Thanks for the feedback folks.
@Akot783: The trains are point-to-point. There are nine of them converging on this town, five from one side and four from the other. The signals keeps them sorted out. I’ve read that stations aren’t supposed to need signals, but it worked better for me to add some just before the platforms.
With all those trains arriving at one town, I’ve had over 500 passengers waiting on the platforms!
@Maetel: Since I’m doing a lot of landscaping, I made a simple mod to reduce those expenses (edited the “costs.lua” file) but it turned out that by far the most pricey thing is bulldozing buildings. Oh well.
@Bastargre: Having 9 passenger rail lines feeding the town fuels a lot of growth. A nearby oil refinery is almost entirely devoted to supplying goods to this town alone. There’s an internal looping bus route, but I’m not sure how important that really is (there’s another thread around debating that subject).
@Gobbybobby: Yeah, my games also lag a lot once you hit the modern era. Something the devs are working on apparently. This is a medium size map. Because of the lag I’ve never bothered to try the large size.
@Javis: The basic contours of the semi-sunken station areas are created using long stretches of wide roadways, pressing ‘N’ to sink the center portion and create a smooth grade, then deleting the road to leave behind the modified terrain. Or to expand a sunken area I’ll build a road and adjust the grade so it’s flat, then bulldoze the road.
To go deep enough, sometimes I had to make two passes over an area. Once brought me about halfway down, then doing it again pushed the terrain further down.
After using roads to get the basic contours, then I use the landscaping tools to soften the sharp edges, do some raising and lowering in some spots if needed. Then I add the station, rails, bridges and other roads, only to discover where things don’t quite work out. Delete everything and make further adjustments, then add it all back in again.
Yeah, it takes a while. 😉 Took me about an evening just for this one town, plus many millions of dollars.
@Berry: Heh-heh, fortunately there’s no “wrong” way to play Train Fever, it’s just fun to try to accomplish different things in different sessions.
@CalDMint: Yeah, replacing road vehicles all the time is especially tedious. That’s why this town is the only one on my map with an internal transit route. I just ignore the others. They can walk.
