How many cars should you add to a train?

[Buddha Bob]

What is the limiting factor regarding how many cars you should add to a train?

Is it related to some power rating of the engine or what? I'm trying to to find that sweet spot between adding cars to a train and adding a whole new train to the route.

Thanks for the help!

[genemead]

Depends on it's horsepower, tractive power, and the terrain it's going over.
For an 1850 engine, no more that 5 (6 if it's really flat).
Some engines can pull many more cars if it's flat compared to a hilly route. The "sweet spot" depnds on if the train begins to loose too much speed when climbiing a hill.

[ancienthighway]

You can add as many cars as you want to a train. I tend to not exceed the platform length though.

How much speed degradation are you willing to accept on inclines? In hilly and mountainous terrain, shorter trains are definitely better than longer trains. How important is accelleration from a stop? Would your industry, and cash flow, be better served by one long train or two trains half the length?

I had a Baldwin 0-6-0 pulling 10 box cars. The route from the food processing plant and destination was flat and the Baldwin hit top speed, empty or full. But from the farm to the processing plant I had a nice incline dropping the Baldwin running empty to under 5km per hour. The "General" didn't do much better.

[kckun]

I like to have very long passenger train with only one locomotive, because it's cool to watch it pull out of stations slowly.

[Havan_IronOak]

There is no one answer that will always be correct. It's a bit of a balancing act. Plus it depends on the situation. Economists have a tern ceteris peribus meaning all else being equal.

Couple of things to keep in mind ceteris peribus...

Frequency versus Thoughput. A train that is waiting to fill is charged a lower maintenance cost than a train that is running. Having a long train wait to get full is cheaper than having two trains running free with the same total capacity.

The locomotive is NOT a revenue producer but an enabler so the more cars(wagons) on a train the higher the revenue provided that they are full and don't slow the train down too much.

Passenger traffic seems to grow faster when frequency is higher so two four car trains will get more business than one 8 car passenger train.

I'm currently playing the American Campaign Mission 6 which involves a number of oil wells. I started 3 trains at the various wells with 5 cars each and am now wishing that I had only had one train hitting all three. The wells aren't producing quickly eneough to keeep any of the trains profitable. I'm hoping that that will vhange but at the outset it looks like one train hitting all three would have been smarter.

On the downside too frequent trains mean congestion. Having too many trains stopped and waiting at signals is not a good thing.

Wanted to add one empirical note: In the Europe scenario Mission 02 there's a medal available for crossing a bridge with a cargo of 60 units of coal. As an experiment, I built the train using the earliest, lowest power engine available, added 15 cars (they had a capacity of 4) and the train still reached top speed before losing 4 KPH to the only slope that was en route.

Yes, the more powerful locomotives would reach top speed more quickly (and have a higher top speed to reach)

[canophone]

Originally posted by Havan_IronOak:

On the downside too frequent trains mean congestion. Having too many trains stopped and waiting at signals is not a good thing.

But be thankful that trains in Transport Fever are more in motion than in games like Mashinky or Railway Empire which restrict movement more; in those games, you need many more signals and to use a lot more terrain space... Yes Transport Fever requires more tracks, but there are significantly less requirements for terrain space or having as many signals to keep trains in motion....

[SBGaming]

Having more shorter trains than fewer longer trains will give you a better frequency, which passengers and cargo likes a lot. You're better off having two shorter trains rather than one longer train, even if the total yearly throughput will be identical. Frequency is that important.

My recommendation is to add trains to a line as passenger numbers increase to a point where you have a decent frequency (4-6 minutes). Once you get to this point, start upgrading the trains to add more capacity.

Originally posted by Havan_IronOak:

I'm currently playing the American Campaign Mission 6 which involves a number of oil wells. I started 3 trains at the various wells with 5 cars each and am now wishing that I had only had one train hitting all three. The wells aren't producing quickly eneough to keeep any of the trains profitable. I'm hoping that that will vhange but at the outset it looks like one train hitting all three would have been smarter.

