Most profitable passenger line strategy?

[Grumpy Crumpy]

Hi guys, would like some opinions and experiences on the best way to set up passenger rail lines.

Currently I'm playing a 3x1 map and have one really long "main" line running through 5-6 towns collecting passengers, with some branch lines off to other towns either side of the main line.

I seem to have problems that, even though the trains are full, the amount of passengers being transferred at each station along the line is so low the trains barely if at all cover costs until they get to the very end terminus and dump everything, but the profit I earn on that stop is eaten up in the travel time to the next station.

I have tried to keep the maintenance costs of the trains as low as possible and to have as many cars as possible but my Atlantics can only handle 3 pullmans and even then they struggle to reach maximum speed. Tried it with two cars and they move quicker but the number of passengers is so low they just don't earn enough to be profitable. No other combination I can find of American rollingstock can be more efficient, unless I'm missing something.

I thought maybe running multiple short lines along the whole route, between each station or maybe 3 stations max might help bring in more money, but I don't want to screw with the lines I have and not get results.

Anyone have pointers or tips to help maximise profits on my passenger lines? I am wondering if just waiting for better rollingstock to come along would help, but the maintence costs/passenger ratios seem to just get worse the more advanced the game gets...?

Can anyone tell me just how important speed is to passengers? Like I know it's important, but is adding 20kph to the top speed of my trains worth doubling maintence costs or not, etc? Trial and error is expensive and my computer takes forever to load my games... would prefer to avoid if possible. :p

[Saint Landwalker]

Originally posted by Fluffy Tank Fairy:

but my Atlantics can only handle 3 pullmans and even then they struggle to reach maximum speed.

Think I found your problem there. =P Three Six-Axle cars, at 18 passengers a pop, just isn't enough capacity.

The general challenge with American passenger cars is that they're freaking heavy, and American locomotives prior to about 1919 just aren't up to the task (technically, the Mikado can handle it, but it has a lower max speed).

Even if they don't reach maximum speed, though, I'd slap another two cars on there to get your capacity up to 90. Revenue per passenger per km traveled is based on theoretical max speed, not actual max speed, or average speed, or anything like that. Of course, they'll be going slower, which means stopping at stations (and earning money) less frequently, but the capacity will more than make up for it.

My general philosophy with trains is "Longer Trains before More Trains." Locomotives don't generate profit, they just serve as tools for their carriages to generate profit. So the more profit-generating cars you can stick behind a locomotive, the better.

To give you an idea of what I've done in my last European free play game, I had A 3/5 locomotives hauling 10 or more Three-Axle Cars along my passenger routes. That's 140 passengers (and, because European passenger cars for the first half of the game or so are much lighter per passenger, only 150 tons). Very, very profitable trains, those were.

With the American set, it's harder, because five Six-Axle cars is 225 tons and less capacity and the Atlantic is a worse locomotive than the A 3/5... so to a point, you're just going to have to accept poorer performance and profitability until you can break out the big guns.

All of that babble aside, I have found (as have other folks who have done direct tests here) that main lines, assuming they're sufficiently straight, are more profitable than just a chain of short lines. However, I think that making that work for you necessarily demands sufficient train capacity, which at 54 passengers per train, you just don't have.

If you aren't interested in throwing two more Six-Axles on there, you could always replace them with a giant pile of Clerestory Cars. You'll get a lower theoretical max speed (and therefore, less revenue per passenger per km), but Clerestories are much more weight-efficient than the Six-Axles, and the Atlantic can handle quite a few of them without major problems; you could get 9 Clerestory Cars for the same weight as five Six-Axles, and you'd have capacity of 144 (if my head-math is right) versus 90.

[Grumpy Crumpy]

Hi, thanks for the detailed reply. I do tend to agree that European rollingstock is far more profitable at least at this stage of the game (I like to play with 4x slower speed so new rollingstock arriving is something to celebrate to me). An A3 with 4-5 BC4s behind it is borderline overpowered especially compared to the American offerings of the same time period haha.

I've tried experimenting with a few different methods, one was a 4-12-2 9000 class and 8 six-axles behind it as I wondered if the massive increase in acceleration+being able to hit that top speed would be worth it... it did hit top speed frequently, but it consistently ran at a loss. That maintenence cost per month just destroyed any income it made. Then I put a Mikado at the front of the same cars and it sort of broke even but that's just not good enough.

