2023-05-12
Yes, this is a post about OpenTTD. You're probably used to it by now 😄️
It's January 1st 2051 and Quarndown Transport is 101 years old. The company is highly profitable, raking in more than £100 million a year. There are absolutely zero fiscal problems. In fact the company can pretty much afford anything it might want to do.
It's specialised in coal, tea leaves, and tea tea deluxe. All highly profitable cargoes. Tea is also essential to keep barbarism at bay in modern society.
However, the company is being overwhelmed with the extraordinary production pace of these goods. Three stations in particular are under very much literal pressure.
The second most important station in the world, second only to the one that supplies the company HQ with tea, Muhaven Woods is where the Tea Factory that receives all tea leaves is located. The factory produces thousands of boxes of tea tea deluxe every month. More than the 133 trains servicing the station can pick up. The station has twelve platforms were trains are loading 98% of the time (some time is spent on arriving at and leaving the platforms). There's only so much adding more trains can do.
Quarndown North and Geadstow Valley are the two ends of the main coal line. Both are designed like Muhaven Woods, with twelve platforms each, also packed with trains.
All three stations share the most efficient design I've been able to come up with. Twelve platforms is the maximum possible. Two train lines come into each station and each line is split into two and then each of those legs are split into three. Traffic into the stations flows extremely efficiently without hardly any interruptions. The trains are almost flawlessly distributed over the platforms.
The trains go through the stations and merge into two outgoing lines on the other side. There are waiting bays on this end of the stations and you hardly ever see a train stuck at a platform waiting to get out. The trains are also evenly distributed over these two lines to the point where adding a dozen trains to one line will even out after a couple of runs.
The only thing I can think of to do is to upgrade to maglev, but that kind of upgrade would stop all traffic for months! Is there something else I can do?
Here's a save file for you if you're interested in helping out.
-- CC0 Björn Wärmedal