Help With Custom Consist

[Canada]

I would like to control my consists more like we did in the earlier versions of the game.  I have a question that resulted from my first attempt to do this.

Scenario - I had 13 tires in Ottawa and set up a train to Detroit where they would fetch a good price.  I then returned to Ottawa to repeat the process and hopefully establish this as a permanent train in my railroad.  I found that the initieal load of tires had driven the demand in Detroit to zero!!  In previous versions of the game, I believe that Detroit would pay for as many as I could deliver.

I am a newbie.  Any comments on how to set up a permanent train would help -

Should I feed the tires to Detroit at a slower rate, or

Am I possibly running into the fact that I was not running enough steel to Detroit that no autos could be produced and therefore the tires where useless to the destination auto factory?, or

Are there any other comments that anyone can make to help me understand better?

Thanks in advance.

[Casey]

You have hit on the most distinctive difference between RRT2 and #. It is now possible in RRT3 to drive demand down to nothing (and then nothing further will ship).  We can no longer set "ultimate" trains that will always go the the same town taking the same cargo "ad nasueum". OR if we do we can no longer assume that they will always run. They may just sit idling in the station waiting for demand to build up, OR depending on how the consist is set, they may just run EMPTY between the locations.

You really need to pay close attention to the various area's "coloured" demands. Red and Yellow areas will ship to green areas, but it is often very difficult to either ship or to get any money going from "green" to "green".

This was one of the hardest thing for me to get used to after years of RRT2.

All the best

"Casey"

[Canada]

Thanks a lot.  That is a big leap in difficulty.  I was used to setting up the railroad and then polishing it into a money-making machine.

I get just as much fun out of learning how to improve my play as in actually playing.  And it is only possible because of wonder generous experts on these forums.

Thanks again ;D ;D ;D

[JayEff]

Within an industry supply chain, prices and production are all interlinked. If you want to be able to ship tires and the price has collapsed at destination, any of the following will benefit you. High demand for the end product has the ability to pull cargo through the chain.

- increase in auto price at Detroit (haul autos where they are most expensive)

- decrease in steel price at Detroit (flood Detroit with steel, bulldoze tool&die shops)

- decrease in tire price at Ottawa (don't haul for a while, don't the tires haul anywhere else)

- increase steel and auto production (buy and upgrade)

- cause houses (the ones you want to consume the autos) to upgrade by giving them many other products that they demand, ensuring that the price for these products drops

It is about where it is red, yellow or green, for all the commodities in the chain. And what you do will cause the colour (demand) changes.

[Canada]

Thanks for the help, JayEff.

I underst and almost all of what you said, but could you expand a little on the part about causeing houses?

Thanks.

[JayEff]

My ideas about houses are pure speculation. I can't prove it but ...

I am going with the idea that many buildings can upgrade. We focus on the secondary industries that we buy because it is our decision when we do. We pay less attention to other buildings. But buildings that only receive and don't produce anything, like electric plants, can even make a profit, and can upgrade.

Upgrading seems to have to do with access to raw materials, ability to sell products, and prices. A profitable factory is able to buy its raw materials cheap (red) and sell its products at a high price (green). I built electric plants right on heavy coal cargo streams in the 1950 French scenario, and actually made a profit. I had believed that power plants were money losers by definition.

So we bring that experience and apply it to the houses and those little receivers the commercial, retail, department stores and bakeries. All of these should upgrade in much the same way as an unowned receiving port or warehouse, or electric plant. So if we want the houses in a city to upgrade we should flood the city with as many products demanded by houses as possible. Most buildings will double their demand or output, but when a house upgrades, its demand quadruples - clothing from 0.02 to 0.08 per year, goods from 0.05 to 0.20 per year, and so on...

... And then they will buy 4 times as many cars, your auto plants will get busy and consume more tires.... :O

[Canada]

Thanks so much for the info.