Cost of drop shipping

[Gwizz]

I was thinking this morning, why is Drop shipping so un-economical.  I really enjoy using this form of game play.

(I wish it had not been removed from RRT3.)

I know that each cargo is time sensitive.

That 50% of the value is the most profit I can receive, if I exceed the time limit for delivery of a cargo.

Mail, Passenger, milk, food, sugar, etc. have short time limits.  For profitability, they are not very tolerant of waiting.  For this reason, it is best for the AI to deliver These most time sensitive cargos directly to a demand industry and take the profit. If I own the station or the industry then I will still get some of that profit. I would then need to quickly haul the more valuable manufactured cargo. 

PS: I never let the AI back-haul even a caboose.  It will change the caboose to a cargo car for the return trip but will not add a car if deadheading.

It would seem, if drop-shipping were carefully managed, hauling mostly the more valuable cargo would make up for the time loss in drop shipping less valuable cargo. I have not crunched the numbers to be sure.

Cotton, rubber, coal, iron, etc. have a long sensitivity limit and low cargo value.  Therefore they are better cargos for drop-shipping, with smaller losses.

Yes, more micro-management may be required. 

The AIs tendancy to up-grade.

The problem when using the IA railroads for drop- shipping, they will almost always stop hauling low value cargo if high value cargo is avaible.

(The AIs are not totally dumb.) 

I've found the best method for fixing this problem is not letting AIs, that I control, haul from a city. AIs that self-start always haul from cities.  When I use one of these self-started AIs, I take control, float a bond and remove the AI from it's cities and give it another hauling assignment.

Hummm, I have an idea for another map.