WP&P
 The
Winchester
Paston &
Portsmouth
Railroad
Corporation 		WP&P RSD-15 #346

The Depot
Reskins RRtycoon Trainz
The Layout

Railroad Tycoon 3

(computer game)

 We Provide Pride!
The Sim
The Birds
The Rest

I am working on creating a "historical" game map for the Paston Valley Lines, which grew up into the WP&P.  You begin the game as a majority-owned subsidiary of the Baltimore & Ohio, but as times get tough for B&O they look to sell off their stake in your company.  You have the choice of whether to allow this or not, but if you do then you'll start to look interesting to the Norfolk & Western, who begins investing in shares in your company.  If N&W gets a controlling interest, they may want to merge with you!  Of course, this is the fiction behind my WP&P, and this game map places it all in a very plausible context.  It is a big map, one which I am using to test my route surveying skills, because the WP&P mainline between Trellisville and Oxmore crosses some rather difficult terrain.

I will post a link to this map once I am confident it is ready for use.  Check back later, or bug me about it with some email!

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My Maps / Scenarios
WPPscenario.zip - This is the first time I have uploaded this scenario, though I have spent a lot of time playtesting it myself and gone through several iterations. If you have browsed the rest of my web page, you might already know a bit about the W.P.& P., but this map is one that really tells the story of the line. It's all fictional, of course, crafted by me, except for the B&O and N&W railroads, which are rather faithfully represented. It starts in the 1890's, at a time when the B&O is having some financial troubles, and you begin as if you are a wholly-owned subsidiary of B&O. To make it through the tough times, though, B&O wishes to sell off its controlling interest in your little Paston Valley Lines, and it's up to you to take them up on this offer, and build your own line to cross the Appalachians! Depending on the choices you make, you might even end up becoming a subsidiary of N&W, much as the "real" WP&P did in 1967.

This map requires additional mod content, so please read the ReadMe and be sure to install it all! Basically, you need engines, from the Unofficial Loco Pack available at hawkdawg.com, as well as the two N&W engines that Kimmo Jaske (Bombardiere) and I created, available here. I have provided some railroad heralds in the zip file, including my own WP&P circle herald.

Skins and Mods for RRT3

New Buildings

YARD FACILITIES

The basic concept behind the "Yard" class of buildings is that they have a fractional demand (about 0.1 to 0.4 per year) for certain types of cargo, and a player can build them in order to attract loads in a certain direction. When the mine and the mill are vastly separated, it can be hard to get the raw material flowing towards its destination, and often the only way to do it by default is to route a train all the way from A to Z. This is an ineffcient way to run a railroad, and with the limit of double-track in the game, your lines can get clogged with traffic pretty readily. Plus, portions of your route might be steeper or more shallow and straight, making it hard to determine which type of engine to assign to that long-haul train.

A Yard works by elevating the local cargo value enough so that loads can be profitably "drop-shipped" to a relay point, then picked up on another train and profitably delivered to the consuming industry. With such low demand values, they are extremely sensitive to oversupply, so you can't just make all your deliveries to a Yard in lieu of carrying them to a final destination. You have to haul away as much as you drop off, to try and keep the local supply near zero. This also makes it possible to run a series of yards, to break the delivery route into multiple segments. However, each Yard does cost a little bit in maintenance, and from what I have seen it is a little less profitable overall to run trains in relay versus the full distance (i.e. series versus parallel).

The Unofficial Patch 1.06 introduces drop-shipping at a loss, which is another way to ensure that cargo moves where it should. But what such drop-shipping cannot do is affect the natural flow of cargo; it is frustrating to have a station near a bunch of coal mines, but never be able to capture that coal because the cargo value map pulls it away. By building a Hopper Yard, the coal will have a place to collect - as long as you haul it away from there faithfully!

