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MOK 23 hours ago
When to Tram, When to Train?
I've been planning out a new region, and haven't begun any housing or industry construction yet, as I wanted to hit a few planning milestones first. Get the big notes locked in first. But I've found myself stuck and uncertain on a decision.

My first industry area is very planned out, with a few tiers of intended development over time. But what I can't yet resolve: what my long-term transit mode will be in my first industry hub. I'd intended to lean on trains with this run, but not to the exclusion of other modes. But at a minimum, I figured that my first city would have a carefully plotted, full size central train station in order to accommodate tourism, and multiple far-off industry commute sites. But that's for much later.

For now, I have one industry area with the classic starters: Booze, Food, Clothes, and then Cloth, with some other minor services integrated. They outload to a common warehouse & freight train station. It's about 1 kilometer away from where housing would be. When it's eventually all constructed and tuned up to top efficiency, each shift for the industry area needs about 850 workers.

At first I thought that this is close enough that Tram could be a good way to go - good versus snow, able to get a branch off to my more distant heating plant, can directly deliver workers to two separate stops at either side of the industry area, fairly succinct as a project and investment for the early game, and it can utilize rail where it makes sense.

But I've never tried trams, so I'm questioning:
A) If it can serve the capacity of the shifts and keep me at high efficiency,
B) If the Tram pickup stops can accommodate enough workers, or whether I need to use the high capacity rail station,
C) If Trams can serve any additional practical role around the housing area in practice, if it in fact needs to use the large train station, or if transfers will be a bad idea.

It's got me wondering if I should just go straight to train, and simply bus workers to the big central station. But doing that seems weird because it's only 1K away from work(excluding terrain barriers), and transfers suck. Those transfers seem like they could really cause a problem long term. Eventually, I simply can't have everyone in walking distance of the train station.

But I figure this isn't really any different from what others have done with their dense but separate industry & city areas. At what point does it make sense to go straight to train, and skip the smaller transit modes? Usually distance is the big factor, but what about density?

And if a Tram expert has some tips on how to get the most out of it, while mixing with train, that'd be cool. I've checked a lot of youtube videos, but mostly they waste an excessive amount of our time to go through, and I haven't really seen the care of planning that I'm after, when they're dealing with trams or trains.

Thanks!
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Showing 1-15 of 16 comments
Bufnitza 23 hours ago 
A good question.

I'm personally not a fan of trams. Can't pinpoint a reason for it, but just don't do it.

I make good use of buses for short lines. I tried trolleybuses, they are bigger and faster to accelerate, but they have a huge problem with being deployed (you need a train to bring them to a vehicle storage connected to your trolley network and their depot), and you must slap a vehicle repair station next to the trolley end station for repairs, as the trolleys won't go to the repair station on their own, so they need to be repaired by proximity to the end-station. Not ideal...

For longer lines, I use trains. I usually plan a "Hlavni nadrazi" main railroad early on smack dab in the center. Then I use motorvehicles (or whatever they're called) to ferry people to small stations in various areas which are 2-3-4 km away. Do not use loco+wagon combo, it's not worth it, neither cost wise nor capacity-wise. Use motorwagons.

At the small stations, the people get forced transferred to a bus station which ferries them through the industrial park.

Periodicity is key, so you gotta make sure your motorwagons are ferrying people constantly (at least every 50 seconds). Then on the small bus lines, 25-30 seconds max period should be the metric. This will keep your industries staffed around 80%.

Although I haven't done it myself, as I'm not a fan, I've seen people on videos successfully using cablecars instead of trains. They're a bit more cumbersome to set up, but they provide a constant stream of workforce and they're fire and forget, once you get over the initial hurdle of actually building them. Using CCs, some people got over 90% worker occupancy in industries.
Last edited by Bufnitza; 23 hours ago
#1
pryt 22 hours ago 
Trams = can be used in their own tram-network when using tram-only-roads (now locked behind prefab panels if on early start) so normal traffic does not affect them, they are not affected by snow in winter so they are not slowed down, can be attached together to form longer trams in a train-depot (not tram-depot). Make sure to use a tram-endstation in direct range of a vehicle maintenance station for repairs.

There are no real cons to trams, they got only positive aspects. Just don't mix them with normal road traffic.

I use trams for transferring workforce from cities into industrial areas. The 65km/h+ ones allow quite the distances.

Trains on the other hand, I use them for distribution/export of materials only. Train DOs are really great.
#2
Kaia 22 hours ago 
Originally posted by Bufnitza:
A good question.

I'm personally not a fan of trams. Can't pinpoint a reason for it, but just don't do it.

I make good use of buses for short lines. I tried trolleybuses, they are bigger and faster to accelerate, but they have a huge problem with being deployed (you need a train to bring them to a vehicle storage connected to your trolley network and their depot), and you must slap a vehicle repair station next to the trolley end station for repairs, as the trolleys won't go to the repair station on their own, so they need to be repaired by proximity to the end-station. Not ideal...

