How to build tracks going downhill?

[PhanTOMMM]

Hey, studid question I know but no matter what I try I can't get my train tracks to go downhill, they either build a bridge or tunnel, I've tried using the raise/lower keys but it usually ends up with one of them blacked out. Help me please :(

[SlimNasty™]

Watch some YouTube or Twitch shows, I'm streaming every Saturday on Twitch from 12 noon, be glad to help out if I can....

https://go.twitch.tv/slimgamingchannel

[killakanz]

Railway tracks are not like roads. They cannot handle steep gradients.
Take some real railways as examples. If they need to get up steep highland areas, they often do not go directly up. In many cases they go up the hill gradually, sideways on, winding their way up following the contour lines. Sometimes, heavy earthworks are required, like long viaducts or tunnels, or just digging a flat path into the side of a hill.

This same challenge is reflected in the game. You'll need to plan your route carefully, taking hills and gradients into consideration.
In some cases, there simply may not be a way to get up there. You might consider getting your train station as close as possible and using trucks or buses to ferry the last stretch.

[canophone]

Some railway types can handle steeper gradients more than others. But TpF favors only the intercity models.

[Dan]

(Shameless self-promotion alert :-)

I made a rail planning mod recently that can help in planning a consistent gradient up around hillsides. You can just use the “rough planner” if you’d rather stick with the standard tracklaying tools.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1167178513

In the tutorial video on that page, I demonstrate building a route up a hillside, around half way through.

[BOCHENSKI]

There is an important thing to know when building in hilly maps. When you set a given gradient to a track or road, it's only achieved AT THE END of the given section. So the shorter the sections are, the less space you need to get that gradient, and the more steep the rail is.

[Dan]

Originally posted by BOCHENSKI:

There is an important thing to know when building in hilly maps. When you set a given gradient to a track or road, it's only achieved AT THE END of the given section. So the shorter the sections are, the less space you need to get that gradient, and the more steep the rail is.

Yep, to add to that - it therefore maintains whatever gradient you set at the start of the next section. So you can plan a transition from one to another.
Making a short “transition” segment doesn’t make the resulting slope any steeper, it just makes a sharper upward/downward bend, so that specified steepness is reached quicker.

The game doesn’t seem to penalize short gradient changes, so you can certainly gain a slight advantage by keeping it short, provided you don’t mind the unrealistic looking jump in the rails :-)

However, that still won’t get you up a significantly big incline any better. You still need to learn to follow the terrain and find an optimal path along hillsides. It’s even advisable to avoid the steepest track gradient - a lot of trains will grind to a near-halt going up a 7.5% grade. Transport Fever doesn’t pull too many punches in this regard (although it’s still about 5-10x more forgiving than in reality - I think I read somewhere that early railways were often limited to something like a 0.1% grade!)