how does one plan cargo train routes

[sershe]

I am building a modular city isolated from the highway connection (it's not yet completely isolated, but about 1/2-2/3rd are only connected by cargo rail, ship and and subway to the rest of the world; the final goal is total separation).
Because of that, I rely on cargo trains for most of my imports and exports. Also my city is almost traffic free
Historically, before having a lot of specialized industry I ran a successful model where external cargo rail/port has a one-way truck loop to an internal cargo rail, to isolate them; since I had no trouble with trains I was connecting various internal stations in a long line chaotically, with each station having a bypass track for unloading trains to avoid blocking the traffic on the main line.
Unfortunately after some time the number of trains on the internal network increased beyond all reason and it's a total fustercluck now. It does make progress, and I had relatively little commerce die, but some commerce does die and it's just an eyesore.
Any advice on how to run trains? If I do want to make them work, no highway option for me
There's lots out there on car traffic, but trains are hard. It's like cars with no despawn and only one lane roads

1) I don't quite understand the pattern of trains running. When the train spawns on internal network, does it move goods to multiple stations or just one? Where does it go after it's empty? In particular, I noticed they reverse out of a terminal station, but seem to circle around if that options is available. Does it go back to the origin station, and should I have a ring then instead of parallel lines?
2) The key is that the stations just don't have the capacity to process the trains fast enough. And since there's only one "lane", as soon as any bypass track fills up (no matter how long it is - I have some stations with permanent 5-6 train line, new ones arriving at the same rate as the old ones unload), the main line is screwed. Building duplicate tracks with ramps from one to another makes them take weird paths and create even worse problems on the junctions at some point.
Any way to work around that? It would be nice to have multi-track terminals like in real life.

 

[Teldaril]

As far as i observed it:

1. A cargo train always has one destination, thus no train will initially try to get to more than one terminal.

2. A cargo train is generated when either it is fully loaded or if enough time has passed by with goods waiting for transport.

Because of these 2 points it is impossible to connect too many terminals with each other because there will be be a lot of trains with low cargo volume, exchanging between each and every terminal and clogging the whole system.

3. If a cargo train (1) arrives at it's destination and point 2. is fulfilled then there won't spawn another train (2) but instead the initial train (1) will be unloaded and then loaded again for a new destination. Thus it might appear if this train has multiple destinations but it has not.

In my cities i like to build huge industrial zones with excessive cargo train networks (because it looks cool ). I have 2 strategies to prevent the system to collapse.

1. Never connect "destination terminals" with each other. "Destination terminals" are in the city to deliver to commercial zones. "Source terminals" are in industrial zones.

There is no turning point at the intersections and every train will either drive from source to destination or from destination to source.
This is very efficient to control the traffic flow but you can't add unlimited terminals. It will start clogging at the intersections.

2. You need to have several such cargo train networks separated from each other. Each time one network reaches it's capacity you need to build a new network.

It is possible to connect one "source terminal" or one "destination terminal" to multiple networks, but you have to keep an eye on the capacity of the terminals and intersections.

Multi track terminals wouldn't solve your problem. The traffic A.I. doesn't distribute trains on them. They will always try to go to the first track. There is at least one semi-functional 2 track station in the workshop. I tried to use it to separate the internal and external network. (To eliminate the truck loop) But for me one track never received cargo.

 

[neoiq5719]

What this game needs is to make the trains going to other cities DISAPPAIR much faster, for me this is a bug, they take forever to go away and that´s why u get a whole line of them disrupting your internal trade.

 

[EthanZak]

Fully agree with Teldaril, I keep virtually every line isolated - the import/export terminal is on a road loop with another terminal for local distribution, and I use individual lines between specific industrial/commercial areas rather than hooking them all up to one network. The AI is utterly useless at efficiently moving large volumes of goods, and I've always found fully integrated networks end up with huge queues of cargo trains waiting to unload (I once built an enormous spiral of railway track in front of a station just to accomodate the dozen or so trains waiting there )

 

[sershe]

What about the issue where a large commercial/mixed-use area receives too many (mostly full) inbound trains for one station to take? Is AI smart enough to distribute the trains if I build them as a fork going to the same place, i.e. approx (where = is rail and SSS is a cargo terminal?)

----------------------------------------------------------------
big local road where trucks should go
-----\    \_________/   /-\  \        / /-- . . .   --------------
      \__truck 1-lane__/   \   \_____/ /
===============SSSSS        \________       . . .
     \======================SSSSS        \_______/
      \=====================================SSSSS

 

[Teldaril]

I strongly believe that this won't work when all terminals are connected to the same road.
Either you have to connect them to different "big local roads" which doesn't intersect or you have to separate the terminals more over the area.

 

[Vimes]

What about the issue where a large commercial/mixed-use area receives too many (mostly full) inbound trains for one station to take? Is AI smart enough to distribute the trains if I build them as a fork going to the same place, i.e. approx (where = is rail and SSS is a cargo terminal?)