For longer lines, I use trains. I usually plan a "Hlavni nadrazi" main railroad early on smack dab in the center. Then I use motorvehicles (or whatever they're called) to ferry people to small stations in various areas which are 2-3-4 km away. Do not use loco+wagon combo, it's not worth it, neither cost wise nor capacity-wise. Use motorwagons.

At the small stations, the people get forced transferred to a bus station which ferries them through the industrial park.

Periodicity is key, so you gotta make sure your motorwagons are ferrying people constantly (at least every 50 seconds). Then on the small bus lines, 25-30 seconds max period should be the metric. This will keep your industries staffed around 80%.

Although I haven't done it myself, as I'm not a fan, I've seen people on videos successfully using cablecars instead of trains. They're a bit more cumbersome to set up, but they provide a constant stream of workforce and they're fire and forget, once you get over the initial hurdle of actually building them. Using CCs, some people got over 90% worker occupancy in industries.


Same, not a fan of trams and i believe trains to simply be the superior option. I am not sure what the plus of them is, because in terms of traffic, the trams operating on their own network is pretty much exactly the same for trains as you can have a passenger train network just fine too.

For cost i don't think the difference is super material. And for speed i believe trains are just the vastly superior options. Maybe there's a cost saving aspect either because they're more fuel efficient or whatever, but i just never build them.

That and cable cars feel a bit like meme things that you do for fun when the terrain is extra bad but that you otherwise solve with more trains.
#3
Silent_Shadow 20 hours ago 
Compared to trains, trams are much cheaper to employ. A pair of non-electrified tracks uses about 2.5 times as much steel as a tram road of equal length (82 tons vs 33 tons for a km), and an electrified pair of tracks uses about four times as much steel for a tram road of equal length (132 tons vs 33 tons for a km). Trams also cost a lot less to buy than trainsets and passenger trains for a given level of throughput or even just capacity (motor wagons are comparable, if not quite as good).

A lot of people like trams more than trains because there are no signals to worry about and constructing their roads is a lot easier and faster than building tracks (in realistic mode anyway). While larger trams require a railway or shipping connection to bring them into a network, most trams can be moved by truck to their network, so you don't necessarily need trains or ships to employ them.

The main advantage of passenger trains and trainsets is their speed, which allows them to take citizens to much more distant places before reaching their travel time limits and without amplifying subsequent free time needs as much. Metro trains are more like trams, but bigger and much more expensive and complicated to build and run. Passenger trains can also be made to support larger amounts than trams, but most cities will never need that amount of throughput.


Trolley buses are like a budget version of trams; they are cheaper and much easier to set up compared to trams, but they don't limit the speed of other vehicles on their roads to 80 or 85 kph. Getting trolley buses to a network is also a lot easier because most of them can be trucked or even airlifted to an area (only one tram can be moved by helicopter). A lot of people like to say that trams are immune to snow, but this is really only the case if you aren't running any other vehicles on their roads, as they will just get stuck behind other vehicles that aren't immune to snow.
#4
Kaia 20 hours ago 
Originally posted by Silent_Shadow:
Compared to trains, trams are much cheaper to employ. A pair of non-electrified tracks uses about 2.5 times as much steel as a tram road of equal length (82 tons vs 33 tons for a km), and an electrified pair of tracks uses about four times as much steel for a tram road of equal length (132 tons vs 33 tons for a km). Trams also cost a lot less to buy than trainsets and passenger trains for a given level of throughput or even just capacity (motor wagons are comparable, if not quite as good).

A lot of people like trams more than trains because there are no signals to worry about and constructing their roads is a lot easier and faster than building tracks (in realistic mode anyway). While larger trams require a railway or shipping connection to bring them into a network, most trams can be moved by truck to their network, so you don't necessarily need trains or ships to employ them.

The main advantage of passenger trains and trainsets is their speed, which allows them to take citizens to much more distant places before reaching their travel time limits and without amplifying subsequent free time needs as much. Metro trains are more like trams, but bigger and much more expensive and complicated to build and run. Passenger trains can also be made to support larger amounts than trams, but most cities will never need that amount of throughput.


Trolley buses are like a budget version of trams; they are cheaper and much easier to set up compared to trams, but they don't limit the speed of other vehicles on their roads to 80 or 85 kph. Getting trolley buses to a network is also a lot easier because most of them can be trucked or even airlifted to an area (only one tram can be moved by helicopter). A lot of people like to say that trams are immune to snow, but this is really only the case if you aren't running any other vehicles on their roads, as they will just get stuck behind other vehicles that aren't immune to snow.

