How to play Great Depression mission?

[PawelK198604]

How effectively transport fuel, I menaged to finish this part in 1962
And how make this passenger quest?

[ChunkHunter]

http://guides.gamepressure.com/transportfever/guide.asp?ID=37941

I think I transported all the oil to the refinery, then had a separate train from the refinery to the dock (you could use trucks if you really want).
It wasn't *effective* but it seemed to work.

[chrisasnyder]

Like @chunkhunter I had a train from the dock to the refinery, but I had all my crude oil go to the dock, then let the short hauler move oil to the refinery and fuel back to dock. Cargo in both directions made it profitable.

Don't ship fuel to all the cities, only move goods from the docks. Fuel to Houston is ok to boost demand, but any more will cause you to deplete the oil fields too fast.

I ran my high speed route through center of map, and down into NO. keep as straight and flat as possible, I think I used 4 of the small fast trains. Maybe it was 6.

[PawelK198604]

Originally posted by chrisasnyder:

Like @chunkhunter I had a train from the dock to the refinery, but I had all my crude oil go to the dock, then let the short hauler move oil to the refinery and fuel back to dock. Cargo in both directions made it profitable.

Don't ship fuel to all the cities, only move goods from the docks. Fuel to Houston is ok to boost demand, but any more will cause you to deplete the oil fields too fast.

I ran my high speed route through center of map, and down into NO. keep as straight and flat as possible, I think I used 4 of the small fast trains. Maybe it was 6.

But what to make passangers train not stuck each other?

And does is worth to buy this drilling technology for 15 millions ?

[ChunkHunter]

If you plan on going for the medal tfor drilling all wells definitely not.
If you aren't then it's a question of whether you want to drill the wells in the best order or in a random order.

If you spread out your signals enough and choose locomotives with the same speed then your trains shouldn't bunch up.

[chrisasnyder]

For a parallel tracks with only 1 line using them with multiple trains, the rule is 1 signal for each train. With 2 trains put a signals at the crossovers. 4 trains then at crossovers and halfway point. 6 trains, crossover then at 1/3 and 2/3 distance. And so forth.

I agree with ChunkHunter on the drilling tech.

[GrafLukas]

I managed to do this mission with all the medals on the first attempt, finishing in 1951. Here is the deal right from the start:

1. Do not buy the patent license. You want to go for all the wells anyway.
2. Choose 2 oil wells which are relatively close to each other, like the two in San Antonio or the two near Dallas. Build stations there. Build a large station (6-8 platforms) at the refinery. Your first oil route should connect two of the oil wells and the refinery and then lead on to the harbor. Load when available. Buy a long train. I used only the Mikado engine for all my goods trains as they are reasonably strong, but reletively low cost.
3. Build a passenger station in both Houston and New Orleans close by the city without destroying houses. Build a bus or (preferably) tram system in each city, connecting all parts of the city with the stations. Build tracks between the cities. Choose a low cost route for now - build the necessary bridges only single-laned and lead the route by the oil well, so this can be connected later. Buy an Atlantic engine with 3 carriages and send it on the way. You can improve the tracks later. Hint: in my layout, the main line Houston-New Orleand crosses the station at the refinery in 90° angle, directly at the end of the platform. That works just fine.
4. Connect the harbor to the route to New Orleans and build a freight station outside the city and a truck service from the station to the city centre (commercial district). Send a long goods train on that route (max. lenth 239m, carrying 218t of goods). This route will be you money maker for the better part of the game.

All these steps can be done with the starting money.

[GrafLukas]

Continuation: The rest is relatively easy from here. Each time money comes in, invest in extending the network to connect all the oil wells and have dual tracks everywhere. Always have 239m long trains, have one train service at least two oil wells, that way the train will always be full. Crude oil to the refinery, than the short distance to the harbor with the fuel. It will work. Money should come in regularly.

DO NOT BUY TRUCKS except in New Orleans - you can have a lorry service to Houston, but that will take goods away from your money maker to New Orleans. It is not worth it, I checked.

Perhaps you could have a separate train service from the refinery to the harbor, the network at the harbor station gets crowded at times otherwise, but I think it is easier the other way.

DO NOT BUY A SHIP - I did it, but the oil rig seems flawed, it hardly produces any oil and you need to get the crude oil from the harbor back to the refinery - nasty.

Finally, the last part: Once the fuel export is completed, you will get the task regarding the passenger service. Speed is of the essence here. If you have the money earlier before this taks is even triggered, start building an express line, which should be an almost straight line between the two cities. In the end, I started in Houston down into a tunnel under the oil refinery to avoid delay at the crossing. Then straight on, avoiding unneccessary hill climbing and into a loooooong an very expensive tunnel. Replace your old Atlantic with the Zephyr. That way you can get the travelling time down to under 5 minutes and get the medal. Finally, you just need lots of Zephyrs to get the frequency down.

[GrenoZee]

Originally posted by lukas.graf:

DO NOT BUY A SHIP - I did it, but the oil rig seems flawed, it hardly produces any oil and you need to get the crude oil from the harbor back to the refinery - nasty.

Very interesting guide. I happen to be in the middle of this mission as well.
I don't agree with your ship advice though.
I all the cruide oil delivered to the port from the rig makes it happily to the refinery via the already established tank service bringing fuel to the port. Just make sure you don't restrict the tank wagons/trucks to carry fuel only.
I also suspect your port => refinery service was the bottleneck. Ok, the rig is no persian gulf but the ship travels full enopugh to make a profit.

[GrafLukas]

Thanks!

As I said, I didn't use a lot of trucks in this scenario but let the trains continue to the harbour with fuel after loading off the crude oil at the refinery. I had some of these trains collect the crude oil from the ship for the refinery on their way back to the oil wells. Those trains were there regularly, much more often than the ship. Definately no bottleneck there.

Still, when the ship reaches the oil rig there are only 30t of oil waiting - and the ship takes nearly a year to the docks and back. That was definately not working for me.

But as I said: I suspect something was wrong there, but I didn't bother as the rest went smoothly.