I haven't been able to make these function as lineside structures the way I would prefer; the game only recognizes Stations and Service Towers/Sheds as valid Along-The-Rails types (it wouldn't let me create a new type). Thus, these are in the same building category as Restaurants (and show up as additional restaurants at the nearby station). Just pretend that there is an invisible spur out to them, and build them somewhere close to the station.

Here are the Yard buildings I am working on:
(click on the name to download)
Stock Yard StockYd2.jpg $65k Livestock Readme
Hopper Yard HopYard2.jpg $200k Bauxite, Coal, Iron Readme
Icing Platform IcePlat1.jpg $240k Cheese, Meat, Produce, Alcohol, Milk Readme
Grain Elevator GrainElev1.jpg $240k Grain, Corn, Rice, Sugar Readme
Marshalling Yard (COMING SOON) $200k Logs, Pulpwood, Lumber, Oil, Diesel
Classification Yard (COMING SOON) $450k Most other "unfinished" loads (Paper, Aluminum, Cotton, etc.)

I will not be creating Yards for come cargoes, since the "finished" loads (like Furniture and Toys) are demanded by houses, and it is assumed that you'll never lack a place to carry them. Of course, by that reasoning there's no real need for the Icing Platform, but I had ot try and do one anyways, as such platforms were such a staple of classic railroading.

OTHER STUFF:

As an architect by trade, I love the thought of adding new buildings to the game.  Being limited to the existing set of building shapes is tough, but with decent reskinning and use of the alpha channel, I think a lot more variety can be had.  My first step was to think up all sorts of push-the-limits kinds of things, but finding a lot of frustration with that, I decided to see what was really possible just using the kinds of cargo in the default game.  I crafted a quick Excel spreadsheet to map out the game-provided industries, in terms of what they demand and produce, and then started trying to think up industries that would fill in some of the blanks.  If you would like to look at or make use of my Excel file, feel free to download it here:

BuildingPlannerMRR (ZIP file, creates Excel file) UPDATED 11/01/07:  Now includes a "BCA Roadmap" worksheet to aid in structuring the BCA files within a hex editor; this is based on PJay's text file which contains the same information, but makes it more graphical and uses in-cell drop menus for most entries.  Does not ouput to the BCA file format!  Just helps you see what you're doing (or doing wrong, as the case may be).  Feedback on this tool is desired and appreciated.

I am trying to prioritize the buildings that make the most sense; some of what I had come up with might not really add much playability to the game.  Here are some of the basic concepts behind some of the listed buildings:

- Open Pit Mines: Mines that get a bonus to production when provided with Ammunition (i.e. explosives).  Would use a large Steel or Alum. Mill with most features invisible, to reflect large footprint of this form of mining (and its tendency to terra-form)
- Company Towns: Versions of logging camps and coal mines that produce more if supplied with Goods.  Effort is to redefine "Goods" as a catch-all top level commodity that eventually most cargo gets transformed into.  With several new buildings being Goods producers, overall demand for Goods must increase as well.  This would be a way of representing some really small towns, like in a West Virginia "Holler", without using up a "City" placement in the editor.
- Player-buildable farms: Not sure if this is possible yet, but it would be nice to be able to plant some farms at whim.  Since these would just be an alternate form of the basic farm, it could be enabled on a scenario basis.  Unsure how worthwhile this would be.
- Other "pure" industries: Just work like other industries, converting one cargo into another.

Here is the first such industry I have modded, a Cereal Company:
  
Cereal Company screen shot

It costs 2,300k to build, starting in 1848, and it converts various recipes into goods.  Over time, the recipe changes, as its BCA file is based on the Weapons Factory, and this is good because it helps offset how reliably profiitable it can be.  It starts by taking in Grain plus Rice to produce 2 Goods, then switches to Corn plus Sugar, then finally to Grain plus Sugar.  I scaled this production ratio back to control how profitable it is, and also limited total production to 3 per year (6 when upgraded); nonetheless it seems like it can still be rather lucrative when well-supplied.  Give me your feedback and I can try tweaking the production formula a little more.  The 3DP file is based on the Munitions Factory, skinned with parts borrowed from the Commercial buildings.  I may do some more work on the skins to try and get rid of the yellow glow at night and the black ghost edges of things I've made invisible, and for some reason I can't get the 2D file to look good; I would appreciate help with that.  I also don't know how much is supposed to be packed into a PK4 file; because it is still a work-in-progress, I haven't attempted to do so.

