Freight train ports are worthless, killing game for me

[ScottyDoesKnow 8]

I think it's for the previous day ending at midnight, while the monthly transactions are for the previous 24 hours. If you're looking only for the current day I think you're out of luck.

[SockoJr53 51]

I was very excited to build my first freight train depot in my coal-mining city, as I'm a huge train buff, only to find out that that they do NOT come around frequently enough, as others above me have said. I noticed the train had it's 2 locomotives, a caboose, and 2 freight cars (coal hoppers in my case) to start. With each coal yard I tacked on to the trade depot it gained 2 additional cars. I had 4 total coal yards, so that's 2x4=8 plus the base 2 = 10 total coal hoppers. I was making $60,000 every time the train came around, so for coal that's $60,000 / 10 cars = $6,000 a car, which is the same as the region trucks give me, and they haul 10 tons. So I would conclude that each freight train car is the equivalent to one regional freight truck.

And to re-iterate about the trucks, yes, the small orange/yellow trucks that you build garages for are for transporting goods locally (from a mine to a depot, or a depot to a factory) They haul 5 tons or 500 units. The regional trucks are larger and red, and haul twice as much, 10 tons or 1000 units. They do the exporting and pay you when they pick up from your depots.

[Vaikin 10]

Ya they're different. I THINK you get as many global shipment trucks as you have local trucks, but I've really never checked.

Definitely not the case. It's either related to how many storage areas you have or how many trade port/depots you have.

[ScottyDoesKnow 8]

Just a note that the boats aren't very reliable either. I was having a problem supplying processors so I started looking at when the boats were coming in.

 

I have 4 trade ports, one for alloy (A), one for processors (P) and two for computers (C1 and C2). They all have docks and P has a train connection. C2 was empty for most of it, but it seemed to still send more computer boats that just went to C1. Pretty longwinded but here are the results, kind of split into days and ended early if I changed something:

 

11:04 A

14:25 C1

15:24 P

18:41 A

21:44 C1

01:54 C1

03:07 P

06:25 A

08:14 C1

 

11:33 A

14:50 C1

17:44 A

20:04 C1

20:28 P

02:00 C1

02:28 C1

05:55 A

08:50 C1

 

11:09 A

 

Destroyed train connection on P

 

15:36 P

19:46 C1

21:53 C1

02:06 C1

02:30 C1

06:20 A

08:56 C1

11:36 A

 

15:28 C1

16:51 A

 

Paused, destroyed and replaced dock on P

 

20:45 Nothing Think this was meant for P but turned around without stopping because I had destroyed and replaced it

21:00 C1

23:44 A

02:15 C1

02:40 C2

06:16 A

07:56 C1

15:07 C1

15:31 P

16:53 A

19:55 C1

 

22:08 P

02:15 C1

03:28 P

04:55 A

07:57 C1

09:32 P

11:08 A

14:00 C1

15:10 P

17:26 A

20:15 C1

21:15 P

23:20 A

 

At this point there doesn't seem to be a problem. I don't know if replacing the dock did it or it's just random chance. But you can see that they're fairly random either way.

[DHarrisG 1]

If you have one storage bin that has 100 tons of coal in it, why should you need 3 more in order to get a freight train to pick up more than 20 tons?  Each freight train should have enough cars to pick up at least 50 - 100 tons on each run, in 5 - 10 freight cars, regardless of whether you have enough bins to store 400 total tons.  The game seems to reward inefficiency.

 

And what happens if you have another city in a cluster also shipping freight by train?  Does that take up some of the train cars so that you can't ship your goods in cars that are already filled?  I only have one city in the cluster with a train trade port so I don't know, but if the train that does come only has 2 freight cars I suspect it doesn't matter.

[SockoJr53 51]

If you have one storage bin that has 100 tons of coal in it, why should you need 3 more in order to get a freight train to pick up more than 20 tons?  Each freight train should have enough cars to pick up at least 50 - 100 tons on each run, in 5 - 10 freight cars, regardless of whether you have enough bins to store 400 total tons.  The game seems to reward inefficiency.

 

And what happens if you have another city in a cluster also shipping freight by train?  Does that take up some of the train cars so that you can't ship your goods in cars that are already filled?  I only have one city in the cluster with a train trade port so I don't know, but if the train that does come only has 2 freight cars I suspect it doesn't matter.

 

That's a good question actually. The only thing I'm shipping by train is coal, so the train has all coal hoppers. If I had another city start shipping oil, would I see a combination of cars? Or only coal trains going to coal city, then a separate oil train going to oil city?

[DHarrisG 1]

Or maybe just generic cars that could carry anything but are already filled with, say, alloy, so you're out of luck with your coal.

[ScottyDoesKnow 8]

I'm really not sure but I think it just resets itself between cities. It would explain why trains and boats don't show capacity.

[SockoJr53 51]

You're probably right Scotty, the train probably heads to the other side of the region, then heads back with different cars.