Super large industrial complexes serviced by rail

[BlakeMW 84]

I'm very fond of a technique which services industry exclusively using rail. The concept is simple, industry can deliver freight directly via rail, as long as it has direct contact with a railway tile. No freight station needed. So if you have a tile which touches both road and rail, an industry which grows there can receive workers via a train station and deliver freight directly via freight trains.

 

My usual technique looks like this:

The buildings you see popping up have both road and rail contact, and form the kernels of industrial complexes. They also block new industries from popping up where they would have road contact but no rail contact (such industries would be unable to send freight).

 

Then more industrial zoning is lain down:

 

and those seed industries expand:

 

Note that most those buildings have no road contact at all, and many have no rail contact. it doesn't matter, because they are extensions of the original seed industries and get their workers and send their freight through the original industry which does touch the road.

 

This got me wondering, how far can industry expand from a road?

 

No limit, apparently:

 

This is an industrial complex I built up using this method. It is the only dirty industry in the entire region.

Note carefully that the entire industrial complex is being serviced via the single building touching the single street tile. All the employees come via the one train station. All freight leaves by the railway.

This single industry employs over 12,000 sims. No, that is not that thing where a building inexplicitly has way more sims commuting to it than it actually employs, it's actually understaffed. According to the population graph this dirty industry complex has an employment capacity of over 17,000 sims.

It generates over 1000 freight trains.

 

I have no reason to believe it wouldn't keep growing, except I've paused the experiment here because my dirty industry demand has become massively negative because of increasing education, so the growth has kind of stalled until I add a whole lot more R$ housing. In any case this behemoth is at least 15 times larger than anything I've grown 'in the wild' and the experiment has satisfied my curiosity. There does indeed appear to be no limit to how far an industry can extend from a road, and if there is a limit you'll run out of demand or your transport link will saturate before you hit it.

 

Note that this technique can do wonders for traffic management, as a single high capacity mass transit station or a highway stub can serve a vast area of industry.

[Turjan 1,048]

Interesting experiment. I know that "outbuildings" and "machinery lots" are serviced and counted via the "anchor lots", but I didn't know it could grow to that size. Actually, I often see machinery lots that are too far away from the anchor and the road develop "no road" signs, so I'm a bit surprised by the outcome. I should probably look if, in those cases, there is some outbuilding of a different anchor in the way.

[mayorgreener 37]

wow looks interesting.

Yes, I do send a railway line through my industrial areas but never only used a raail line w/out any road... To me it kinda looks unrealistic.

 

But yes in game it can do wonders.

[T Wrecks 10,210]

Actually, I often see machinery lots that are too far away from the anchor and the road develop "no road" signs

This would normally happen if buildings inbetween upgrade from I-D to I-M, for example, and somehow an I-D mech/out lot becomes isolated from its anchor this way. At least this is what I have observed. I may be wrong, of course.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

I always thought that industrial buildings have to be within four grid squares to use a passing rail line for freight.  For this reason, I often put rail sidings or spurs in my industrial areas to allow direct access.  I also set up a road/street network and at least one freight station in order to collect any that can't reach the rail.

[BlakeMW 84]

Interesting experiment. I know that "outbuildings" and "machinery lots" are serviced and counted via the "anchor lots", but I didn't know it could grow to that size. Actually, I often see machinery lots that are too far away from the anchor and the road develop "no road" signs, so I'm a bit surprised by the outcome. I should probably look if, in those cases, there is some outbuilding of a different anchor in the way.

 

The no road zots are generally caused by IM displacing ID or IHT displacing IM. It is somewhat odd though, because the IHT can replace the IM anchor building, then the IM complex can actually continue to grow, even for years, even though it's now all anchored to an IHT building (and the commuter view thing does show them as the same complex). Eventually, perhaps after a save load cycle? The IM all at once goes no-road zots. In any case, whatever the cause, I bulldoze them when they noroad, and normally the more evolved form of industry immediately takes over.

 

wow looks interesting.

Yes, I do send a railway line through my industrial areas but never only used a raail line w/out any road... To me it kinda looks unrealistic.

It does look unrealistic, although I kind of like the look especially with high tech industry and pedestrian walkways crossing the rails instead of streets, while I'm not sure it resembles anything in real life, it looks cool.