Download the Cereal Company (CerealCompany4.zip)  (if you downloaded prior to 11/02/07, replace files with these)
11/02/07 Updated files are:
CerealCompany.bca (if you prefer, just download the BCA file and replace it, in Data/BuildingTypes)  
10/25/07 Updated files are:
2Dcerealcompany_a.dds (also JPEG and TGA versions of this file, in case DDS does not work)
cerealcompany_a.tga
cerealcompany_b.tga
cerealcompany_c.tga
cerealcompany_d.tga
cerealcompany_e.tga

Install instructions:  Unzip and place most of the contents into "UserExtraContents".  However, the files that begin with "2D..." go into the Data/2D folder, and the BCA and BTY files go into the Data/BuildingTypes folder.  I'll write up a Readme for the final version, I promise...

Why this building first?  Because covered hopper traffic is now and has for a long time been very prominent in American railroading, at least, and this creates more reason to haul the various types of "chop" loads, even prioritizing them.  Because they are recipes (a+b=c) it means that you must probably serve two distinct growing regions in order to get anything out of it; when you do so, it becomes wonderfully profitable, much as a steel mill can be when you get both iron and coal to it.  However, sugar requirement may "break" it in some scenarios, unless sugar is made available as an import product, or via another new building (see Corn Syrup Bottler, below).

NEXT ON THE HORIZON:

I really like the idea of a Tannery, which converts Livestock into Clothing.  I first thought that maybe 1 cow = 2 shirts, but then this might be too profitable; I just don't want large streams of bovines marching off to such an industry, when really I think it is the case that cows which get slaughtered for meat end up yielding their hides to the tannery as well.  Maybe this isn't so much of an issue.

A Packaging company that converts Paper into Goods - would make paper more valuable but flood the goods market more, thus the need for "company towns".

Bring back the Cannery!  Two recipes, either Produce+Alum=Goods or Coffee+Alum=Goods.  This would make aluminum more valuable.

Tractor Plant:  An interesting twist, this would be like an Auto Plant that in game terms produces Fertilizer!  Since Fertilizer supports all Farm production, the John Deere production line ends up creating equipment that helps the farmer as much as fertilizer does.

Ethanol Plant - available in the 1990's, it would convert either Corn or Sugar into Diesel.

Plywood Mill - it creates Lumber out of Pulpwood instead of Logs.

Tree Farm - to support the Plywood Mill, this would be a type of Farm that has little pine trees as its crop, if this can be done.  It produces Pulpwood, and this might be an instance of a player-buildable farm.

Synthetics Factory - converts Chemicals into Rubber, offering another way to get the automobile industry off the ground (it fails in so many scenarios because of the lack of rubber farms and remoteness of importing ports).  Also boosts importance of Chemicals, which may help Fertilizer production as Chem. loads start flowing around the map more.

Corn Syrup Bottler - might be a necessary partner to the Cereal Company, just to get some local Sugar production going.  It would convert Corn into Sugar.