----------------------------------------------------------------
big local road where trucks should go
-----\    \_________/   /-\  \        / /-- . . .   --------------
      \__truck 1-lane__/   \   \_____/ /
===============SSSSS        \________       . . .
     \======================SSSSS        \_______/
      \=====================================SSSSS

This is not elegant, nor the best layout, but the goods station on the left was the only one there in my generic industry. Once all the specialised industry was up and going, as well as quite a bit of commercial, then that station was becoming too saturated and also the roads were getting clogged.

Adding the one on the right seems to have split that rail traffic and reduced the road traffic as well.

....maybe it works ok due to each cargo stations "radius" of operation services the industry around it but it also seems to help with inbound trains coming from the Ore, Forest and Oil industry, as I can follow them in.
Now that the above seems to work I might be tempted to improve its functionality and looks. I had not considered separating each terminal from each other, as mine run in a "loop" system and seem to function ok so far, but that doesn't mean that it couldn't be improved.

At the moment my generic industry is kinda stuck where it is, if I move it some commercial zones will prefer to import rather than use its goods, might be a distance reason as the rail and road service is maintained. Importing around 350, mainly goods, and exporting over 8000.
I'll consider just adding another goods manufacturing area rather than replace the one above, perhaps.

 

[Promethian]

So cargo terminals work for you guys? I build them literally on the same road as my industry and they sit there unused.

 

[Vimes]

They work ok for me, when using a cargo only rail connection for both internal and external needs of moving cargo and raw material. That could be from specialised industry to generic manufacturing or export, and then from generic industry to commercial or export.

I have a rail goods yard quite near to a large commercial area and completed goods gets dropped off there and finish the last bit of the journey by road to the shops.

Rail / Ship cargo also plays a big part of moving raw and finished goods around.

I suppose they need a reason to use that over normal road use, I don't think that they care about congestion when a route is planned. They need to not just have a place to load the goods / material up but a used place to unload it.

Even tho I need to refine it better I am appreciating how much truck traffic that it can remove from the roads.

Maybe I'm missing something but it is a pity that, unlike passenger transit, I can't see overall haulage figures and how it is being moved.

It would be good if the goods train only filled the lines when they were around 100% or so full, and that would mean industry and commercial would have decent warehousing for stock etc. Too many 7% trains on the internal network.

 

[Fox_NS_CAN]

So cargo terminals work for you guys? I build them literally on the same road as my industry and they sit there unused.

Generally speaking, they work for me. I get the odd one that is under-utilized, but mostly they are fairly busy.

I always build mine on a loop siding, unless they are an end-of-line station.
Road-wise, I always run a one-way road (sort of like the rail loop siding) connected to the station.

 

[EthanZak]

Generally speaking, they work for me. I get the odd one that is under-utilized, but mostly they are fairly busy.

I always build mine on a loop siding, unless they are an end-of-line station.
Road-wise, I always run a one-way road (sort of like the rail loop siding) connected to the station.

I'm pretty much the same, though all of mine tend to be end terminals; I also do the one-way road thing with them, and try to keep that road fairly clear of indy/comm (I'll often use it for placing services, fire station etc).

I find them useful enough overall to always build them into my cities, but I do agree with Vimes above that it would be nice to have some concrete data to base decisions on for cargo routes.

 

[Promethian]

Generally speaking, they work for me. I get the odd one that is under-utilized, but mostly they are fairly busy.

I always build mine on a loop siding, unless they are an end-of-line station.
Road-wise, I always run a one-way road (sort of like the rail loop siding) connected to the station.

It was figured out in my bug thread. Apparently the roads with bicycle lanes are incompatible with train stations. You can place the station and nearby buildings will get the upgrade points but they won't use the station. I never would have guessed it was the road type. I tried all kinds of repositioning to no avail.

 

[benzoll]

Yes, is a good idea to put a train station in industry and a train station in stores, and connect by an exclusive via.
Until now I never did, I always used the general route, but it works very well.
Even commercial station trains spawn, do they return unsold goods like real life?

 

[Vimes]

Yes, is a good idea to put a train station in industry and a train station in stores, and connect by an exclusive via.
Until now I never did, I always used the general route, but it works very well.
Even commercial station trains spawn, do they return unsold goods like real life?

They are dealing with Amazon returns

My Cargo trains took on a life of their own, too many leaving with only partial loads of around 7%.

 

[Fox_NS_CAN]

My Cargo trains took on a life of their own, too many leaving with only partial loads of around 7%.

I get that sometimes too. I thought that they should wait until they were more full. However, I suppose that might cause late deliveries as well, resulting in abandoned stores.

 

[Vimes]

I get that sometimes too. I thought that they should wait until they were more full. However, I suppose that might cause late deliveries as well, resulting in abandoned stores.

Agree with that thought. But you do have to be quite creative to prevent them from blocking up your lines if you build too many cargo points etc. I remember playing Pharoah or Caesar III many many years ago and, IIRC, they had warehouses where you could allocate stock levels etc for the markets. A pity that you can't have something a little more elaborate with this game, for both commercial and industry as a buffer zone.