Can/Should train routes include mail/passengers and goods such as cattle?

[Star Lord]

So I just finished the tutorial on the first campaign and built a separate track to move Cattle from a cattle farm to Denver and then on to Cheyenne. I also have a track going from Omaha to Cheyenne to carry mail and passengers which got me thinking about combining these two routes. Will combining cattle with mail/passengers work or is it generally not a good idea to mix that with resources?

[Didz]

It will but it may not be a good idea. Settng a train to 'Automatic' means that the train will pick up anything demanded from every station its schedule stops at. So, in theory if it stops at a ranch it will pick up cattle. However, once it has an eight wagon consist then it won't pick up additional items, so if its full of cattle it won't pick up passengers or mail.

Generally with rural freight like cattle, cotton, wood, coal and the like you want to be making bulk deliveries using dedicated trains. However, I usually leave my intercity trains on 'Automatic' so that they combine passengers and mail with export products like beer, meat, clothing, candy, toys and textiles.

[Dray Prescot]

Only in the begining. Once you have built up a little and have some cities that have grown some, if you can afford it, put Passengers/Mail on seperate tracks and platforms in the Stations.You get paid by how FAST you deliver Passengers and Mail. Freight is slower and the payoff does NOT depend on speed of delivery.

It is very easy to get Passengers/Mail delayed by freight trains ahead of them on the same track and even more delays while waiting to get into the Stations.

[Star Lord]

Ahh. Thank you. I just noticed that the cattle/meat route is actually losing money at -19 a trip and since the origin is the cattle farm going to Denver and on to Cheyenne, it’s not bringing anything back to The cattle farm, even through Denver.

Any suggestions on how to get the route out of the red?

[gardlt]

If you look at the ratio at the Meat Plant, you will see that more Cattle is needed than Meat produced. This means higher volume. So this is probably the first product in the typical scenario that should have dedicated, direct delivery.

Just for the theory though, on the route Cattle ranch - Cheyenne - Denver, you should specify no cars to be loaded at Denver. Set Minimum cars to 0. The reason is that otherwise the train will pickup from Denver any goods needed in Cheyenne even though the train goes the long way via the ranch. That's very inefficient, and obviously not recommended practice.

Also, long distance express routes like Omaha to Cheyenne are of limited viability in this game. Only do those if you have a task. The express traffic mechanics are designed around a simple A-B structure. They look at direction. In order to make a long distance line work you need to actually block the short distance transfers in that direction. Passengers/Mail will get on any train heading in the right direction and because a short distance train is more frequent they will be statistically more likely to take that.

[Star Lord]

Ironically, I'm getting most of my money ferrying passengers and mail from Omaha to Cheyenne and back. This is from about 4 different train routes atm.

As for the Meat/Cattle line, I still need to deliver Meat to Cheyenne for a task so once I complete that, I'll change it up based on your suggestions. That does make sense, as does the mail/passenger info.

One last thing. I'm having a hard time finding where to check for exports and imports. I see a lot of farms dotted across the map so I was wondering where I can go in the city view to see what is needed and what can be exported.

[gardlt]

What's needed in the city
- Can be "imports" or local industrial production.

From city view click on the Left-hand pane: information. You should see somehting like this.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1470677739

The basics:
1st column is amount currently available in the city stockpile.
2nd column is the amount needed per week.

Any cargoes that are greyed out are not demanded "yet". Either the city is not large enough yet or is it a raw resource for which there is currently no consuming factory in the city. Factory demands are in the 3rd column.

Tip:
In game options, enabling tool tips is a great help to figure out what a lot of the icons mean.

Side-note: I haven't found a good use for the information in the 4th and 5th columns. If someone else has a system for that I'm curious. Any clue as to how they are meant to be used?

"Exports"
For every industry in a city there are 2 stockpiles: the local city stockpile as seen in the 1st column above, and an "export" stockpile. This is shown under the "window view" of the city station on the main city page. Say we have a Level 1 Brewery, with a full "export" stockpile we would see the Beer icon followed by 14/14. First value is amount currently available, second is maxium for the stockpile.

Industries will automatically prioritize filling the local stockpile. There is no chance for player control. If you wonder why you just built an industry but you have nothing to export yet, it's probably all going towards the local stockpile.

Obviously if the city is too small to require the good, there will be no local stockpile and all is available for export, but city size limits the maximum size of an industry. For example, level 2 is only possible at >20,000 inhabitants.

[Star Lord]

Thanks for your information and everyone else for theirs. Looking forward to playing some more tonight!

[chaney]

Originally posted by gardlt:

Side-note: I haven't found a good use for the information in the 4th and 5th columns. If someone else has a system for that I'm curious. Any clue as to how they are meant to be used?

Those are the global (map-wide) total production capacity and demand.

I suspect they are intended to guide the player in identifying what factories to build, farm types to upgrade, etc., and which goods are already oversupplied.

In a slower paced game the information would be very useful for those purposes.

[gardlt]

I could see a limited use if that info was visible when upgrading resource suppliers you own. Especially for the 5 staples if all deliveries are by wagon. But I can't imagine calling it "efficient."

But, delivery in a typical rail network is never close to global. Big reason is that only 60% satisfaction is needed for growth. Maybe someone is trying to supply a good to every single city but I never do. Even if you just keep all cities growing it wont be that long before some of the "higher-tier" cargoes even at level 5 have too low output to meet the "global" consumption.

[Star Lord]

Just finished the first campaign as "train manager" grade but I did get all 8 objectives done. One thing that I am finding it hard to wrap my head around is manually choosing what to load on the trains. It doesn't seem very intuitive to choose what you are exporting and what will be importing but I think I figured it out. Now, onto the East!

[Bored Peon]

Also dont forget to use conductors, mail cars, and dining cars. Especially if you get cities large enough you seperate to passenger only and mail only trains.

Set the priority to 0 for the other type. As in set a passenger trian to never get mail and a mail train to never get passengers. Otherwise you just kinda blowing off the mail car, dining car, and conductor bonuses.

Also if you have a frieght train hauling on a meat for beer route, use a refrigerator car and a security guard.

[Star Lord]

Thanks. I didn’t have an option for the conductors at least in the first campaign mission or know how to use them. Clicking the + key didn’t do anything.

I was transporting beer near the end of the campaign so I didn’t know about the refrigeration cars. Good to know.

[Bored Peon]

Well the mail car, dining car, and refrigerator car doesnt show up until 1860 or so? Unless you research it.

Conductors and security guards are people you hire.

[Star Lord]

Yeah, I gathered the hiring part. I thought that's what the big "+" button was for.

As for the cars, they were all available in the first campaign...except for the Caboose. I had to research that.