I guess the conclusion is tri-axles are just awful and I should stick to clerestory until the F3 becomes available haha.

A question simply for curiosity, what was the prototypical operation for American passenger trains in the 20s-30s? Would they have run 2-4 these fatty fat-fat passenger cars behind a light, high-speed locomotive like the Atlantic or pile 10-12 of of them behind a heavy locomotive like the EP-2(?) (Which I also tried, and failed miserably...)

[Saint Landwalker]

Originally posted by Fluffy Tank Fairy:

An A3 with 4-5 BC4s behind it is borderline overpowered especially compared to the American offerings of the same time period haha.

Hell, when I got the A3 Flying Scotsman, I slapped ten BC4s on the things. =P

By the time you have the 4-12-2s (which I honestly never used), you should have the Heavyweight 28-1 Parlor cars, which are a bit of a step up from the Six-Axles: +1 capacity/car, but -10 weight. They're a little slower in stations, but they make up for it on the way there.

The American set is tough. They have weak locomotives and wicked heavy passenger cars, and then all of a sudden they have EP-2s and Class 9000s which are crazysauce expensive.

If you can afford it, and if you have the passenger demand to sustain it, and have large enough stations, I'd probably suggest something like an EP-2 with 10 Heavyweight 28-1 Parlor cars. That's 190 capacity, and a Power:Weight ratio of about 5.61 (which is better than the 4.90 that my A3 + 10 BC4s had). Obviously you won't need (or want, or be able to afford) running a large number of these things, so start with a couple and add new ones as demand... well, demands. If you've got the passengers to fill it, I'd have high hopes for that plan.

[Grumpy Crumpy]

Haha, I have always had mixed performance from the 4-12-2. They cost a buttload to maintain and are really only useful when pulling massive freight trains (which have their own set of issues... I am not the best rail planner...) but I have to confess I love the look of the big American steamers so I use them and things like the Big Boy despite their inefficiency. Two half-length Mikado-pulled trains would probably be more profitable (same goods volume and ~33% less maintence cost) and easier to plan for but meh. :p

I decided to try starting a new game and have another go with your tips in mind, my current game was getting to be too big a hassle to reform enough to be satisfactory, so I prefer starting with a clean slate. I would have had to re-lay huge sections of track to make it straight enough to see the full speed of the faster trains available anyway.

With that said anyone else reading this feel free to put in your advice, always willing to take in new tips and tricks.

[Vimpster]

I mostly agree with Landwalker. 2 and 3 passenger cars at that point in the game is deffinitely not enough to cover the costs of the locomotive.

I am curious just what passenger carriage you were using with the Atlantic. There is the green Pullman called the 6 axle and then there is the red Pullman called the Heavyweight. Unlike Landwalker I much prefer the green one over the red one, for as long as it is available. If you aren't using locomotives that exceed 100kph then the primary advantage of the Heavyweight is lost, which is its 180kph top speed. The 1 passenger increase and the 10t weight reduction on their own do not warrent the 75% increase in running costs in my opinon.

One important stat that is quite important and yet is not shown on the vehicle info displays when buying vehicles or looking at the vehicle window, is the ticket price for the vehicle. Knowing the ticket price difference can make all the difference between choosing one vehicle over another. The Atlantic has a ticket price of $3.59k per km compared to the Mogul's $2.93k per km and the Mikado's $3.07k per km. The Milwaukee EP2 is $3.93k per km.

[Grumpy Crumpy]

Ticket price, as in the price passengers pay? That changes depending on the locomotive? If so, that's totally news to me. Does it apply to freight as well? Where can I find this information? I'm not really capable of digging through game files or anything, hopefully there's a data sheet somewhere.

And I was referring to the green six-axle pullman cars. I agree that the orange heavyweight cars are not worth it if the locomotive pulling them can't do the 180kph limit.

[Vimpster]

The ticket price is dependant on the locomotive used, yes. When you look at the line the trains are on, under the vehicle tab in the lower right corner is the ticket price. It applies to cargo too. But there is a multiplier that either adds or subtracts to the ticket price, which is not shown, based on if it is cargo or passenger that is being transported. Cargo pays more then passenger but the ticket price won't show that.

