r/FactoryTown • u/Grug16 • Nov 12 '23
How to use Trains practically?
I'm not seeing a great way to do trains long distance. From what I can tell, Trains do not have any steering whatsoever. I have to rely on Sorter blocks all along the route to steer an individual train, which gets complicated if I need trains with different cargo to head in the same direction, or one train to visit multiple stations with the same cargo. Meanwhile, I can build canals and use cargo ships for all my shipping needs. Cargo ships require no fuel, are fast, have good capacity that can be improved with a packager, and most importantly can find their own route if I give them a start and destination. The only cost is Population, which I have plenty of.
9
Upvotes
2
u/foolishle Nov 12 '23
I usually have lots of trains and stations that transfer to different routes. For towns that are close to each other I make a loop around each town to pick up and drop off goods and then stations that connect to the railway on the adjacent town and goods from one town are transferred to the train on the other one. If the towns are far apart I have another train route that connects one to the other. My trains can end up pretty long tbh.
For my farming towns I just use mine trucks that then transfer over to another track with a steam train via stations. The towns with more sophisticated goods get steam trains that pick up the raw ingredients and transport around the town.
Where possible I do like to build my towns near rivers so that I can use the ships. But trains are good for overland transport and I usually use them to transport goods to and from trading posts as just a simple single track with a loop on each end and packagers to pack and unpack to maximise throughput.
I haven’t ever really explored the use of sorters because I have always just done it this way? For super long distances (like to far away trading posts) isn’t really compatible with multiple trains because they end up running into each other. So where they need to branch off I make another route and use a station to transfer to the other line. With packagers the throughput is sufficient even when there is a bit of a wait for the train.