GuineaPig

From my experience, there isn't though. And with the speeds they run at, after a couple years the breakdown chance of a Thalys is at a ludicrous 15%. Also dumb; a TGV takes a hill about as well as a Consolidation. Don't know how they figured that.

Many of the engine stats make no sense. The GG1 is incredibly unrealistic (albeit the saviour for every human player). Also, I never understood the reliability ratings for the modern locomotives. How did the developers seriously reckon that an engine like the Thalys is less reliable than a mid-19th century steam train?

I've refined my slave company strategy a bit. Was playing "Remember America." I created one large company, American Land Holdings. After a couple years of investment, I purchased stations in Old Topeka, Wichita, and Lincomaha. Then I created another company to run trains in between the stations and other resource gathering stations. I set up routes with trains; some were direct runs between cities, others were routes from the depots to the cities with no backhauling. Then, I resigned as chairman and re-assumed control of American Land Holdings. This way, the subsidiary AI company would do what it did best: running the trains profitably, while the parent company took the money off the top from station revenue, industry profits, and some very small trackage fees. I repeated this everywhere there was a potential for profit, with the parent company retaining control over all non-track infrastructure and the subsidiaries running the trains and paying dividends. By the end, I had 6 subsidiaries, all profitable, bringing around $1 mil in profit each year for the main company, and paying cumulative dividends to me of another million each year.

Tried it again starting on the West Coast after two years of investment. Turned out to be the easiest way by far. Building cut-through tunnels between Los Angeles and San Francisco, and then another hugely expensive one through the mountains between Redding and Eugene, allowed me to run massively profitable (~$700 K/year, +/- depending on route) Eurostar runs between Seattle, Eugene, Portland, Fresno, San Fran, and LA. Bought a company on the east coast, completed the loads by 2021, finished with a book value of ~$70 mil, all without playing the stock market outside of those first two years.

NYC to LA is one of my favourite maps to play, basically because there are so many possible play styles, lots of AIs, and a pretty tough final objective. I've managed to get the gold in two ways; starting in Chicago and going electric, and starting in Miami and going electric. I've also gotten close by waiting a couple years, then cashing out my investments to build a railway between Montr

IIRC, it said "no route to next station". There was no event or anything that caused it; the trains just went over the bridge going one way, and couldn't come back.

I've had a similar problem with a bridge I could see. My trains could get across to another companies station built adjacent to the river, but couldn't get back across.

If I have the cash and traffic is significant, I find it easier just to make two bridges and assign waypoints so that no trains meet head-on. But interesting exploit. Does this mean that for a very short ocean span, it can be double-tracked all the way across?

So I've been fooling around with slave companies. Typically I have trouble keeping the AI companies afloat on some of the TSC scenarios played on normal (especially if I created them); I guess it helps more if the expert +20% revenue bonus is in play. Also, there are a couple problems I always seem to have concerning routing. Do people typically let the AI trains run mostly on track you own, generating the revenue for the parent company and leaving the subsidiary with a small %? I find that often there are congestion problems where traffic on the main line is significant enough that AI trains take a long time to reach their destination. Secondly, when hauling cargo to a destination that the AI train has delivered, I typically find it hard to send back the train with a cargo in demand the other way. Is the profit margin on the raw material so marginal that it is more economical to run a load of ~4 cars of food one way (say, 25 tiles or so) and then have it come back empty (saving money on fuel)? If there isn't the prospect of bringing cargo back, is it more profitable to assign an AI train to do it (increased revenue, goes directly to parent company)?

Hmm, this is interesting. Had no idea the AI wouldn't mess with your trains if you set it up this way. I tried it on the Prince of Steel map. Used some extra cash to make a company dedicated to hauling logs into Montreal. Built the track originally right into my main terminus there, but the traffic was so large I made a dedicated station. Unfortunately, this medium station picked up some houses, which caused problems as the AI made trains to haul some of them over to Bancroft, even though the station there had no demand for it. I guess if the AI has any place they categorize as a "town" (4+ houses), they'll haul passengers and mail to and from it? Because there was no attempt to haul passengers/mail from Bancroft before when I was directing trains into my Montreal terminus.

I've been looking around some of the posts here (glad to know I'm not the only one playing this game 10 years on), and I kept seeing "slave companies" mentioned as a tool to win games. I think I understand the gist of what they are, but could someone fill me in on how you integrate them with your own RR and retain "control" of them?