Force a bridge

[slwsnowman40]

So I used m or n to raise or lower some rail to have a bridge and hopefully avoid traffic lights in the middle of some rail routes. That would screw up production as I've seen in YouTube videos.

The terrain is very flat, I'm talking zoomed all the way out and laying 5 inches of track on my screen for 100k. Yet no matter how much I tried I couldn't force a bridge crossing or a tunnel. I eventually gave up as all of my steam lorries reached their max age and my account spiraled around the drain into millions in the red.

Anyone got any tips for building bridges and tunnels to cross rail lines? I'd much rather do that than route the train to areas it isn't needed. The rail/road build tools are very interesting, giving me bridges where I may not want them...but trying to force a bridge the game says, "NO BRIDGE FOR YOU!"

[thepaj]

You will have to make the ramps very long to make a bridge.

[Saint Landwalker]

Road bridges are a lot more flexible than rail bridges, so those are almost always what I use. Rail, as thepaj mentions, need a very long lead-up ramp because they're more limited in their incline.

Road vehicles are also much more capable of handling inclines without losing speed, so there's that as well.

[slwsnowman40]

I'll try that, thanks.

[SBGaming]

Two ways to build a bridge.

1) Draw out your prospective bridge, and use the m and n keys to raise it up (or lower it if you want a tunnel, same concept). Sometimes works well, othertimes not so much.

2) Draw out a bit of road towards the rail line first and use the manual adjustment to raise the end of the road up to create your starting embankment. From there, connect a road from the raised end of the road across the rail line to where you want the bridge to end. use m and n keys to adjust the bridge if additional height is needed.

I use the second option often when building rail bridges, if I need to give the bridge a bit of height rather than trying to be at the mercy of how the game wants to build the bridge with option 1, and to better control when and where the game places embankments. An example of this is USA Mission 6 where you run a passenger line from Houston to New Orleans through Beaumont. You want to get over the Refinery plus any rail/road traffic that may be flowing between the Harbor and the Refinery. The most convenient option is to bridge that section, and you can make a relatively cheap bridge by raising the rail up before you need to start the bridge, and it costs and looks a lot better than if you connected Houston to Beaumont in one single and tried to adjust the entire thing up using the M and N keys.

[slwsnowman40]

Originally posted by SBGaming:

Two ways to build a bridge.

1) Draw out your prospective bridge, and use the m and n keys to raise it up (or lower it if you want a tunnel, same concept). Sometimes works well, othertimes not so much.

2) Draw out a bit of road towards the rail line first and use the manual adjustment to raise the end of the road up to create your starting embankment. From there, connect a road from the raised end of the road across the rail line to where you want the bridge to end. use m and n keys to adjust the bridge if additional height is needed.

I use the second option often when building rail bridges, if I need to give the bridge a bit of height rather than trying to be at the mercy of how the game wants to build the bridge with option 1, and to better control when and where the game places embankments. An example of this is USA Mission 6 where you run a passenger line from Houston to New Orleans through Beaumont. You want to get over the Refinery plus any rail/road traffic that may be flowing between the Harbor and the Refinery. The most convenient option is to bridge that section, and you can make a relatively cheap bridge by raising the rail up before you need to start the bridge, and it costs and looks a lot better than if you connected Houston to Beaumont in one single and tried to adjust the entire thing up using the M and N keys.

That's the thing, some times it does it perfectly as you mentioned. Others I'm banging my head against my desk.

[peterhoepfner]

If the game is still trying to plow a hill over the track that you want to bridge, then start further away and draw it further out on the other side.
The issue is that trains are very vulnerable to high grade difference and the game, rightfully so, will not allow you to make an incline above a certain grade.

[slwsnowman40]

Yes, I'm sure I'm far enough away though. I'll try again if that occasion arrises on that map.

[Robbedem]

Rail will also snap to roads to make crossings sometimes. Try pressing SHIFT if the rail doesn't want to build a bridge over the road.

[slwsnowman40]

Originally posted by Robbedem:

Rail will also snap to roads to make crossings sometimes. Try pressing SHIFT if the rail doesn't want to build a bridge over the road.

I'm trying to go over rail. The closest I got was a raised crossing in the middle of a bridge. Which looked as ridiculous as it sounds.

[Robbedem]

Pressing SHIFT also works if you try to build rail over rail. SHIFT just disables the snapping, so if what you are trying to build snaps to something you doesn't want (f.e. a rail or road you are trying to bridge), pressing SHIFT can solve the issue.

[slwsnowman40]

I tried that but didn't notice any difference...I had been in game for most of the day yesterday, maybe something stopped working properly?

I'll try them all tonight.