Car-Free Industrial Area Issues

[CheshireKate 7]

I'm attempting to build a city in which car usage is minimized. To that end, I've added a small industrial area in which contains no roads of any kind, only railroads and pedestrian malls. It has grown nicely, and people are getting to work by taking the tram to their nearest train station and hopping on the train to the industrial area. On the surface, it looks like everything is running nicely:

But let's take a look at where all the freight is going:

It looks like all of the factories are sending their goods along the train to the connection with the neighbouring city instead of sending it to the port. I'll note that the neighbouring connection is quite a ways off screen and that even the furthest factory from the seaport is still significantly closer to the port than it is to the next city. As a result, every one of my factories that sends freight has "long" freight times.

As you can see, the seaport has a railway connection, and it is connected to the rail system. It also has a "road" connection via pedway to the train station, so it has workers too.

Can anyone explain to me why nobody ships their freight through this port? It is a CDK3 Container Seaport which accepts rail connections, but its used capacity is 0.

The second issue is that this industrial area is fairly hilly. It's actually relatively flat compared to the surrounding areas, and I spent quite a bit of time smoothing the bumps and making the grade from the coast up to the hill that acts as a buffer between this area and my R/C neighbourhoods as gentle as possible:

However, if you zoom in on some of these diagonal train stations, you can see they look absolutely terrible when put on a slope. Not only that, but many of the pedestrian malls are half-buried under grass, giving the whole area a weird, janky look:

I tried using a slope mod to ensure my rails were built using realistic grades, but even with the least restrictive mod I could find, the area was still too hilly for me to lay down these tracks. Are there pedestrian tiles and diagonal railway stations that play more nicely with slopes, or do have to bite the bullet and flatten everything, leaving weird-looking, extra steep slopes at the edges of the area? And if I do that, what do I do with the train tracks at those steep edges?

My last question doesn't really require any screenshots. Put simply, industry generates garbage. With no roads, the only way for me to remove this garbage is via rail. Do any mods exist that allow this?

[CorinaMarie 29,577]

Hiya and welcome to Simtropolis!

 

12 minutes ago, CheshireKate said:

It looks like all of the factories are sending their goods along the train to the connection with the neighbouring city instead of sending it to the port.

We'll have to wait for the experts on this, but I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that the game simply will not ship freight to a port via the rail lines. I believe the rail transit enabled is for the visual effect.

 

14 minutes ago, CheshireKate said:

The second issue is that this industrial area is fairly hilly.

One thing I've done is to lay out roads side by side (while using a slope mod) and cover an area like 20 x 20 tiles or such to get a much more uniform grade. Then bulldoze those roads and then do your zoning. I consider that like site preparation after the bare ground is purchased for the factories, but before the foundation crew comes in.

 

16 minutes ago, CheshireKate said:

I tried using a slope mod to ensure my rails were built using realistic grades, but even with the least restrictive mod I could find, the area was still too hilly for me to lay down these tracks.

Try it again with that least restrictive slope mod and run streets or roads first to get an initial smoothing. Then bulldoze those and lay track. That way it doesn't have quite as much slope to alter and it might then work.

 

17 minutes ago, CheshireKate said:

Put simply, industry generates garbage. With no roads, the only way for me to remove this garbage is via rail. Do any mods exist that allow this?

You can just use a landfill off in a far corner. Lay down a short street. Add a 4x4 farm zone or light industrial and wait for one of them to grow. Then zone a minimum of one residential lot. Once a house grows, then zone landfill touching the street. The garbage from all over the city will magically appear in the landfill even tho no trucks can get to it except on that short little stretch of street right by it. (The reason for the farm or one industry is so a house will grow. They won't if there is no place to work. And the landfill won't accumulate trash unless there is at least one house on a street connected to it.)

[CT14 2,486]

In addition to the bit about it not being a seaport with incoming freight, if that CDK lot is a freight rail station, it wouldn't be shipping any freight along that rail line since it's at the end of the line. Industrial tiles adjacent to a rail line have direct access to freight rail, so they don't need to ship through the station.

There is probably a way to get it to ship some trains out of the CDK lot, maybe by making the industrial zone not next to the rail line but still next to the freight station.

[Handyman 765]

17 hours ago, CheshireKate said:

It looks like all of the factories are sending their goods along the train to the connection with the neighbouring city instead of sending it to the port.

I have enlarged your pic and a couple things jump out at me.

Many of your industrial lots are not touching the rail line. Every lot must contact the rail line in order for it to use the line.

On the bottom right there is an industrial zone, as well as farther up the right side. Notice that every lot touches the rail line and the pedmalls. Even if you zone say, 4 tiles out from the line and you end up with one 2 tile factory against the rail and another 2 tile factory grows next to it against the pedmall, the one against the pedmall will have no rail service.

