Long Distances & Long Trains

[Gregory_TheGamer]

Is it possible to have 70 car long trains that travel 25 miles and have them fully loaded? I'm currently struggling with this so is there anyone that had financial succes with this?

[genemead]

Personally, I don't see the point of super-long trains.
I'd much rather have several shorter trains than one long train. Frequency matters. I get that people love watching long trains rumbling along, but several shorter ones make more money.

[cszolee79]

Originally posted by geneomead:

Frequency matters.

Yes, by the time a 70-car train gets loaded, the industries stop because of broken supply line.
Just make your trains the usual 15-17 cars long (at least that's what I do for my largest trains, usually with two locos or even three if I need it to be really fast) and if they get overloaded buy some more trains for that line.

If you can, avoid using "full load", it will interfere / break supply lines. The game is smart, let it do the micromanagement.

[Gregory_TheGamer]

That would happen if you only use the train line for one type of freight. You could still make a lot of money with having long trains that transport multiple types of freight at once. For example, two locos + 35 Tank cars + 20 Gondolas does work better if you have two of these, instead of one train that has 3 locos + 70 Tank cars + 40 Gondola. Why? Frequency. This does seem to not cause chain breaks on my end, and the trains make more money as well.

[chrisasnyder]

The answer is yes. Getting the circumstances setup for very long trains to be effective is challenging. First you need to build up an industry supply chain that is running at maximum output. The distribution of produced goods needs to be very effcient to prevent any cargo from sitting at a station for too long. Industries will shutdown if too much cargo is just sitting around, the actual amout allowed changes I believe based on the actual production rate of the industry. There is a maximum price that cargo will pay, since that value is based on ticket price per km, the limit changes depending on your consist. The problem is if you make a 20km line with 1900 trains, then upgrade to faster more expensive trains in the 1940's, the line becomes too expensive and stops.

There is also a maximum total price that is the combination of all legs of the distribution chain. f.ex. a goods factory, that has planks, lumber, steel, coal, and iron all really long supply chains, will limit how far the last stage of goods will reach. This is the problem with distribution hub designs.

You can also use the placeable industries to double up an existing supply chain. f.ex crude-fuel to a city with a demand of 2000, plop down another oil well and a fuel station next to the first. Your supply line will need to grow to support this. I've had lines of 8-10 multiheaded trains pulling fuel cars 800m ea running full.

To get to this point you need to work on growing a few cities, increasing population, industry and commercial zones. In short, play the game and stick to the mechanics.

Edited to add screen shot:

Here's an example of the drop off end that supplies planks to 2 machines/tools and 1 goods factories. Long and run full.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1254521960

[Gregory_TheGamer]

Well, the ticket price per mile on my freight line is much lower than on both of my passenger lines, just $930. The frequency of that freight line is just 14 minutes andtwo trains are running on it.

The chain this line is part of is as follows:
Charlotte Oil Well -> Dashton Freight Station -> Oklahoma City Freight Station -> Oklahoma City Oil Refinery & Pines Peak Stone Quarry -> Oklahoma City Freight Station & Oklahoma City Industry & Pines Peak Industry -> Dashton Freight Station -> Dashton Industry & Dashton Construction Materials Factory -> Dashton Industry.

Fuel Total ticket price per mile: $3,093
Construction Materials Total ticket price per mile: $3,093

Even though both prices are equal, the construction materials do better than the fuel.

Well as it is possible, I'd just have to be patient.

[chrisasnyder]

Are you using the 4x slow mod? Having frequency longer than 1 year, 12 minutes by default, will cause problems with industry due to the Jan 1 calculations. Industries can work with longer frequencies, but if the industry cycles down, the ramp back up struggels because it takes longer than 1 year for ordered supply to show up which causes stutter in the rampup production rates. My general rule is to get delivery frequency at a point that the next supply arrives at the factory when internal storage gets near zero. If internal storage of raw materials is zero for too long the factory shuts down since it can't make anything.

