Why do my passenger rail stations never get used?

[Cormega 4]

So very new to the Simtropolis community had a quick question or maybe two... I was wondering why my passenger rail stations never get used. I have way too much traffic but my passenger rail stations never get used no matter where they are located. I'm not sure the point to run a railway throughout my city if they aren't getting used. Also is there a way to connect subway to railroad or only the elevated rail... Just too much traffic, This is my second city and I have a central highway and plenty of avenues. City size 380,000

[CorinaMarie 29,894]

A key aspect of Passengers on a railroad is the journey must be seen as quicker than any other route. Also, Sims which have previously chosen a route are quite reluctant to change their path to work and so it can take several game years for them to re-decide how to get there.

In ye olden dayes (at least here in the States) most rail lines were laid out long before cars and trucks were invented. So, the towns and cities which grew were based around said railroad rather than the rail being added as an afterthought.

To be sure there's nothing wrong with your Passenger Stations, set up a scenario in which travel via rail is their only option. Here's an example where I've been testing the capacity of one of @Raymond7cn's rural stations (second station in that post) which is being lotted by @Cyclone Boom:

(The factories on the left can only be accessed via that Passenger Station (and then by Bus) from the Residential which can only leave their area by train.)

[Cormega 4]

Sounds good thank you for your help!

[BartonThinks 3,416]

Are you playing with the Network Addon Mod (NAM)? If not, there's an added wrinkle to the problem...

In the un-modded version of SimCity 4, sims will take the shortest route to work by calculating the route that's the fewest number of tiles -- not the shortest amount of time. This leads Sims to choose routes that are slow and inconvenient unless the player is extremely careful when building transportation networks, and it forces players to make several unrealistic choices when they build their transportation networks.

If you play with the NAM, this problem no longer exists. The NAM comes with a traffic controller that changes how Sims calculate routes,  so that they are calculated by the shortest amount of time. (It's maybe worth mentioning that this was how Maxis originally designed the game to function. Unfortunately, most computers couldn't handle the processing power it took to calculate this stuff in 2003, so they compromised.)

The NAM comes with a ton of additional features, which can be pretty intimidating if you're relatively new to the game. The good news is that the installer gives you the option of installing the traffic controller without installing any of the other features. I'd suggest going this route if you don't already have the NAM installed. You can always run the installer again later to add new features if you decide you want to try them out.

Other good news: One of the many additional features in the NAM is a rail to subway transition. There's also an entire system for underground railways. So if you want to connect your railway directly to your subway system, or want to run railroads underground, the NAM will give you that option. But I'd be careful about trying these features out immediately, especially in an existing city.