Poultry Company - a chicken-grower which converts Corn into Meat, which may mean gigantic profits, unless recipe can be 2 Corn = 1 Meat.  Can it be done as recipe of 1 Corn + 1 Corn = 1 Meat?
ROLLING STOCK OVERHAUL

I have broken out the Rolling Stock Mods Project onto its own page, just click on this link. Also, I have prepared a set of instructions for making Car mods - see my How-To Guide!
ENGINE MODS
N&W Class J 4-8-4 NWJ484tn.jpg
I started by doing a skin for the Northern 4-8-4 that converts it into the N&W Class J, perhaps the most perfect steam engine ever built.  However, since I wanted my AI company to make use of this skin and not just use the default Northern, I asked Bombardier to help me out by creating a stand-alone engine of it.  This afforded the opportunity to create a truly modern steam engine, one which competes favorably with the F3, and which isn't even available until 1941 (the game's northern begins at 1926).  The image below is outdated; I have made a few minor tweaks to the skin since then.

 Readme
N&W Class Y6 2-8-8-2 NWClassYtn.jpg
Again thanks to the efforts of Bombardier, who got the Challenger body riding on 8-wheel driver sets and swapped out the tender, I have completed the skinning for this new engine.  It began as an attempt to represent the Y3 class, which was based on the USRA design in 1919 for the 2-8-8-2.  N&W later improved this class into the Y6b.  For gameplay purposes, this engine represents the Y6, because the slower Y3 just doesn't work in the RRT3 game engine; it is too slow.  This gives a more reasonably sized mallet, a little bit earlier (1936), for those that want big steam.  This mallet is slow but sure-footed, ugly (but oh so beautiful!) and will do best hauling ore out of the mountains. Readme
Royal Hudson 4-6-4 RoyalHud3tn.jpg
Initially, I was just going to apply a skin to the model that Bombardier had created long before (included in the unofficial Loco Pack and Patch 1.06), but I found that there were some things that needed fixing.  The driving rods didn't have the skin file mapped properly onto them, which forced me to learn a bit about hex editing the .3DP file.  I also traded out the tender, for something more proportionate to the real engine. Readme
N&W Class A 2-6-6-4 NWA2664tn.jpg
This engine represents a quantum leap forward in Mod possibilities.  I was tinkering with the Red Devil's boiler, combined with the Challenger's lead truck, and wishing there was just some way to lengthen the boiler a bit, move things around here and there.  If only that could be done, well then, I could make a Class A out of it!  Eventually I figured out how to manually hex edit the .3DP file to do just that, and this is the first 3D-edited RRT3 mod that I know about.  I was told before that it simply could not be done...  Readme
Soo SD40-2 SooSD40tn.jpg
It took me three grueling weeks to get the Class A done; to prove that 3D editing need not be so strenuous, I decided to do another often-dreamed-about project.  By starting with the GP35 body that is part of the Coast-to-Coast expansion, and stretching its end platforms a bit, as well as reshaping one of the radiators, I achieved an iconic SD40-2 body. This only took me a day and a half; plus another day to debug an issue with the truck spacing. I chose the Soo scheme because it is mostly white and thus easy for others to paint over (reskin). Readme
N&W SD40 M.U. NWSD40tn.jpg My goal all along had been to do N&W versions, but I figured there'd be a lot of demand for a "normal" SD40-2.  The N&W liked high noses and long hoods forward, so there was a bit more to be done, other than just a reskin. This is a doubled engine (Multiple Unit) with stats very comparable to the DD40-X; I'm pursuing my goal of an N&W overhaul. Personally, I think the DD40-X should have its stats toned down a bit, as this was nowhere near as popular as SD40-2's were, and I'm sure they cost more in maintenance than GP35's did. Readme



MY WISHLIST FOR RAILROAD TYCOON 4


I doubt such a thing will ever happen, as they went and did Sid Meier's Railroads, which moved in an opposite direction to what I hoped for.  Thus, I have yet to even play it; it just doesn't appeal to me, with its toy trains and squashed scale.  Here are some of my ideas, things that they could have done to make RRT3 into the Train Game to Rule Them All.

1. Replace track and roadbed with better model, one which looks like it is on earthen fill and not on top of mayan ruins

2. Add tracklaying feature of "ruling grade", where you set a maximum gradient, and if the lay of the land prohibits following that rule then it automatically cuts and fills... at significant cost.  Beyond a certain threshold, (i.e. when tracks are cutting or filling 50 feet relative to natural terrain) it should allow only bridges or tunnels.