It is also important to keep in mind that the ticket price for all trains on the line is determined by the ticket price of the slowest locomotive you have on the line. So if you have one 75kph train and 3 100kph trains on the same line, not same rail but the actual line, then the ticket price of the 75kph train will be applied to all 4 trains.

[Grumpy Crumpy]

Oh wow, can't believe I never noticed that. Did it only come out with the recent patch? My Atlantics + Clerestory consists have a price of $575/km on my new map.

That's very interesting, thanks for showing me that. I had no idea the prices varied. I believed it was strictly time taken to deliver that decided the price.

[Vimpster]

It has been there since the game came out. I am guessing your priceing is reduced because you play with the 4x slower modification. Also maybe it was showing you miles rather than kilometers. The wagons do not have a ticket price on their own, but it is perhaps possible that if you use a wagon that has a lower top speed than the locomotive that it reduces the ticket price to match.

It is interesting to note that, from what I can tell, time has no bearing on the revenue made. If you know a rough estimate of the distance between two stations and you see the ticket price for the line traveling between those two stations then you can fairly accurately determine the amount of revenue you will make on delivery. But slow downs from hills, traffic or a windy route will mean more time between deliveries which translates to higher running costs relative to revenue made, even though the amount you get per person/cargo will still be the exact same.

[Quadro7F]

Most proffitable strategy is simply by following the math formulas that game uses, in general:

- use the fastest vehicles available you can afford (it's because F(n)=2,8n+47, where F is payment per km, n is speed, I calculated it for my game with mods on hard difficulty, it could be different for you, but principle is the exact same). Also, game uses very lazy math on lines payment rate by looking for a most slow vehicle on your line, so you should always use only an equal speed trains/buses/planes/whatever per line, or you gonna loosing a lot of money for faster ones instead of earning, coz slower vehicles will be lowering your payment per km overal rate for the whole line.

- use the most straight lines in between 2 points as possible, try to avoid any curves and crossings (just bypass above or below tracks). Ideally all train lines should look like express ones A-B. Never connect 3 stations in a row like A-B-C coz it's just wasting of capacity/time/money, instead just set a 2 fast short-hand trains in between 3 cities rather than 1 slow one (by interval criteria). Passengers that goes from A to C will make transition at B by themselves for the next train, they will pay for 2 tickets for each route according to formula (without overpayment ofc) but most importantly that they will free the seats for other short-distance passengers, which is most important for profit and efficiency. And you can stack those chains to as many cities as you need ofc - they will work perfectly.

- if you need to connect cities A and C, or A and D+ then you can build a separate parallel express lines for that, for each interconnection, but use faster trains for these than your regular intercity ones. For a super far cities in the chain (ex. A and Z) it's better to use planes even (they beat trains at very long distances).

- for a hobo passengers you may want to provide a parallel bus lines as well, in between same cities, but make sure thier interval is less than your main trains, coz if it will be faster - then all the trains peoples may just rush into buses instead, and you gonna loose tons of money coz tickets cost will be much lower since bases are slower for the same distance than train, so be careful and always check and compare intervals.

- make sure you have a great bus/tram lines coverage in each city you deliver people into (bus stops at each city block, only straight lines with intervals like 80+ sec), coz if you don't - no one will take your trains, they will just drive on their silly free rocket cars instead, creating traffic jams, chaos, godzilla and alien freaks destroying the city from an orbit.

[Grumpy Crumpy]

Originally posted by Vimpster:

It is interesting to note that, from what I can tell, time has no bearing on the revenue made. If you know a rough estimate of the distance between two stations and you see the ticket price for the line traveling between those two stations then you can fairly accurately determine the amount of revenue you will make on delivery. But slow downs from hills, traffic or a windy route will mean more time between deliveries which translates to higher running costs relative to revenue made, even though the amount you get per person/cargo will still be the exact same.

Wow, really? I suppose I should clarify I'm experienced in games like Railroad Tycoon for example where cargo "decays" over time, being worth less. I was always under the impression that cargo "decayed" in Transport Fever, too. Guess I was wrong?

