Double-Tracking Ocean Bridges

[jeffryfisher]

I haven't used "ocean" bridges much. They're expensive and can't be double tracked. However, some maps need them to reach islands or span narrow channels. Today I built one from lower Michigan to Upper (Sault Saint Marie).

I encountered two kinds of weirdness. First I built the rails, double-tracked, to the water's edge on each side. This left just one cell of "ocean" between peninsulas. When I bridged it, I had to pay for three cells of bridging at $120k apiece, and all three cells showed as single-track.

The second and weirder discovery was when I (re)laid a double track segment on top each end of the bridge (on the beaches that had been double-tracked before the bridge went in). This covered up 2/3 of the bridge, leaving only the center span. Right-clicking on the redoubled beaches reports them as double-track, and trains appear to keep right on all but the ocean map cell.

So, when using ocean bridges, their single-track suckiness can be trimmed by two cells. Just don't forget that it wants to be a bridge. If you drag track construction over the site, you'll pay 120K per bridge-end to turn them back into single-track (and God only knows what your fate would be you if you ever deleted one of those tricked cells, leaving an incomplete bridge!

[GuineaPig]

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?

[jeffryfisher]

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.

Even holding down the control-key, I find it difficult to impossible to assign waypoints to small snips of track, like when the blue dot covers an entire tangle of branches and cross-overs. The game needs a secondary way to route trains using the main map (or zooming the map in the scheduling screen).

Does this mean that for a very short ocean span, it can be double-tracked all the way across?

No, the example I described was for the shortest possible span (one cell), which could be trimmed to one cell of single-tracked bridge after being forced to build three.

Let's see if this image works...

[jeffryfisher]

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.

Even holding down the control-key, I find it difficult to impossible to assign waypoints to small snips of track, like when the blue dot covers an entire tangle of branches and cross-overs. The game needs a secondary way to route trains using the main map (or zooming the map in the scheduling screen).

Does this mean that for a very short ocean span, it can be double-tracked all the way across?

No, the example I described was for the shortest possible span (one cell), which could be trimmed to one cell of single-tracked bridge after being forced to build three.

Let's see if this image works...

[cogeo]

Such cases should preferably be anticipated by the map maker. For 1-tile wide "straits" you can lay a short section of river (along) - I mean on top of the water. Then you can build normal bridges there.

In this specific case, it might be possible to build two parallel ocean bridges, and use it without having to employ waypoints. Send me the game as is to take a look, and show you how (if this requires a modded version of the .EXE, send it too) - my e-mail is public.

P.S.: No I see what you meant by that "blocky" look. Is this nice? No textures, no trees, no shadows, just nothing! It's simply barren!. It's not practical even for laying track. If the terrain was not so much mixed, the "blocks" wouldn't be visible  either! The gridlines are far more clear, I think. Not only they clearly show the tiles, they help you easily identify grades too! And remember, they can easily be turned on and off (Ctrl+G). Why suffer so poor graphics? This can't be justified even by resources usage. The graphics requirements of RT2 are so low, that even very old computers would have no problem meeting them, even in the highest possible detail. I use custom settings here, higher than the "Very High" preset; all settings are set to either "Level 5" or "Always". I have no problems with these, and my computer is not new!

[jeffryfisher]

I don't have this example saved anymore, but the starting map is my US History map. I've tried parallel ocean bridges, and some equal-length configurations did run trains on both without waypoints or head-on collisions. The problem was that trains always had a preference for turning left at forks in the track, so I ended up with trains intersecting at two places instead of going head on at one.

It hadn't even occurred to me to overlay river on ocean at a strait. I'm not sure whether that's any better than just replacing the strait with the river, but I'll try it once to see what it does for me.

BTW, this talk of straits plus other threads' complaints about stupid AI track reminds me of another howler in my current game: One of my esteemed computer opponents decided to build a "shortcut" from about the TX-LA border to Corpus Christi... across about 30 cells of the Gulf of Mexico!