3. In conjunction with ruling grade, make engine response to slopes more pronounced, such that 2% is actually a traffic limiter.  Or, let this be a difficulty switch for the player, since some just want to draw 5% grades everywhere and get the trains running; I can see how gameplay could become a hassle for those that have trouble laying track.

4. Maybe a "survey crew" predictor during track laying that would highlight a line beginning from your current end-of-track, rising at the current ruling grade for a certain distance out, as well as falling at that same grade for the same distance.  This would bracket in the range of places you can get to without exceeding the gradient or doing any cut/fill.  Could maybe be toggled on by a keystroke while tracklaying tool is engaged.

5. Better looking bridges, especially trestles!  Allow bridges to bend, but not the way they do in SMRR; instead, make them each have a modular size so that they bend as straight segments.  The track could curve normally, but each bridge segment would be straight (tangent to track at midpoint).  This would require bridges to have a minimum radius, which might be different for the different types.  Or, maybe bridge type changes as radius changes, so that if you're on wood you get closely-spaced trestle bents for tight turns, or bolt-connected trusses for wider or straight bridges.  With steel, you'd go from deck girders to through girders to trusses.

6. Visual representation of track maintenance.  Give player control over how much to invest in track and station maintenance, and let the track grow progressively more weedy and rundown in appearance over time.  Train speeds overall would be affected by track condition. Also, chances of wrecks and breakdowns (i.e. derailments) would go up for run down track.  Could be fun to implement as "track gangs" which would be trains that need to be purchased and routed just like other trains, and wherever they go they restore track to pristine condition; this way, you could cease paying for an abandoned route by simply not sending gangs there.  For the more simplistic player, they could be an "auto-route" button when purchasing the track gang similar to "auto-consist", which would just have them wander the line based on where the need was.

7. Yards!  Let player build yards, one track at a time, by clicking on a station, then clicking on the commodity icon for, say, coal, at that station.  In RRT3, this brings up a display of relative prices of that coal in other stations.  I suggest that it also bring up a "Build yard track" button.  Each commodity can have one yard track, of varying lengths.  Each time you press the build yard track button, the yard track gets extended by 1 load for that commodity, up to a maximum value (8?).  This yard track will act as if there were a train sitting at the station, with orders to load up that many cars full of coal.  Thus, a coal yard track 4 segments long would collect 4 loads of coal and hold them there until a train comes to pick them up.  Also, having a yard track (of any length) for a given commodity would exert some amount of demand for that commodity... or maybe just having an empty yard track would exert that demand.  There'd be a limit on number of yard tracks, depending on station size - a small station might allow 2 tracks, a medium might allow 4, and a large maybe 8 tracks.  Without a yard track, loads behave as they do now, in that they move on from the station if nobody ever comes to pick it up, and maybe they just don't hang around as long as they do now.  This way, you don't need to have a yard in order to pickup loads.  Player doesn't get to choose where the yard goes, because they don't actually lay down the tracks; just have the computer fit it as close as possible to the station.  And if a building is in the way of yard expansion, have it pop up a dialog asking you if you want to pay to bulldoze.  Express loads should not accumulate in yards, though.

8. Variety!  I love being able to do my own train skins and run a favorite engine in-game.  Unfortunately, limits keep me from having all the possible variations I might like to see.  Relax these limits a bit.  Also, let each freight car and caboose have two or three variations that randomly intermix.  Maybe allow the player to pick out color schemes for each car if they want (in-game, not in-editor) with certain defaults, such as boxcars are brown (boxcar red) with the company's logo on the side by default, cabooses are red with logo, etc.  But let player choose a base color and accent color for each car type, and then let the 2 or 3 other versions be based on game defaults.