Ah nice, interesting to know about the cost thing. Although with trams you do need a bit of extra infrastructure i guess but the cost difference in steel is worth considering i think, at least for the first city.
#5
Incrediblejimmy 20 hours ago 
Personnally I have become a bit of a fan of trams in this game, so my answer would be whenever travel times at 80kph don't max out, and maybe if you want to share tracks with faster freight trains...
The huge advantages I see with trams are that I can build the infrastructure with COs, they are immune to snow, share the road if needed, are modularly adaptable in size, cheap and they have route options that by default do not get used by other vehicles...
...Disadvantages come down to not being able to use waypoints, and them just not looking nice in vanilla in that a lot of them seem to be off center on the roads and weirdly turn on a dime...
#6
Silent_Shadow 20 hours ago 
Originally posted by Kaia:
Ah nice, interesting to know about the cost thing. Although with trams you do need a bit of extra infrastructure i guess but the cost difference in steel is worth considering i think, at least for the first city.
I don't see how you'd need more infrastructure for trams than trains. They both need a depot, electrical infrastructure, and a repair garage. The main difference I can think of is that you need special buildings and vehicles to construct the track for trains, though you might say that is needed anyway for a cargo network.

Don't sleep on cableways either, they can be a super cheap means of transportation if you don't need a lot of throughput, and helicopters can put them up very fast.
Last edited by Silent_Shadow; 20 hours ago
#7
Incrediblejimmy 20 hours ago 
Originally posted by Silent_Shadow:
Originally posted by Kaia:
Ah nice, interesting to know about the cost thing. Although with trams you do need a bit of extra infrastructure i guess but the cost difference in steel is worth considering i think, at least for the first city.
I don't see how you'd need more infrastructure for trams than trains. They both need a depot, electrical infrastructure, and a repair garage. The main difference I can think of is that you need special buildings and vehicles to construct the track for trains, though you might say that is needed anyway for a cargo network.

Don't sleep on cableways either, they can be a super cheap means of transportation if you don't need a lot of throughput, and helicopters can put them up very fast.

You need electrified tracks - at least you needed them a few patches ago to get trams from the rail depot onto tram tracks...which was quite a hinderance because it required the tec universities electrified rail research...that may be what was being referred to...

Afaik its now possible to just build tram-roads to a rail depot and go from there - which is an ugly but workable solution...Haven't tried it yet though^^
#8
Kaia 20 hours ago 
RIght i forgot some train depots have a rail to tramway connection my bad
well i may give trams a spin next time i feel like a run. bit burned on the game at the moment thanks to the mediocre dlc, but you always come back to the republic ^^
#9
Silent_Shadow 20 hours ago 
You can also just use a tram depot and move trams in and out with a truck. No train depot or connection piece required.
#10
Incrediblejimmy 20 hours ago 
Originally posted by Silent_Shadow:
You can also just use a tram depot and move trams in and out with a truck. No train depot or connection piece required.

Yeah, but earliest you can do that is 50s or 60s due to load sizes...One should be quite a bit along the tec tree and university building at that point anyways ...
If you're planning on that you should really read into the sizes and loading sizes before starting to build the according infra...
Last edited by Incrediblejimmy; 20 hours ago
#11
Kaia 20 hours ago 
speaking of, the slow start dlc trams are really slow aren't they. I mean the train set isn't fast either, but i appreciate having access to 70km/h snow immune mass transportation in the early 30s (through locomotives instead of trainsets)
Last edited by Kaia; 20 hours ago
#12
Silent_Shadow 19 hours ago 
Originally posted by Incrediblejimmy:
Yeah, but earliest you can do that is 50s or 60s due to load sizes...One should be quite a bit along the tec tree and university building at that point anyways ...
If you're planning on that you should really read into the sizes and loading sizes before starting to build the according infra...
I guess that is true for early starts, which is a nice change of pace.
#13
Incrediblejimmy 19 hours ago 
Originally posted by Silent_Shadow:
Originally posted by Incrediblejimmy:
Yeah, but earliest you can do that is 50s or 60s due to load sizes...One should be quite a bit along the tec tree and university building at that point anyways ...
If you're planning on that you should really read into the sizes and loading sizes before starting to build the according infra...
I guess that is true for early starts, which is a nice change of pace.

It indeed is...but it would be a hell of an annoyance if one forgot, so I had to bring it up :D
Last edited by Incrediblejimmy; 19 hours ago
#14
Incrediblejimmy 19 hours ago 
Originally posted by Kaia:
speaking of, the slow start dlc trams are really slow aren't they. I mean the train set isn't fast either, but i appreciate having access to 70km/h snow immune mass transportation in the early 30s (through locomotives instead of trainsets)
Earliest trams afair go 55kph, lategame do 80 ... In terms of speed they tend to be between buses and trains for most of the game - and never far of metros, so those are only relevant for extremer capacities and the ability to shortcut through clever tunneling...
Last edited by Incrediblejimmy; 19 hours ago
#15
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Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic > General Discussions > Topic Details
Date Posted: 31 Jul @ 7:39am
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