 

I always thought that industrial buildings have to be within four grid squares to use a passing rail line for freight.  For this reason, I often put rail sidings or spurs in my industrial areas to allow direct access.  I also set up a road/street network and at least one freight station in order to collect any that can't reach the rail.

I believe that is a myth or an approximation of the truth. In my experience the only way that an industry can deliver freight by rail is if the anchor building directly touches both road and rail, the attached buildings are totally incapable of interacting with either road or rail, and totally incapable of 'teleporting' freight over even a single intervening tile. When growing the 'kernel' buildings, I need to be careful to make sure they don't spawn 1 tile in from the rail, as they will then most definitely lack freight access.

[Turjan 1,048]

Actually, I often see machinery lots that are too far away from the anchor and the road develop "no road" signs

This would normally happen if buildings inbetween upgrade from I-D to I-M, for example, and somehow an I-D mech/out lot becomes isolated from its anchor this way. At least this is what I have observed. I may be wrong, of course.

 

The no road zots are generally caused by IM displacing ID or IHT displacing IM. It is somewhat odd though, because the IHT can replace the IM anchor building, then the IM complex can actually continue to grow, even for years, even though it's now all anchored to an IHT building (and the commuter view thing does show them as the same complex). Eventually, perhaps after a save load cycle? The IM all at once goes no-road zots.

 

Okay, so you both agree on the reason that this is due to upgrading of the anchor. Now that you mention that, I remember that I have often seen that my I-HT anchors have heating units (I-M machinery) attached, or Patch's Paint (an I-M anchor) with burners (I-D machinery). I don't remember if this is also the case with outbuildings (does I-D actually have any?).

 

Anyway, I found this very interesting, even if I'm not a fan of how it looks . I should probably try this with the IRM .

[T Wrecks 10,210]

IMO, industrial areas are generally hard to make in a halfways eye-pleasing manner. The IRM lots often contain some breathing room around the buildings (in hindsight, I should have added more!), and together with filler lots you can often create quite decent arrangements, I think. I often end up composing an industrial complex using 80% fillers.

[mayorgreener 37]

There is a file in the STEX made by PAENG that enables sims to walk through the industrial park from end to end. Can that solve that no-road issue? Need to try.

[Turjan 1,048]

So, I tried this with the IRM, and the process stalled at this point (this is w/o job mods except I-HT fix):

 

 

Still impressive. Those outbuildings are usually on the rare side. Of course, I guess it would all burn down if it caught fire.

 

OK, this wouldn't get any further, no matter how long I waited. But what if I reconnect the road between railway station and anchor lot to the general road network (I know this is against the spirit of the OP, but I want to see how far you can get with only one anchor)? Note that no other anchor lot can grow here.

 

 

Yes! So how to drive this further? The railway station has bus function, but what if we add another road-top bus stop and some more trees?

 

 

Success. We have the road traffic back this way, but I just wanted to see how far this grows from one anchor. So far we have 418 R$, 3448 R$$ and 531 R$$$ jobs on one anchor here, and it grew even denser later.

 

Some additional observation regarding "no road" zots: I had them appear on two mech lots that were only connected via three consecutive mech lots directly on the upper right edge and nothing else.

[Prophet42 1,503]

Fascinating experiment!  Thanks Grator for the original post, and also to Turjan for further experimentation.  It's amazing that after 12 years, new things about this game can still be discovered.

[BlakeMW 84]

So, I tried this with the IRM, and the process stalled at this point (this is w/o job mods except I-HT fix):

...

 

Still impressive. Those outbuildings are usually on the rare side. Of course, I guess it would all burn down if it caught fire.

Nice parks. As I said I particularly like IHT complexes, you can easily imagine they have fancy internal transit tubes or something.

 

Oddly enough I don't think I've ever encountered stalls, perhaps it's an employment thing? The way I design my cities and regions always puts lots of people onto trains so the industrial complexes have plenty of access to employment.

 

 

Fascinating experiment!  Thanks Grator for the original post, and also to Turjan for further experimentation.  It's amazing that after 12 years, new things about this game can still be discovered.

 

Technically I discovered this something like 8 years ago, I might even have posted something about it but since most the old posts have been lost I couldn't find if I did or not. In any case, since I couldn't find anything on the forum about it, I decided to post since it is an interesting thing.

