Rail Construction excruciatingly slow and inefficient

[Nationality]

I experimented on realistic with immediately building a rail construction office and staffing it with foreign workers, but the issue I'm running into is that so much foreign labor is wasted waiting for the construction vehicle to reach the construction site. Often, by the time they get to the destination, the workers have already timed out and the track layer stands idle, or worse the track layer goes back to the RCO without having done any work at all so the vicious cycle can repeat.

My main suggestion is for the track builder to head to the nearest construction site regardless of whether it has workers, and then waits to be staffed to begin construction. Or, only track building time counts as work time. Otherwise building railways with rail construction offices is just unusually punishing.

[whisper]

You do not want to try to staff an RCO with foreign labor. Foreign labor is terrible in general and you just need to use it to get the absolute necessities for your first town in place. Once you have your own population you can build a rail network.

[Nationality]

Originally posted by whisper:

You do not want to try to staff an RCO with foreign labor. Foreign labor is terrible in general and you just need to use it to get the absolute necessities for your first town in place. Once you have your own population you can build a rail network.

I understand that, the point is even if I used domestic labor for rail construction, it's still horribly inefficient. Using foreign labor just compounds the problem.

[whisper]

It's a solvable problem. One good trick is to put RCOs on the outskirts of a city in walking distance of some of the apartments so it just always stays staffed. It doesn't make pollution to my knowledge so there's really no downside.

[Nationality]

Originally posted by whisper:

It's a solvable problem. One good trick is to put RCOs on the outskirts of a city in walking distance of some of the apartments so it just always stays staffed. It doesn't make pollution to my knowledge so there's really no downside.

This is probably what I'll end up doing. I was experimenting with an early rail strategy and it's a shame it doesn't work, because it's so difficult to get rail up and running in realistic. I still think there are adjustments that could be made so foreign workers staffing rcos are more viable.

[whisper]

If I could make a wish for rail construction I'd like to be able to give the RCO normal trains as well as track builder sets so the builders could stay working at the construction site while other trains deliver materials to them. I don't see it happening though...

[MG83]

Nati. i expressed this problem like years ago. go and get back mechanic of rail builder is super in efficient. in addition to that you cannot parallel RCO as you can CO Two RCO cant work on single rail track and there is maximum worker cap. You can pump 500 -1k worker to speed up to construction to single construction site but you cant to rail.

This issue must be resolved . i suggested to be able to configure rail builder train as we can configure regular trains .

in addition to that there should be a taxi and builder mechanic:
Construction train should go to build rail segments without coming back when finishes one moves to other.

There should be a taxi train that goes back and forth to construction train that brings workers and resources.

RCO should not have maximum capacity of workers. it should be like a train station that workers wait there to be picked up.

this way it will be possible to build rails fast. Else it is super inefficient and i just simply dont use it . i just money build . i made test that for my starter city to build rail self takes 7 8 game play years. while i can just money buy it and pay back in 1-2 game years.

[MG83]

Also please check earlier posts :(

[Silent_Shadow]

You can reduce the time a track builder takes to get to the rail head to resume construction by splitting rail segments into smaller sections. This allows the track builder to move at a higher speed instead of the 25 (?) km/hr that it is limited to when approaching the rail head while on a track segment that is under construction.

Railways should not be quick to build imo, as the long building time is one of the few disadvantages trains have compared to road vehicles and ships.

[Nationality]

I don't need it necessarily to be fast, but I am somewhat salty that I basically nuked my income by trying to rush rails with foreign workers.

[Chesher]

the tracklayer returns for resources - everything is done correctly.
You just need to set up the logistics correctly, it's difficult but interesting. (let small buses with some period if using mercenaries)
In the end, not every decision you make can be reasonable and economically expedient :).
And yes, laying the railway is long and expensive, but worth it.

[MrKrabs]

I observed that if a track layer is busy while no workers at the RCO it returns home after a while.
It's not waiting endlessly for workers to come. So a somewhat regular arrival of fresh workers is necessary.
If you are using mods you can play with the files.
I guess it is possible to raise the workforce for the track layers.
I have a steam Loco which binds 200 workers.

[Beast of War]

I build a double track from the lake in eastern map ( where there is much oil ) to the border since i wanted to setup my 1st city there.

It took 20 years to construct the single track to the border ( lol ) but there was a tunnel in line as well. The disassembled track layer is slow as hell so i build 2 train CO and set the other one to work on the branches coming off the main line leading into my city to various industries. I have bad experiences with using multiple track layers on the same trajectory as they block each other a lot.

When 1 line was open i could order much faster track builder crane with wagons. So the other line of the double track - including a tunnel as well -was build in under 3 years.

After that i build another line to a gigantic farm ( silo ) with track conection. Again tunneling a part of the way. But now i had purchased a tunnel drill which made that process A LOT faster.

I think the lesson for me is to build a train CO close to the border so you can have regular, faster trackbuilders earlier and do not have to rely on the slow disassembled tracklayer for long. I think is is wise to build a small town there too for populating various buildings that make it easier to move deeper inland, including the train CO's.

In short : there was no problem with tracklaying speed after i could purchase and use the regular track builders or tunnel drill.

[MrKrabs]

I learned that lesson the hard way ether.

[Silent_Shadow]

Make sure your RCOs have enough material in them too, or the larger track builders will build much shorter segments of track than they normally would.