Now that I know that, I can more clearly understand why piling a bunch of fatty fat six-axle cars behind an Atlantic is the most efficient method. If cargo doesn't decay then piling as much as you can onto the train makes sense. Even if it takes longer to reach the destination the sheer volume makes up for the extra delivery time, and each unit is still worth exactly as much as it would be if it getting there quickly.

Another assumption made on the belief this would be a current-gen Railroad Tycoon haha.

Once again, thanks for your in-depth help. I've been able to sort out quite a few things today. :)

[SBGaming]

Originally posted by Vimpster:

It has been there since the game came out. I am guessing your priceing is reduced because you play with the 4x slower modification. Also maybe it was showing you miles rather than kilometers. The wagons do not have a ticket price on their own, but it is perhaps possible that if you use a wagon that has a lower top speed than the locomotive that it reduces the ticket price to match.

From what I understand, the Price Per KM is based on the theoretical top speed of the train itself, rather than an attribute of the locomotive, so as an example, whether you are hauling Clerestory Passenger Cars with an Atlantic or a Mikado, the price should otherwise be identical, since the maximum top speed achievable is 80kph, regardless of the locomotive that is being used. Put a lower speed Passenger car on a Locomotive, you get a lower top speed thus you get paid less.

It's rather unfortunate that a single slower speed train can bring down the entire line's price per km down, rather than each train having it's own ticket price. It does mean, that when you want to upgrade a train or add more trains to the lines, you either have to stick with the same configuration, or upgrade all the trains on the line to benefit from the increased ticket price.

Regarding the original topic, having been disappointed with the Atlantic + Six-Axle cars, my future plan with the American set between 1900-1935 is probably to just stick with 2-6-0 Moguls (75kph) or 4-4-2 Atlantics (100kph) with as many Clerestory Passenger cars as possible. Speed will be limited to 75-80kph, but the Atlantic should be able to reliably haul more of them than the heavier Passenger cars.

Once 1924 hits, the M-300 Skunk rolls out which has interesting potential. $1.01M for a 13 capacity Self-propelled Passenger car (no locomotive required) that can go 100kph and has pretty decent acceleration for it's weight to Power Ratio. Landwalker recently found it a compelling option when he did USA Campaign Mission 6. You can chain a bunch of them for a cost effective alternative during that era.

Once 1935 hits, the Streamlined Coach New Mexico becomes available at a price of $1.12M for an 18 capacity 150kph Passenger car that weighs only 30t. You could probably run Atlantics with those to achieve the 100kph price point cheaply, since compared to other options, such as the 160kph 4-4-2 Hiawatha at $7.66M might be too much of a price increase to justify, unless you already have the money rolling in.

[Saint Landwalker]

Regarding the "Ticket Price" thing:

• That's what I was referring to originally by "price per passenger per km." Within a given game/playthrough, it's based only on theoretical max speed of the train (so, the lowest max speed of the locomotive and its cars).
  
  
• You earn revenue based only on the air distance between the "on-boarding station" and the "de-boarding station"—it does not matter how long it takes you to get from station to station, or how direct the route is, or what speed you actually attain during the trip. (There's some unverified speculation that difference in altitude might be a factor, but to my knowledge that hasn't been tested or confirmed.)
  
  
• Revenue doesn't "Decay" (having not played Train Fever and coming to this game mostly from a Railroad Tycoon background, I initially made the same assumption).
  
  
• "Ticket Price" is scaled according to difficulty level (higher difficulty = lower revenue) and according to "time elapsement" modification (so playing at 8000 milliseconds per day yields 1/4 the revenue per passenger per km compared to playing at 2000 milliseconds per day).
  
  
• The listed price per KM in game is for passengers only. Freight pays twice the listed rate, presumably because somebody assumed that most freight lines would be one-directional. This is why freight lines that can run fully loaded in both directions are the most profit-efficient lines in the game.

Regarding Tips:

• Thanks to SBGaming for reminding me about the M-300, and now I'm going to rave about it some more. This thing is America's solution to grotesquely expensive passenger transport problems in the early 20th century. Let's consider a few comparisons:
  
  
• An Atlantic with five Six-Axle Cars: $5.68 M, 355 tons, Capacity 90, Max Speed 100, Power:Weight ratio of 1.97.
  
  
• An EP-2 with five Six-Axle Cars: $12.22 M, 465 tons, Capacity 90, Max Speed 110, Power:Weight ratio of 7.12.
  