The key to getting the Oil Wells ramping up in the mission is frequency. Split up the Oil Wells so that you can have 2 lines hit atleast 8 of the Oil Wells. In my playthrough I had a line hit the two San Antonio Oil Wells, a second line hit the two Dallas Oil Wells, and then I split the four in the East of the map so that the Dallas and San Antonio lines hit two each. The ninth Oil well I used either a short train line or a truck line to haul to the Oil to the refinery and then onwards to the Harbor. As production increases, start adding trains to each line. Start with one of the lines, and develop it before developing the other line. If you had three separate trains on three separate lines, that would explain why you would have struggled with it. You will still be better off having the three trains on the line as opposed to a single triple-length train on the same line.

Interestingly, although I didn't record it, I'm fairly certain that when I ran this mission only using trucks, I'm fairly certain I got the mission done a lot faster than I did when I was using trains. Frequency is King! The more trucks you put on the line, the better the frequency and the more the Oil Wells pump out. On top of that I had so much excess money I had to throw most of it away buying Oil Tankers just to stay under the requisite amount of money for the medal. The only problem was that the Import Goods Medal didn't trigger even though I had production and output at the harbor maxed out, so I never completed the mission, which I was planning to do by running the M-300 to prove that a 100kph train is fast enough to not only achieve the high speed rail objectives, but to also get medal for the mission.

[Buddha Bob]

Thanks a lot for the help guys!

I really want to like this game but I get frustrated. There are some subtle behind the scenes dynamics that are hard for a new but detail oriented player to figure out.

[canophone]

Originally posted by bob1804:

Thanks a lot for the help guys!

I really want to like this game but I get frustrated. There are some subtle behind the scenes dynamics that are hard for a new but detail oriented player to figure out.

Yes, I am noticing how easy it is to add (rather, replace) a vehicle (generally for a train locomotive or car) by setting the reverse position to a train now using the game's scripting reference.... But nobody has done it this way. Would be useful for anyone that wants their trains to have a push-pull requirement, without automatically turning around.

[Pippo^]

Shouldn't go over station lenght which max is 360m,you can have for example 20 tanker cars for 18t each

[Havan_IronOak]

Originally posted by Pippo^:

Shouldn't go over station lenght which max is 360m,you can have for example 20 tanker cars for 18t each

I've heard that before but I've never understood why. Is there a reason that I'm missing?

Having a train longer than the platform is no problem in terms of loading and unloading.

It CAN cause you to mess up with switches nearer than they should be to the platform which may cause some routing issues but it's generally not an issue.

[larry_roberts]

Originally posted by ancienthighway:

You can add as many cars as you want to a train. I tend to not exceed the platform length though.

How much speed degradation are you willing to accept on inclines? In hilly and mountainous terrain, shorter trains are definitely better than longer trains. How important is accelleration from a stop? Would your industry, and cash flow, be better served by one long train or two trains half the length?

I had a Baldwin 0-6-0 pulling 10 box cars. The route from the food processing plant and destination was flat and the Baldwin hit top speed, empty or full. But from the farm to the processing plant I had a nice incline dropping the Baldwin running empty to under 5km per hour. The "General" didn't do much better.

I limit my trains to the max station length also but some new players may not realise that you can add more locomotives (double head or more) to the train during the underpowered steam era!.

[T3kx]

Sweet spot is PERFECTLY Balanced with (Max Demand per year) considering
(Line Frequency) and (Max capacity per vehicules).

I like 1850's EU (5 capacity wagons) with 10x to 16x wagons). It's on the Sluggish side but still reachs max speed fairly soon and keep it all the way-ish.

Long Train Running

[dave]

You can have trains as long as you like, even from day one. However, and there's always an however ((grins)) You need more then one loco to pull the thing.
Though TF is a game, it is possible to use the real life technique of double or even triple heading a train, that is having two or three locos pulling it.
A D1/3, the first Euro loco can pull 6 wagons comfortably, 8 if you have a flat route. But anything more and you need a second loco. while you obviously incure higher running cost, the whole train will usually still make a nice profit

[lookatjake]

Is there a menu that shows how long it will take a train to reach max speed? I feel like I remember seeing one, yet can’t find it now.

[chrisasnyder]

In the details tab of the train, there is a speed factor, Excellent, good, etc. Hover over that word and a tooltip pops up providing the details