Chapter 03 · Handbook
Stations, Trains & Throughput
The number of stations a line really wants, why adding one is usually the wrong fix, and the carriage, speed, platform and engine upgrades that move income.
Demand decides how many passengers want to ride. Throughput decides how many you actually deliver, and a station is the costliest piece in the game to run. Each line has exactly one train that stops at every platform on its route, so the work is fitting the train, and the number of stops, to the city you actually grew. Everything here is per line.
The reflex that wastes money
When a line feels starved, the reflex is to drop another station on it. That is almost always the wrong move. A full platform means the train cannot keep up with the queue, and a new station does nothing for that. It only adds another upkeep bill. The fix is a bigger platform on the station you already have, plus a longer or faster train.
Read the signal before you spend. If the TRAIN fills up, add a carriage. If the PLATFORM fills up (the queue, not the seats), buy a Bigger Stations upgrade. A station sitting quiet is just dead weight: upkeep paid, nothing earned.
How many stations a line wants
The right count is a handful, and it scales with the city you have grown. Too few is a cliff. Two or three platforms cannot cover or serve a real town, and that line runs at a loss. A granted line arrives in exactly that state, a short two-station shuttle, and the rebuild is in The empire and the long century.
Over-stationing is the opposite, and it is a slow tax rather than instant death. Every extra platform is upkeep you pay forever, and network upkeep is graded super-linearly, so a board carpeted with stations grades worse than a lean one carrying the same traffic. Place a station, fill its two-cell ring (full draw at 1 cell, 60% at 2; see Where fares come from), and only then add the next.
One train, and the upgrades that feed it
Income on a line is trips times seats, and the train is the only thing that turns waiting passengers into fares. Three upgrades grow it, bought per line.
| Upgrade | Effect | Base cost | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Extra Carriage | +2 seats | 80 | each level dearer than the last |
| Faster Train | +0.3x speed per level | 60 | hard cap at level 8, which is x3.4 |
| Bigger Stations | +2 queue per level | 50 | tap the station in the world, not the Shop |
A platform holds 4 to start and the opening train seats 5, so one full platform just clears. After that, grow carriages and platforms together: each +2 of seats keeps step with each +2 of queue, so neither chokes the other. Faster Train shortens the lap, which delivers more trips per period, but it caps at level 8. Past that, only a better engine makes a line faster.
Engines
The engine type is the heaviest single spend in the game.
| Engine | Speed | Revenue coaches | Unlocks |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steam | x1.0 | 1 | start |
| Diesel | x1.1 | 3 | 1935 |
| High-Speed Rail (InterCity 125) | x1.4 | 4 | 1976 |
Engines work in two steps, and the distinction matters for net worth. Unlocking a type is a one-time, account-wide capability and a pure cash sink, Diesel at 1,500 coins and High-Speed Rail at 5,000, excluded from net worth so it dips your standing and pays back through the better engine's fares. Applying an unlocked type to a particular line is the per-line conversion, 1,000 for Diesel and 2,000 for High-Speed Rail, and those are net-worth-neutral, as are carriages and speed.
The denser buildings carry their own unlock prices, also account-wide cash sinks: the Townhouse at 500, the Office Block at 700, the Apartment Block at 900. The 125 is fuel-frugal, which matters once the oil crisis lands a fuel surcharge on the older diesels; see The empire and the long century.
A longer trip pays more, but a longer lap also wants a bigger or faster train to keep the trips coming. The shape of the line, and the fare each trip earns, is in Fares, distance and the shape of a line.