bv: Modern european freight car is aboyt 20 tonnes empty and 80 tonnes full. This would imply 60 unit capacity, which is not true in game.
I have yet to play a game with a realistic acceleration for steam engines. Most realistic acceleration models appear to use a ‘constant power’ model, which is fine for diesel-electric, diesel-hydraulic and electric locomotives. But for steam locomotive a ‘constant force’ model, up to a certain speed, is required.
If devs wish, I can elaborate 🙂
HeighborKid: It appears that TF uses realistic acceleration/deacceleration model. This may result in a different speed curve when a train is running A->B then when train goes B->A, which may result in what you are observing.
Anyways. The goal of my mod is to introduce somewhat level playing field for trains and trucks. My goal is to assume:
Trucks and buses are capacity limited – loads and loads of them are needed to service a given route, but setting them up is easy.
Trains are infrastructure limited – they are cheap to build and run ( per unit of capacity ), but their infrastructure is expensive to build.
For what I have gathered so far, it seems that cargo is weightless ( shame 🙁 ). Morevoer, the acceleration model is way too restrictive – it takes alot of space to reach full speed. In my tests I have increased power of locomotives by a factor of 10, and then inter-city trains were able to reach their full speed. Anyhow, I am still researching.