Comparing the two lines is also comparing distance, since total cost is ticket price * distance. Plus the total cost to the customer is the sum of all supply chain prices. It's easier to think of this as the area a factory can sell it's product. The more expensive the final price, the less area, or distance from the factory, that it's demand will reach. So a refinery with an oil well close by can service cities further away than a refinery that ships it's crude oil from 15km away.

The game compensates for this effect by increasing the density of buidlings near the stations, effectivly moving demand closer to the drop locations so as the player upgrades vehicles the lost demand from increasing cost is revovered by more demand closer to stations.

[Gregory_TheGamer]

Yes, I do use the 4x slow mod. So that is the problem? I need to try and figure out a way to make the line faster without adding a third train then... If that's possible for me to do without too many changes to the tracks.

[chrisasnyder]

14 mintues with the 4x mod is fine. If your line frequency was 48 minutes or longer with the 4x mod then you would have issues.

[Gregory_TheGamer]

Okay, so I can cross line frequency off the list. Could it be that the oil well has nothing stored when it cuts line usage?

[chrisasnyder]

Well, frequency can still be your problem. f.ex your refinery has a demand of 700, it's upgraded to support 800. The production rate is increasing towards 700, but when the rate hits 500, the internal store of crude hits 0. Your next supply is 8 minutes away, during this 8 minutes the prodcution rate starts to fall and will be maybe 200 or so by the time the next train arrives. If the gap is big enough and the actual rate hits 0, the factory shuts down and stops ordering crude from the well.

Eventually your crude train drops off more, Now you need to wait for the next 1st of the month for the refinery to kick back on once it stopped. Rate starts to increase using the crude it has. Once it's all used, it starts lowing the actual rate again... The crude oil well is tied to the behavior of the refinery, if the refinery shuts down, and drops it's demand, then the well stops producing. Then you have to wait for the well to start back up and ramp it's prodcution to have enough crude to ship.

For long lines where there is alot of product in transit when the shutdown happens, it takes a while for it to catch up, even if you match the capacity to the demand. You still have to get supply to the refinery in a timely matter.

Easy way to tell, just watch the refinery starting with when you train drops off a large supply of oil. It all goes to the internal storage. Let the game go, when it hits zero pause the game. Where is the next train? How far back is the last drop off train? How much crude is waiting for the next pickup? How far from demand for fuel is the actual production rate? This is the line balance.

Ideally, you want a full train dropping off crude just as the internal storage hits 0, when the actual production rate is roughly the same as the fuel demand.

[Gregory_TheGamer]

The oil well tends to stop producing because the refinery doesn't order crude oil. Does that have to do with the frequency? I doubt it's the only issue.

[canophone]

Originally posted by Expression:

The oil well tends to stop producing because the refinery doesn't order crude oil. Does that have to do with the frequency? I doubt it's the only issue.

In the ancient days it would have been more than it is now!

More likely than not, I'd assume that some chain broke along the way losing max potential... And as such, ordering less materials... Frequency plays a part in that potential by receiving less goods in a given time.

It could be that for every long train, you also need some short versions between industry chain links! Nothing (of itself) wrong with providing the double...

[chrisasnyder]

There are 3 reasons a refinery will stop ordering crude (also called reducing demand for crude to 0)

1. Oversupply crude to the refinery.
2. Undersupply crude to refinery, not enough to mantain the desired prodcution rate.
3. Fuel not getting delivered to customers, refinery shuts down. f.ex fuel sitting at stations (all stations in chain combined)

These are all line rate problems. Line rate is a combination of frequency and capacity.

[Gregory_TheGamer]

I bet it's number 2. To compensate for that, I guess I will have to build a second Oil well? (Or create a new line to one.)

[chrisasnyder]

Originally posted by Expression:

I bet it's number 2. To compensate for that, I guess I will have to build a second Oil well? (Or create a new line to one.)

No. One well to one refinery is all you need. If it's undersupply you need to add more trains to get the frequency to something the refinery is able to keep it's production running.