 

I find most Simcity players are preoccupied with making realistic cities, my bent is to make cities which are as strange and bizarre as the rules of the game will permit (i.e. treat it is a game, rather than a simulator). One of my things used to be making carless cities, where the car usage would be under 10%, so having entire blocks of the city being essentially roadless was like a holy grail for me at that time.

 

Another piece of random trivia I learned was that sims commute home time simply does not matter. A particularly cruel and sadistic evil overlord can use one way roads which all funnel out of the residential areas into the workplaces. Sims can easily drive to work. Once there, they can't drive home because of the one way roads. So they walk home! Along with oddities like disposable single-use cars, this can result in commutes which are like 1 hour to work, 24 hours home .

[Turjan 1,048]

Nice parks. As I said I particularly like IHT complexes, you can easily imagine they have fancy internal transit tubes or something.

 

Oddly enough I don't think I've ever encountered stalls, perhaps it's an employment thing? The way I design my cities and regions always puts lots of people onto trains so the industrial complexes have plenty of access to employment.

 

Thanks. The trees around this patch are mostly there to cover the road network and its pollution effect around this area, as this was a mixed I-D/I-M area with lots of road connectors to the neighbor tiles. In case anyone is curious, this is the SE corner of the "San Indersty" tile in Maxisland.

 

Regarding the stalling, it may have been a combination of several effects. I'm using the "American" setting in the traffic controller, which translates to "mostly car use", or at least more car use than with "European" settings. The rail network on this tile isn't very extensive, either, and badly laid out, which means that most workers would have to take a bus or car to a train station first You can see the traffic breakdown here (note to self: fix that train station on the left):

 

 

I saw a positive effect on the residentials on this tile though, with quite a few changes to R$$$. Now, R$$$ Sims don't really like to use the train. With the I-HT fix, you actually have R$$$ jobs in I-HT (w/o you don't), and those have something like 5-10% train use assigned. The positive effect of connecting the road stub next to the railway station to the rest of the road network was immediate, but it also shortened commute, so who knows. The development still hasn't stalled with this new situation, and you now see upgrading of buildings.

 

Minor points: The positive effect of the functionally mostly useless bus stop probably indicates borderline desirability conditions of this spot. The neighbor tile that delivers many workers hasn't run and adapted to the new job wealth pattern yet.

 

Regarding my fire fears, they turned out to be unfounded. My attempts at burning this down didn't take.

[BlakeMW 84]

Actually fire is something worth mentioning because well, there is most certainly no fire truck access. In my first post one of the screenshots contains a visible firefighters airfield. That is my primary strategy for fire management. Fires hardly ever (or perhaps never?) start within radius of an active firefighting building. The airfield has the largest radius so I normally use it (in principle, the plane can also drop water anywhere on the map regardless of roads, although it's fire fighting capacity sucks so badly as to make it irrelevant). The secondary or emergency strategy, is to drop a small fire station next to any fire which breaks out, within a few seconds it'll automagically put the fire out, then I bulldoze the station. As the plop cost of a fire station is low compared with it's upkeep this is a very economical fire management strategy early on. However it seems that once the game decides a district is fire prone, it keeps catching on fire every few months, so I eventually give in and apply blanket fire coverage.

 

Incidentally I found a screenshot of this technique, using IHT with pedmall, which I originally posted (on another forum) in 2005:

[mayorgreener 37]

Actually fire is something worth mentioning because well, there is most certainly no fire truck access. In my first post one of the screenshots contains a visible firefighters airfield. That is my primary strategy for fire management. Fires hardly ever (or perhaps never?) start within radius of an active firefighting building. The airfield has the largest radius so I normally use it (in principle, the plane can also drop water anywhere on the map regardless of roads, although it's fire fighting capacity sucks so badly as to make it irrelevant). The secondary or emergency strategy, is to drop a small fire station next to any fire which breaks out, within a few seconds it'll automagically put the fire out, then I bulldoze the station. As the plop cost of a fire station is low compared with it's upkeep this is a very economical fire management strategy early on. However it seems that once the game decides a district is fire prone, it keeps catching on fire every few months, so I eventually give in and apply blanket fire coverage.

 

Incidentally I found a screenshot of this technique, using IHT with pedmall, which I originally posted (on another forum) in 2005:

 

this can be useful to you