking is sometimes the long mill gondolas for the sawdust chips cannot fit very well into it's C2 track as a third vehicle. Maybe a couple wheels on the hot strike plate.

Can the Developer consider a update in which the strike plates on the tracks under C2 be extended so that any three gondola combinations will fit in full and be loaded properly without too much shuffling to get all of them loaded.

[Axehandle]

Originally posted by x1Heavy:

The long lead track at the saw mill SO1 and SO2 tracks should come out to 445 feet capacity. Maybe 450 feet. Can someone clarify that please?

The reason I am asking is sometimes the long mill gondolas for the sawdust chips cannot fit very well into it's C2 track as a third vehicle. Maybe a couple wheels on the hot strike plate.

Can the Developer consider a update in which the strike plates on the tracks under C2 be extended so that any three gondola combinations will fit in full and be loaded properly without too much shuffling to get all of them loaded.

Yup. Long gondolas are a problem and they don't fit too well. I solve this setting the extra empties on the lead and feed the mill two gondolas at a time. It requires an extra switching maneuver sometime in the afternoon, but not too much an issue since Interchange has been delivering up to four extra empties daily that don't fit either and they need switching anyhow.

[GHKtruc]

I'm going to disagree with what is being said. The T17 has enough power to handle the sawmill at tier 5. You only need 15 logs car. If you park 8 cars on L2, you're going to run into supply issues because L2 and L3 only support 12 logs car/day.

Get 7 more log cars. Set the first 3 cars to load at L1, so it's just a drive straight in. Set the next 6 cars to load at L2. The last 6 go to L3.
For L3. as long as you're not doing pulpwood, the siding is just long enough to be able to box the T17, and still load 6 log cars.
When they are loaded, go back and pick up L2, and then L1 (Make sure AE use the siding to minimize the amount of logs it have to push up the hill).
Once at sawmill unload track, you should have barely enough space to fit 12 of the 15 cars on the unload trigger. It should look like that T17-L3-L2-L1/Buffer. The sawmill should quickly unload the first 3 L3 cars, so you just have to swap the 3 loaded for the 3 unloaded.

For the gondolas, it should be able to fit most gondola type+2 70feet XL, as long as the small car is hitting the buffers.

[JE55BUNN1]

At tier 5, the sawmill can be supported by Conelly alone.

You can min / max the process as below.

A wise player* once said, something along the lines of:

You have 2 sets of 10 skeletons cars.

The 1st set of 10 is unloading at the mill.

The 2nd set of 10 is split equally between 2 destinations up in the hills.

First run of the day goes to L1 and L2. The second run of the day goes to L2 and L3. The third run of the day goes to L1 and L3.

So 3 trips, 10 cars apiece at 3 logs each, 30 logs per trip, a total of 90 logs per day.

*This wise player was davejlatt on 26 May 2024

This is a good set up once your railroad expands and you want to get stuff done as you are focused elsewhere on the map.

[x1Heavy]

I stick four into L1

Stick 8 into L2 thats a load of 12 log cars for the morning.

The second train of 7 bunks plus switcher goes to L3. Total of 19 log cars for the afternoon when that 7 arrives to unload into the night. 57 logs give or take. For me T4 is adequate. Im not sure if Connelly can load a second time into the night but might.

The reason for that is I dont know the capacity of logs per time it can load fully. For example showing up with 8 into L2 puts 24 logs on. How long would L2 need to work before making another 24 logs availible within a hour of a another set of empties?

[Knsgf]

Originally posted by x1Heavy:

The reason for that is I dont know the capacity of logs per time it can load fully. For example showing up with 8 into L2 puts 24 logs on. How long would L2 need to work before making another 24 logs availible within a hour of a another set of empties?

The company window for Connely clearly shows that each siding can load 12 skeleton cars or 36 logs per day, as well as how many logs are in storage. The loading process itself takes about an hour regardless of how many cars have been spotted (or more if there aren't enough logs in storage to load the whole consist).

Sawmill at T4 needs 21 cars per day, while L1+L2 can supply 24/day. Thus using 2 sets of skeletons, one for L1, another for L2 is sufficient to keep sawmill running at T4.

[x1Heavy]

Each siding at 12 cars per day for total of three sidings *Scratches on napkin... Theoretically I can make some more empty log trips to get more for the day. I think I will have to stash them into E Whitter yards waiting on the unloads to complete.

I have been massively under-using the shipping potential of Connelly. Im such a idiot.

If... I bought more bunks and stuck them 4 into L1 and 4 into L2 (Thats the 12 total) and maybe 5 into L3 after the first two log trains are loaded and shipped I should have one good train stashed in E whitter up to 12 bunks ready to stick into R1 at the Sawmill prior to midnight. I could just bury the engine at L3 without any switching.

So after the morning...

L1, 4, L2, 8, L3 7 = 19 log cars. 57 logs I believe.

The second batch.. with a new switch engine...

4 into 1, 4 into 2 and 5 into 3 equals 13 more. Maybe 96 or so logs.

That should be enough for T5 service.

Good lord that sawmill will have engines all around it parts of every day and night. A 24/7 operation.

Thank you all kindly from the bottom of my heart with your information on capacities and where they are located on the dashboard and so forth with this thread. Now I can plan on T5 and really get a good cut out of this.