9. Freight rosters:  in addition to picking color schemes, let player choose to roster light, medium, or heavy versions of each car type, which would have greater or lesser car weights (just use a multiplier across the board) and would pay out revenue based on the same multiplier.  Thus, for hoppers you might pick 55-ton, 70-ton, or 90-ton hoppers.  Boxcars can be 40', 50', or 60'.  Actual names of the car types might change over the years, too, with different sets for European / World scenarios.

10. Express rosters:  similar choices, but instead of weight varying, it should be a maintenance cost that varies.  You basically select the level of luxury.  The "Diner" car in the consist screen would be obsolete by this method, but it could be one of the three levels - low = coach, medium = diner, high = sleeper.  Paint schemes for express would only be your one scheme, no 2 or 3 alternates like freight.

11. Roads and urban terrain.  Let scenarios have roads designed in, which would function similar to rivers, in that they move cargo faster.  Early on, maybe they "flow" rather slow, and then get faster as time goes on.  Also, let roads grow in the spaces between buildings within a city.

12. Allow retired engines to return to a motive power pool or "roundhouse", so that when you go to buy a new train you can choose to use an old engine that you already own, though maybe with degraded specs.  Each time you retire an engine, it degrades by a certain amount; when you reactivate it, you are given an option to overhaul it to restore it to new; the cost of this overhaul is a percentage of new engine cost, times the number of "degrade points" it has accumulated.  This way, it would be possible to buy only one new engine and via trickle-down theory upgrade all your trains by doing so... though that would take a lot of micromanaging and still cost a fair amount, even if not as much as replacing all engines with brand new.

13. Mandatory cabooses.  Include a game variable that imposes "caboose law" at varying levels, making them mandated for all trains, or for all but express-only trains, or for freight-only trains, or not mandatory at all, with the default being for freight-only.  Make it something that can be toggled by effects and have it change to not mandatory after game year = 1984 (or whenever).

14. Permanent grades.  I hate it when I go to all the trouble of laying a gentle grade up into a mountain town, getting my station built, and then five years later a new industry has raised or lowered the terrain drastically and screwed it all up!  Track, once laid, should stay put.  If the terrain needs to adjust, then let it create fill or cut around the already placed track, possibly even a tunnel or bridge if too ridiculous.  This should not cost the player anything, as in real life, if an industry developed land that required placing a retaining wall up against the rail line and then filling up to it, all that cost would be born by the developer.  And there are places where once open trackwork was later buried by a growing city above, so I think this would be realistic.  Also, when placing a station or other trackside structure, give player the opportunity to adjust it up or down (again with cut or fill as required to create the flat terrace it sits on); this can be done by click-and-drag, as opposed to single click which just places the station at default height.  By holding down mouse button, you can raise or lower, within a range that is defined by the highest and lowest points of the terrain within the building's footprint.

15. Helpers / MU / Doubleheading.  Allow a possible consist for a given train to be "helper", with a route specified by only two points maximum. Then, this engine would just run light between those locations until a train came along, when it would add itself to that train's consist (let player choose front or rear?) and boost the pulling power, though speed would drop to lowest of the two engines.  Perhaps, if a station has been assigned to a helper route, then all trains that wish to travel between the two stations on that helper route will be forced to wait at the station for a while, displaying "waiting for helper"; they'd get under way eventually, with or without helper, so that a helper breakdown doesn't shut things down entirely.  This would give more reason to run a mix of engines, with good pullers assigned to the hills while speed demons race on the flats, both pulling the same train.

16. Roundhouses and turntables.  Instead of a shed that straddles the main line, make engine terminals be a big spur that attaches to main.  Give it a real roundhouse and turntable, with spots to place fuel, water, and sand towers.  Let engines evaluate their need for servicing only when they reach a station.  If they require it, let them automatically run light to the nearest roundhouse, within a certain radius (have to figure out what to make that radius be).  Then, once they are done spinning on the table, they come back to that station and resume their route.  This way, speed from station to station is never affected by fuel stops, though perhaps it could still be slowed by water towers which can be freely placed the way they are now.