These industrial zones happen to be on the edge of the map (the only pic I had handy), but I have also built them away from the edge and I usually lay them out like a pitchfork with all the spurs coming out to a single line.

17 hours ago, CheshireKate said:

Not only that, but many of the pedestrian malls are half-buried under grass, giving the whole area a weird, janky look:

The pedmalls are very particular but once you get the hang of it they work well. It appears that your biggest problem is plopping them on terrain that is sloping in more than one direction. They can handle a little slope in one direction. I usually restrict my usage of these pedmalls to an area I preflattened and use dirt paths for the sloping areas.

17 hours ago, CheshireKate said:

Can anyone explain to me why nobody ships their freight through this port?

I only build cities without roads and I have found that ports don't like rail only (have only used Maxis ones). But after seeing your post I was thinking you could probably put a freight station next to the port with a short section of road connecting them. Just so you know, landmarks don't like pedmall only.

18 hours ago, CheshireKate said:

With no roads, the only way for me to remove this garbage is via rail. Do any mods exist that allow this?

I settled on the "Black Hole Waste Management v2". I normally plop it in a corner of the city and run an 'L' shaped road around the remaining 2 sides to allow for selling waste disposal to 2 neighbors. I am currently updating my systems, so I don't actually have the game installed right now, so I can't be positive about the following; the slider in the query for this building can be set to zero? This is certain; the slider in the  civic menu, under Trash Disposal can be set to a nominal amount (i use $20). Now, there is also a slider for it under Parks and Recreation, that is usually set to $1000 but it can also be set to a nominal amount and it will work great. No more trash problems.

I hope something here helps.

[CheshireKate 7]

On 2017-07-11 at 2:55 PM, Handyman said:

Many of your industrial lots are not touching the rail line. Every lot must contact the rail line in order for it to use the line.

I have some industrial buildings that don't touch the rail line , but still seem to ship freight out via a neighbouring building:

Here, the brown building (Zaidi Sprockets) is not directly touching the rail, but ships its freight via the Solar Panel U-Store-It next door. Similarly, the right-most semiconductor plant ships its freight through the semiconductor plant just to its left. In fact, about half of the buildings I have which are not touching rail seem to be shipping freight through their next door neighbours. Some even ship it from two buildings away. The other half don't seem to ship freight at all and don't seem to be bothered by it.

 

On 2017-07-11 at 2:55 PM, Handyman said:

I only build cities without roads and I have found that ports don't like rail only (have only used Maxis ones).

I was initially going to do this too, but I thought it was still necessary for residential areas to have roads. I ended up deciding to use roads anyway, since ambulances, firetrucks, furniture vans and moving trucks still need to get around somehow. So far only about 10% of commuters in my city drive with the vast majority of people taking the tram and/or train to work, and people have pretty quick commute times with very little car traffic so I'm pretty happy with the results so far.

 

On 2017-07-11 at 2:55 PM, Handyman said:

But after seeing your post I was thinking you could probably put a freight station next to the port with a short section of road connecting them. Just so you know, landmarks don't like pedmall only.

I don't think this would have the effect I'm looking for: from what I understand, industrial buildings that don't have direct railroad access will drive their goods to the nearest freight train station and dump it there, and from there a train will take it to the edge of the map. I don't think it can work the other way around (ie a train taking it from the building to the freight station, then a truck driving it to the seaport).

[CT14 2,486]

Yep, as long as the industrial zone touches the rail tile and is contiguous, freight will go through it to be shipped on rail as you describe.

[rsc204 21,806]

7 hours ago, CheshireKate said:

I have some industrial buildings that don't touch the rail line , but still seem to ship freight out via a neighbouring building:

This is because an individual building or lot does not make up the whole where Industry is concerned. A series of lots, Anchors, Mechs and Outs will all combine into a larger complex that is seen as only one lot by the simulator. If you've played the 2000 edition of SimCity, it's pretty much how the airports and seaports used to work. Similarly you'll find all the workers also see just the one lot. For each complex (not easily detectable), only one tile needs to touch the rail line.

Try to delete the rail neighbour connection (temporarily), you should find all the freight is re-routed to the seaport. I've had rail using PEG's seaport lots, it does work. But freight always looks for the fastest way out of a city tile, that's where it will go. Note that's fastest, not the shortest route.

[Handyman 765]

On 2017-07-10 at 11:03 PM, CheshireKate said:

As a result, every one of my factories that sends freight has "long" freight times.

Sorry I forgot to include this part in the quote.

Any building not directly touching the rail line will have 'long' freight times.