Railroads are unprofitable

[Prince of Thieves]

Need advice how to run railroads. In every nation I play, my railroads are a total mess. They need to be heavily subsidized or they go bankrupt. If I subsidized them, I go bankrupt. What am I doing wrong?

[Bruce Wayne]

you're playing the game. thats whats wrong

[Toblm]

Transport cost is too low or input cost is too high.

[Zortex]

Have you activated the work modes which use transport? It decreases the number of workers needed, which might cause some issues if you already have a lot of peasents.

[Prince of Thieves]

Originally posted by Zortex:

Have you activated the work modes which use transport? It decreases the number of workers needed, which might cause some issues if you already have a lot of peasents.

Do you mean the industries that use it specifically?

[Zortex]

Originally posted by Prince of Thieves:

Originally posted by Zortex:

Have you activated the work modes which use transport? It decreases the number of workers needed, which might cause some issues if you already have a lot of peasents.

Do you mean the industries that use it specifically?

Yes. You probably have a lot of transport but not much use, so the price is low (just like any other good). There is quite a few buildings that let you spend transport, usually the green workmode, as one of the options (I think either urban centers or maybe it was government administration too).

[curtadamsCA]

The tutorial recommends subsidizing railroads. I think the infrastructure required for a state normally exceeds the transport the railroads produce. Maybe that changes late game as factories get improved.

If you're getting finance problems, focus on more profitable expansions.

[Ronald Reagan]

Railroads are not profitable by it's nature. Game mechanics are really sucks, if you want to run them correctly you need to subsidize. If your budget doesn't afford it, you can get more money from tariffs. Just spot which goods you're producing most, and which one you need and encourage opposite of them at trade routes, don't touch ones that productivity will go negative. That's the trick I always do.

[Toblm]

Originally posted by Theodor:

Railroads are not profitable by it's nature. Game mechanics are really sucks, if you want to run them correctly you need to subsidize. If your budget doesn't afford it, you can get more money from tariffs. Just spot which goods you're producing most, and which one you need and encourage opposite of them at trade routes, don't touch ones that productivity will go negative. That's the trick I always do.

Railroads can be profitable, never wildly but by 1880 usually +1.0-2.0 profit on each line.
As long as transport demand is high and input cost is low. Which is tricky to manage with your first lines, subsidize those.

[Ronald Reagan]

Originally posted by Toblm:

Originally posted by Theodor:

Railroads are not profitable by it's nature. Game mechanics are really sucks, if you want to run them correctly you need to subsidize. If your budget doesn't afford it, you can get more money from tariffs. Just spot which goods you're producing most, and which one you need and encourage opposite of them at trade routes, don't touch ones that productivity will go negative. That's the trick I always do.

Railroads can be profitable, never wildly but by 1880 usually +1.0-2.0 profit on each line.
As long as transport demand is high and input cost is low. Which is tricky to manage with your first lines, subsidize those.

Usually in my first 30 to 40 years of gameplay, railroads makes good profit but after shortage of infrastructure I build railroads everywhere including my colonies. Even I allow transportation by trains on every single building, railroads become worthless. I try to balance supply/demand afterwards but infrastructure still need in literally everywhere I hold and it crush demand at the end. So I subsidize them to run.

[zanos]

I know this is slightly off topic, but fun fact: railroads in China, Europe, and even the US to a degree are still subsidized in the year 2022.

[Prince of Thieves]

Originally posted by zanos:

I know this is slightly off topic, but fun fact: railroads in China, Europe, and even the US to a degree are still subsidized in the year 2022.

Same in good ol Canada - not I’m personally a fan of that.

I think I also had them on auto-expand and they just build away. Do switch over to Steel Cars when they become available or does that depend?

[SeaJunk]

Railroads generally wont provide a profit. They create the transport resource and increase market access in inland states. The idea is that they increase the profit of the goods they transport.

[Admiral General]

You need to allow passenger trains. That's how I make them profitable in all my games.

[Silverlock]

Railroads will make money for you but you have to turn on passenger rail cars for them to do so which does reduce the amount of infrastructure they provide meaning you will end up having to make more of them.

So your choice is to run a profitable passenger rail network at the coast of building other things, or subsidizing a smaller more efficient cargo network letting you build out more of your industry.

Mind you if you let the input goods go gold then your going to lose a lot of money no matter what else you do.

[Inky]

Railroads by themselves are usually not profitable, but they make the rest of your economy vastly more efficient if you enable rail transport for their buildings. For this reason, Railroads are almost always worth subsidizing.