17. Tracklaying snap-to sensitivity.  Let the player select how sensitive the track laying tool is, so that it can become possible to lay close and parallel tracks, and to lay low-diverging-angle turnouts.

18. Industry spurs.  If the player attempts to lay track on top of an industry, trigger a dialog box that asks whether you want to build a spur to that industry.  This would create a straight track along the nearest edge of the industry footprint, and that spur would act as a yard track (see above) for the commodity produced there.  It would also show up in the station list as a station, named by default as "Town Name" + "Industry Type" + Number.  The capacity of the spur would be based on the industry type, so maybe coal mines have 5 car lengths, farms have 2, paper mills have 3, etc.

19. Variable train length.  Give each engine type a rating as to how long of a train it can pull, in number of cars.  This should range between 5 and 10 cars.  This way a 4-8-4 steam engine can be rated for 8 cars while its replacement F3 diesel might only be capable of 7.  The Big Boy and other heavy articulated steam would achieve 10 cars, while modern diesels might still top out at 9.  A Pacific might pull only 6 whereas a Mikado pulls 7.  I'm not sure how needed this is; I tend to set up consists along these lines, just because of relative pulling power and time-sensitivity factors.

20. Google Earth tie in to editor - make use of online terrain models for base map creation, including ability to use aerial photos for the initial texture.

21. Asset-checking:  have editor compile list of all "extra content" used in a scenario, and show this list at scenario start, highlighting missing assets, perhaps with an option to use a substitute (game would create temporary asset out of the chosen substitute)  This way, if a scenario is built using all N&W engines and logos, but you prefer C&O and have a library full of those assets instead, you can still launch the scenario and choose your C&O mods in place of the N&W content.

22. Signals - I don't propose a fully functioning signal system, as I don't think it would contribute that much to gameplay.  But it would be nice to see signals pop up automatically every so often, even if just as lineside decoration.  A set of signals could show up at each turnout (where single track splits to double, or where a spur/branch joins the main), and they toggle between green and red to show train occupancy, but without any actual affect on train movements.  Or, the rule could be that occupancy makes a signal red, but train movement is what makes the signal impassable.  Thus, only if a block is occupied by a moving train will another train be prevented from entering.  The other train would stop at the red signal, and then the first train would arrive at that same signal, but would be allowed to enter because the opposing train is stopped, ie. "in the hole".  Of course, double track complicates things a bit; I'm not sure how they coded it, but it seems like double track is treated as if it were two independent routes, which maybe makes the signaling easier.  At any rate, I'm sure there is a happy medium where signals can occur and behave somewhat normally, but not be a burden to the player.

23. Passenger demand varying by distance and city size, i.e. use the cargo model more like RRT2 for express with the economy model of RRT3 kept for freight.  It doesn't make sense when I earn more money hauling passengers between two tiny close-by villages than I do by hauling them between remote metropolises.

24. Allow user-made engines into the game as new models, not just skins or reconfiguring of default content.  Also allow user-made buildings and other content as well.

25. Have terrain go through seasons!  Trees should have 4 seasonal states, and let them change at random times (not all at once) if possible.  Let each grass and dirt texture have seasonal variations, too.  This will preclude custom-painted terrain which can currently be done, or else it would just mean giving up the seasonal feature, if you use "bmp2gmp.exe" or similar modding tool to place your own image onto the terrain.  This might be a lot of graphics overhead for what amounts to pure aesthetics, although you could have trains slow down in winter months due to snow, or other effects (like water costs go up in desert) tied in to terrain textures.  Another way to implement season would be to just have four overall textures that you are allowed to paint (all default to match the first texture painted if not modified), and let the game swap to the next season all in one go, perhaps at a random time within a 1-month range.  Still would need to have the trees change on their own, though.


created by Michael R. Rountree