Trains

[Jos Elkink]

And after Carnegie, tracks were made of steel, not iron. Its what sparked the rise of big business.

Well, in terms of materials, I prefer if we go a little less realistic. It would be nice if trains and tracks can be built by different groups than those specializing in iron and steel ... Like some kind of new metal that can be acquired already with a stone oven etc., so you need still real advancement, but totally different than from the steel/iron advancement.

But that's really to be discussed internal in the RD ... I'm more interested in functionality for now.

[Just A Bill]

Perhaps you could tell the train to stop at any stop on the line. This way the train would not have to stop at each station. Of course showing the entire line in the option of places to stop allows the possiblity of instant communication. IE a new station comes on line, you shouldn't know work is complete all along the line. Perhaps you could identify at any station on the line that the train or you have been before, on that line and any withen one town of your location. So with a regular route it wouldn't be a problem, but you would have to manually travel there, one link at a time the first time.

I don't like the idea of forcing trains to stop only at a station. IRL a train could stop and take on passangers anywhere. If you can stop outside, you don't have to allow passangers access to your station facilities, unless you want to. Also towns with a line thru them with no station should have a way to access the train.

If you really want to automate the process, you could optionally add a "Computer" to the Engine. Anyone in the Engine could set up the computer to go to a stop, wait so many hours, then go to the next stop ect. You could even set it to wait an hour before starting and get off, letting the thing drive itself. Not sure this is a good president to set wrt automation...

Also Engines can push as well as pull, so turning around should be ok, possibly not as fast, but for ease of use, might be better to ignore direction. So instead of "Turning Around" you can reset your destination at any time to any place on the route that you can see.

[TatteredShoeLace]

I was thinking that trains could not run in reverse for fear of hitting trains behind them, and that they switch rails to return only at stations. Besides, cars are known to make U turns on the path, but trains rarely make unscheduled returns.


A thought I had. The building "Station" is the only place to board a train, and there is where one can pay fares or complete other IG issues, but itd be nice if trains really kept on rolling through, not needing to wait for people who are asleep to board. So heres a brief thought.

1. A train engine selects how far its farthest destination is, with only the option to head on paths with rails and only able to stop in towns with their own stations. Now if a train goes from Blojt to Olip, and there are tracks the entire way, passengers will only see the stopping points of where a station is, (e.g. BFE, OFW,OLIP) So each passenger will know where they can go by notes in the station. Now they enter a sub-room, the "platform" Here they can see all destinations and choose which stop with a checkbox. When a train arrives, passengers who were already on who checked BLOJT will automatically be taken off the train, and passengers on the platform are placed on the train. Should they sleep all day, they will automatically be removed at their checked stop or the farthest the train was planning to go.

The idea on that is that trains are only profitable if they are continuously running. So an automatic drag on/off is whats needed IMO, we eat automatically, so we should be able to board or leave a train.

[Nick]

Considering you can only walk/bike/drive in a straight line on a given path anyway (like a railway), what would really be the difference in a train?

[Jos Elkink]

Considering you can only walk/bike/drive in a straight line on a given path anyway (like a railway), what would really be the difference in a train?

Yes, that was exactly my point why I wanted to make it as different as possible ...

One nice difference mentioned is that the train could not depart from its track, hence not be stolen as easily. But still ...

Or my scheduling idea, but people don't like that

[Pieter de Groote]

Or my scheduling idea, but people don't like that

It's like real life. Most of us prefer a private car (with chauffeur) over a public railroad system with tight schedules. In real life there's some cost consequences.

I think the scheduled railroad system would be best. Have some advantages and some disadvantages over privately owned cars.

If it's going to be implemented as a scheduled train system, it's going to be for the public use of towns and the required investments should be much lower than if it's going to be implemented as a theftproof private race car.

[The Industriallist]

It's like real life. Most of us prefer a private car (with chauffeur) over a public railroad system with tight schedules. In real life there's some cost consequences.

In cantr, there are some huge cost consequences of a vehicle requiring an operater. People are expensive...the good ones, at least. An uncrewed, reliable transport device seems too powerful.

I think the scheduled railroad system would be best. Have some advantages and some disadvantages over privately owned cars.

The RL advanteges are that trains can be both faster and larger than road vehicles, and the disadvantages are that it requires large combined vehicles (trains, instead of single cars) and tracks rather than roads.

If it's going to be implemented as a scheduled train system, it's going to be for the public use of towns and the required investments should be much lower than if it's going to be implemented as a theftproof private race car.

It's not implemented as either. It would be implemented as either an automatic trasport system or an extremely restricted conventional vehicle. As always, the use is up to characters...

The only way I could see trains actually getting public use is if they're implemented in a manner that makes it trivial, like the automatic scheduling. And there's a reason that public services in cantr don't really exist. Cantr governments often play at being sophisticated and federal, but an an almost universal rule they have no taxation and negligible accountability, making them little more than private businesses with pretensions. Running a costly public service like a commuter rail makes no sense in this context.

[The Industriallist]

It's like real life. Most of us prefer a private car (with chauffeur) over a public railroad system with tight schedules. In real life there's some cost consequences.

In cantr, there are some huge cost consequences of a vehicle requiring an operater. People are expensive...the good ones, at least. An uncrewed, reliable transport device seems too powerful.

I think the scheduled railroad system would be best. Have some advantages and some disadvantages over privately owned cars.

The RL advanteges are that trains can be both faster and larger than road vehicles, and the disadvantages are that it requires large combined vehicles (trains, instead of single cars) and tracks rather than roads.

If it's going to be implemented as a scheduled train system, it's going to be for the public use of towns and the required investments should be much lower than if it's going to be implemented as a theftproof private race car.

It's not implemented as either. It would be implemented as either an automatic trasport system or an extremely restricted conventional vehicle. As always, the use is up to characters...
I would expect a fully automated robotic train to cost more than the conventional variety, myself.

The only way I could see trains actually getting public use is if they're implemented in a manner that makes it trivial, like the automatic scheduling. And there's a reason that public services in cantr don't really exist. Cantr governments often play at being sophisticated and federal, but an an almost universal rule they have no taxation and negligible accountability, making them little more than private businesses with pretensions. Running a costly public service like a commuter rail makes no sense in this context.

[Jos Elkink]

Without reading the above, see also this post.