I usually like to take it slow too.  My latest game ended up with 2 main lines and 1 smaller line added recently.

The two main lines cross the map in an X sort of pattern, double track connecting to multiple cities with (i forget exactly) about 10 trains per line running.  Its working quite well… although at some point the inevitable happens.  Traffic.

The aim of the double track aside from it being a little more realistic was to cut down the time passengers spent waiting for the next train if travelling to the a different city other than the adjacent one… express lines where next on my todo.

Three Lines.. I recently replaced trains on one line, so profits are lower than usual:
http://i.imgur.com/XIJ4OJ6.jpg
Losing battle with the traffic though, you can see it gridlocked across the map, just…

Traffic, Arrrghhh 🙁
http://i.imgur.com/swL6sUp.jpg

Mods!!!  🙂
http://i.imgur.com/Qq6g82Z.jpg

I find myself just experimenting with things at the moment though, hoping for improvements…

I have tried it like that and it doesn’t really add much benefit, although I am not sure if your diagram is 4 stations to one city or 2 further ones to different cities and the middle being one city..

So, lets say using the diagram above, that
left is (A) is city 1,
middle top (B) is city 2,
middle bottom (B2) is also city 2
right (C) city 3..

Then, think about what the civ’s might be doing.

• A>B civs head to work, so B is near this section of the city…great that cuts out some travel time, but to get home, they now have to go to the other station B2 across town.
• C > B2 civs are heading to shopping lets say, but they also must go to the other station across town to get home.

This can lead to civs taking the train to B or B2 and driving home with a car that magically appears, this is because of the added distance to the return station, unless you have a decent inner city network transferring passengers between both areas.

I have also tried B and B2 being inline at either ends of the city, but this didn’t work out too well either, it was better since the civs could return to the same station to complete their journey, but the delay caused by stopping at another station in the same city and loading / unloading just made the line perform worse than a single station.

Basically, I found nothing short of a large central station being the most optimal solution.

I had am idea, if you going to get a mega city. You know largest passenger station is 5 tracks,

single – double – double – station entrance or I type like this

T – TT – TT- E

If you dont build you station against a road as guide. you rotate with n / m and the station rotates in snaps. This allows you to place two 5 track stations back to back lik so

E – TT – TT – T|T – TT – TT – E

you can then use the left most single track near the entrance to do a circular loop to the left containing say 3 short 2 track passenger stations along the loop. trains travel in both directions in these loops and since the loops is so tight need not be fast, they need to be fuel efficient cheap and maintenance free and might only be pullin 1 or two cars.

And the right most single track does a loop to the right. All other tracks are the main line going out of the city.

If you can sink these stations down into the ground the loop tracks could actually be a tunneled railroad / simulated subway. Cause if it is tunneled  then TF can build houses on the ground above the tracks. Making the city even more compact.  The advantage with railway loops is the more people in the city you just hook up more cars to the loco.

So we have this

E – TT – TT – T|T – TT – TT – E

two tracks are loop tracks so it becomes

E – LT – TT – T|T – TT – TL – E

you need to make new double tracks with the remaining tracks.

– – – TT – TT -|- TT – TT – – –

And so this allows 4 double track lines to pass through the city.

You then need to tunnel under the two stations in two places and have trams circulating under the stations between the two entrances.

The railway loop tracks then server the central station(s) with passengers who only need to jump off the loop train walk on the platform and jump on the long distance train.

—–

I been reading your horror stories about 4000 pop cities and total gridlock. So I beeen thinking about nothing else then how to avoid that.

I have a succesful game now with TGV trains and lots of trams in the cities. And almost no cars. Seems 95% of the population uses public transportation. May city is only 1100. But I can already see the trams will not work they are already too many and they are full.

So for a 4000 pop city rail is probably the only way. I lived in Stockholm for 15 years and they have little room to expand the railway, rail comes in from 4 directions, 2 are national mainlines the other regional. But as you approach , on the way in there are many stations on the way in to thie central hub. And the railline is in a star shape and on each spoke the rail line is shared between short distance shuttle trains, intercity trains, and long distance trains.

To have so many different line types on the same spoke, then if you do it like that in  this game all stations along the spoke probably all need to be 5 track stations. And they have a large footprint.

Doing a star shape sounds simpler then tunelled loop tracks. I already tried tunneled loop track but dicovered you my not sink a train track or station below the water level. If you do the game start to build railway bridges when you try lay a track.

And this was because my city was beside a river. So the only chance was to raise all ground around me, and then sink the loop track stations into the raised ground. I think that operation costed 160 – 200 million. So it is impractical near water.

star shape is probably better.

The beauty of this game is: we need to think while we are playing TF.

I just began to play, but I’ll bring my ideas.

How about the XL Truckstation

http://www.train-fever.net/filebase/index.php/Entry/110-XL-Truck-Station-mit-und-ohne-Lagerhalle/

or the modern Cargo-Station

http://www.train-fever.net/filebase/index.php/Entry/121-Moderne-LKW-Station/

?

Just simple things to solve your issues