can you make late game passenger trains profitables?

[TheOofertaffy]

^

[larry_roberts]

Yes, but you may have to drop maintenance levels to normal and only move them to very high when the condition of the train is poor, then move them back to normal when the vehicle condition improves!. Also think horses for courses, switch from the very best, fastest trains to something a bit cheaper to run and maintain. If there are a lot of people on the platforms you can have more carriages, if trains are only half full reduce the number of carriages, try to attract more people to the stations with more/better bus services, in other words trial and error until you get the right train services for any given line. Reducing the number of trains on a service also reduces the frequency of service and may discourage passengers, so it's a fine balancing act which I find can get quite tedious sometimes!.

[Vimpster]

Originally posted by larry_roberts:

Yes, but you may have to drop maintenance levels to normal and only move them to very high when the condition of the train is poor, then move them back to normal when the vehicle condition improves!.

Wrong game. That is only a TpF2 feature.

But yeah, Like larry said, make sure your trains are not running half full. As a general rule of thumb I would suggest using the fastest, but weakest and lightest trains possible. The power of a locomotive is the major determining factor in it's running costs. And the power is only needed to compensate for the weight. So if you can get a light locomotive with light carriages you can reduce the amount of power needed to accelerate quickly.

Multiple Unit trains (trains that have both power and capacity built into the same unit) have their running costs determined largely by the power, but also the capacity and the top speed. Unlike locomotives which are almost exclusively determined by power. But the same principle still applies. You want ones that are not excessively heavy relative to their capacity. Other wise they are too slow or they have excessive power to compensate for their weight which makes them exceedingly expensive to run. The Speed Dance Express is a great example of this. It is super heavy relative to its capacity, making it a very hard train to make money with as it has a huge amount of expensive power to compensate for its weight.

As an example, if using the American vehicle set, if you were to use an EMD AEM-7 locomotive combined with 5 Westrail Westfleet passenger carriages, you would have a train with a speed of 200kph, capacity of 105, weight of about 360t and a running cost of less than $3.5mil. By comparison the Speedance Express has a speed of 240kph, capacity of 101, weight of 565t and a running cost of $6mil. Even though the Speedance Express has a slightly higher ticket price per passenger due to the slightly faster speed, the first train consist would without question be far more profitable.

[joeball123]

Originally posted by Vimpster:

As an example, if using the American vehicle set, if you were to use an EMD AEM-7 locomotive combined with 5 Westrail Westfleet passenger carriages, you would have a train with a speed of 200kph, capacity of 105, weight of about 360t and a running cost of less than $3.5mil. By comparison the Speedance Express has a speed of 240kph, capacity of 101, weight of 565t and a running cost of $6mil. Even though the Speedance Express has a slightly higher ticket price per passenger due to the slightly faster speed, the first train consist would without question be far more profitable.

I'm going to very slightly disagree with this. The Speedance has the potential to outperform an AEM-7 with five Westrail Westfleet carriages on the right route, but the problem is that the right route is a very long distance non-stop express line - you essentially need a line where the Speedance can run at top speed over something like seventy or eighty percent of the length of the route.

[Vimpster]

Originally posted by joeball123:

The Speedance has the potential to outperform an AEM-7 with five Westrail Westfleet carriages on the right route, but the problem is that the right route is a very long distance non-stop express line - you essentially need a line where the Speedance can run at top speed over something like seventy or eighty percent of the length of the route.

Well I would say that such a route is a rather impractical route and an unlikely route to be made. You would need a very long map for such a thing to even be possible. But nonetheless you may be right about that.

After reading your post though, I became curious, and decided to do some testing about just how the two trains compare in more detail. But on a more realistic (realistic in terms of the games scale) distanced route of 11km.

After allowing each train to run a full round trip to get a more accurate frequency number I did some maths. For the record the frequency for the EMD was 8min 47 seconds, while the Speedance was 7min 50 seconds. For the test the trains ran empty so the unloading and loading times are not being accounted for.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2361218019
EMD AEM-7 - Easy - Running cost per minute = $285,205, Revenue per minute = $799,260, Profit per minute = $514,055

Speedance Express - Easy - Running cost per minute = $500,548, Revenue per minute = $999,702, Profit per minute = $499,154

EMD AEM-7 - hard - Profit per minute = $114,425

Speedance Express - hard - Profit per minute = -$697

So over an 11km distance, regardless of the difficulty, the EMD AEM-7 would be more profitable. And on hard difficulty the Speedance would be losing money. This test of course assumes the trains are running full all the time. Just some interesting food for thought.

[joeball123]

Care to explain how a train that takes ~6.8km to reach top speed on flat ground is supposed to run at top speed over seventy or eighty percent of an 11km route?

[Vimpster]

Originally posted by joeball123:

Care to explain how a train that takes ~6.8km to reach top speed on flat ground is supposed to run at top speed over seventy or eighty percent of an 11km route?

It's not. Not even close. Perhaps you misread what I said? I could maybe do another test that involves a much longer route. But I did explain why I went with a shorter distance than would be needed to meet that requirement. I thought it was made pretty clear that I was not trying to disprove your statement. In fact I even stated that you might be right. So I'm not understanding the seemingly defensive response.

[joeball123]

Sorry, for some reason I missed where you said you wanted to compare the two on a more practical route and so thought that this was supposed to be a long-distance express test.

[TheOofertaffy]

Any Yall know if passengers are easier in TPF2? as im getting it tomorrow?

[Vimpster]

Making money is just easier all around in TpF2.

[TheOofertaffy]

Originally posted by Vimpster:

Making money is just easier all around in TpF2.

Ok tysm