  
• Seven M-300s: $7.07 M, Total Capacity 91, Max Speed 100, Power:Weight ratio of 8.00.
  
  
• I left out options with the Heavyweight 28-1 Parlor cars, because (as Vimpster pointed out), those are high-cost cars that don't necessarily justify themselves until you hit the 4-4-2 Hiawatha locomotive (and then the Streamlined Coach New Mexico comes out the next year, so they really struggle to justify themselves in general, but the same could be said for Six-Axles, so picking your poison and all that).
  
  As you can see from the examples, the seven M-300s are, as a group, slightly more expensive than a similar capacity of Six-Axles pulled by an Atlantic. However, they're just as fast on top speed (which means equal ticket price), and they have four times the power per ton. As I found out in the USA #6 scenario, these things can accelerate. This makes them outstanding for shorter routes in general, but they're also good at hill-climbing, and because they're so "modular," they're effective ways to introduce passenger traffic to new, small towns where the demand hasn't grown up yet. Even with larger towns, their efficiency holds.
  
  Compared to the EP-2, the M-300s are slightly slower on top speed, so they won't earn quite as much per passenger. The EP-2 also has quite a good Power:Weight ratio when hauling five Six-Axles. However, the EP-2 + Six-Axles train costs about 173% to buy and maintain than seven M-300s... for the same price as the EP-2 + five Six-Axles, you could get twelve M-300s.

Regarding Other:

Originally posted by Quadro7F:

use the most straight lines in between 2 points as possible, try to avoid any curves and crossings (just bypass above or below tracks). Ideally all train lines should look like express ones A-B. Never connect 3 stations in a row like A-B-C coz it's just wasting of capacity/time/money, instead just set a 2 fast short-hand trains in between 3 cities rather than 1 slow one (by interval criteria). Passengers that goes from A to C will make transition at B by themselves for the next train, they will pay for 2 tickets for each route according to formula (without overpayment ofc) but most importantly that they will free the seats for other short-distance passengers, which is most important for profit and efficiency. And you can stack those chains to as many cities as you need ofc - they will work perfectly.

• This has been tested, and it has been shown to be not true. Assuming that they are arranged in something moderately close to a straight line, multiple-station main lines, over time, are more profitable than a series of two-station short lines.
  
  
• It's not entirely clear exactly why this is the case, but the suspicion is that passengers are reluctant to make too many line changes to get where they want to go, or that they factor in expected wait time at the "change-over point" when considering their travel. The fact of the matter is, though, they running a reasonably-straight main line will prove more profitable in the long run.
  
  
• Additionally, main lines result in more balanced town growth than series-short lines do. In the latter case, towns on the "ends" of the series of lines will grow more slowly and lag behind towns in the middle of the series. With a main line, the towns grow at a much more even rate (which generally means that the end-towns grow faster than they otherwise would, which means more demand for passengers and cargo, etc.).
  
  
• Anecdotally, in my (Medium-difficulty) European Free Play I referenced up-thread, I ended up with a five-station main line running ten trains. Each train had the locomotive (be it an A3, A4, Class 1042, etc.) and ten passenger cars (BC 4s, or Einheitswagen IIs). (Note: I abandoned this game in the 1970s, so that's as advanced as I got.) This line raked in money like it was trying to fill Scrooge McDuck's money vault/pool. Originally, this main line had been a series of short lines that I merged into a main line, and saw my net profit jump significantly as a result (once everything had stabilized post-overhaul, of course).

[Crustyfur]

I am playing the same map size. Small 1:3 with 5-6 towns.

I run a single line through as many towns (straightline) as I can. Then just run a single line. A-B-C-D-C-B I have about 4-6 trains on the line with a single loco and post 2000 the double decker carriages. I think capacity at 240m is like 235pax. Trains are always full, passengers are always waiting and it netts about 25m a year. I run small branch lines to towns not in my mainline route.

[conrail4ever]

I do the same thing I did in Train Fever:

An A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I-J-A... line that loops the map
An A-J-I-H-G-F-E-D-C-B-A... line that loops the map (opposite direction)

All these cities are on the outer edges of a map. I put 5 trains on each line.
Any other cities I use hubs to link them to each other and the outer cities.