train and truck connections

[Roads]

Guess y'all will have to scold me or at worst ban me for all this posting but I got something working and thought it might be of interest to newbies like me.

Say your iron ore train is returning from the steel mill empty.  Now let's also assume you have an Electronics factory in the same direction as the iron ore mine but farther away and there is no rail to it and you can't afford to build any at present.  No problem, right?  You just pick up the steel with an additional wagon on your train and drop it off at the ore mine.  Now you have a truck pick the steel up at the ore mine and haul it to the Electronics factory.

I couldn't get my train to pick up the steel.  I kept thinking it was the type or configuration of my buildings.  It was not.  What you have to do is actually buy a steel truck and create the trip.  I haven't tested yet if you have to start the trip or just create it.  What worked was putting the steel truck on the road.

[Roads]

Something else I've discovered about train/truck connections.  If you have an existing loading bay and you build your train track to it, it may not work.  What worked for me was building the train platform(s) and coal station first, then build a new loading bay adjacent to it.

Of course this is quite a bit of work since you undoubtedly have trucks going to the existing loading bay.  It will work fine if you build your new train station and loading bay on the opposite side of the industry.  Actually this is a better way of doing it because the truck you have to put on the road to get the train to load will tie up all the other trucks at the bay while it is waiting for the train to arrive.  That is, if you set it to pick up more than zero.  geez, I bet this is clear as mud...

[Combuijs]

I haven't tested yet if you have to start the trip or just create it

Create the trip and assign a vehicle to it that can transport the right goods. The vehicle does not need to ride, it may stand still somewhere.

If you have an existing loading bay and you build your train track to it, it may not work

Order does not matter, it will work, if (and that's very important) the train and the truck use the same station. A station is defined (in this case) as a set of platforms plus a set of loading bays. If you see two station names, even if they have the same name, there are two different stations and they are not considered to be connected, so goods won't be transported between the two.

I really must insist that you read the beginners guide and the reference manual. Otherwise you are filling the forum with false information, which will only confuse users.

[Roads]

OK Combuijs, I won't post anymore about how I got something to work.  First though, I want to address the two points you made:

Create the trip and assign a vehicle to it that can transport the right goods. The vehicle does not need to ride, it may stand still somewhere

My bad.  I did not mean the truck has to literally be on the road, I just meant it has to be out of the garage.

Order does not matter, it will work, if (and that's very important) the train and the truck use the same station. A station is defined (in this case) as a set of platforms plus a set of loading bays. If you see two station names, even if they have the same name, there are two different stations and they are not considered to be connected, so goods won't be transported between the two.

I have been using the method Dirk told me about in the other thread to determine if the configuration of the buildings is correct.  That is, if you click on any of the buildings in the complex you should see the same picture.  This has worked very well.  Now what I ran into with an existing loading bay is that when I set the train buildings down and then clicked on the pics, I got dif pics so I know the configuration was bad.  However, when I removed the existing loading bay, placed the train buildings first and then the loading bay, all in the exact same configuration, it worked fine.

I did not figure this out until I had tried several times unsuccessfully to get my train to load.  Now if this info is wrong or worthless, please ask the moderator to delete the thread.

EDIT:
Here are pics of the original situation, the configuration that did not work and the last the one that did work fine.  Please note that I did not have a saved game of the one that did not work so I recreated the situation.  In my re-creation I forgot to add the fuel tank but it was there.

[joecz]

Unfortunately I can't see anything. Is there a problem with my browser, or is it also invisible for everyone else?

[Roads]

Joe, I can't see the pics either but thought it was just because I'm on dialup and everything takes forever.  I'll check at the upload site and see if the files uploaded properly.

[whoami]

http://www.simutrans-germany.com/files/upload/dlosecond.jpg just links to a text with the link in it. Strange - if there is a problem with uploading, you could talk to Frank.

[VS]

Hohoho. It's Jpeg2000, not our plain good old jpeg. If you can, save the files and change extension from jpg to jp2 to take a look.

I have never seen it used Maybe times are getting better... from technical viewpoint it certainly appeals to me more than jpeg.

It is sent by the server as image/jpeg, so no wonder they can't show anywhere! Some browsers show file name when they can't display the image.

[Roads]

OK, here is the story on the files from my side.  I screwed up with the help of Paint Shop.  On another board I had to convert files from .png to .jpg because the .jpg files are smaller.  I liked doing that anyway because the .jpg uploads a lot faster on dialup.  So I was going to convert the files to .jpg for the German server.  Only thing is Paint Shop saved them as .jp2 instead of .jpg
I figured I could just upload the .jp2  Well, I could not.  Got an upload error - wrong type of file.
So I pulled the files back into Paint Shop and saved them as .jpg
Apparently something with wrong with the save because it was those files that did not display.
This time I just tried to upload the original .png files but the 3rd file did not upload properly.  Probably my dialup at fault here.  I tried to re-upload but of course the file already existed on the German server so I got an error.  I'm now trying to figure out how to delete dlobay3.png

[VS]

Oh. I guess a few kB are not a tragedy.

And you must have only renamed them somewhere along the way...

[Roads]

Yep VS I did.  I'll just try to upload dlobay3 as dlobay4 and then worry about deleting all the junk.  So the files I'll be wanting to post here are dlobay1, dlobay2, dlobay4 if it uploads OK.

EDIT:  Finally success!  Very sorry I screwed up this upload so badly.  Also I don't know who Frank is or how to delete the junk files.  They should go away in a couple months if nothing is done, so I assume that would be OK.

I believe I still have a saved game prior to building the railroad if anyone wants to check it out.  It may just be the version and pak I'm running which caused the problem.  sim-wingdi.exe is how I'm running the game.  The version is 100.1-2126 nov. 20, 2008.  All I can tell you about the pak is pak128, nov. 20, 2008.

[whoami]

(Now that the screenshots are visible:)

1) The station names aren't shown (press shift-1 or ! to show them), so it's not possible to say whether there is only one station, or several separate ones.
2) The first picture shows the loading bay in grey, the last one in player colours. This normally means that the first shows a station owned by "the public". However, this shouldn't prevent goods from being routed there.
3) The fuel tank isn't necessary for goods routing, because the loading bay already enables goods.

[jbode]

2) The first picture shows the loading bay in grey, the last one in player colours. This normally means that the first shows a station owned by "the public". However, this shouldn't prevent goods from being routed there.

As far as I know the player can not load at public (or other players) station ... So after creating or linking the industry (what has to be done as public player): switch back to "human"

Jörg

[Combuijs]

As far as I know the player can not load at public (or other players) station ... So after creating or linking the industry (what has to be done as public player): switch back to "human"

Not true! Every player can load or unload at a public station. The only way to connect two players networks is having public stations in between. In other than public stations indeed no "foreign" player can load or unload.

[Roads]

whoami, unfortunately, the last pic is from a game that had progressed.  I needed the fuel tank because I was transferring gasoline farther on down the line.  The first pic may very well be when I was in public service mode.  I cannot be certain at this point that the pic was immediately prior to me building the railroad.  As I said before the second pic was a recreation.  So these pics are not an actual reflection of the game.  They simply show where the buildings were built.

Fellas it seems pretty obvious to me now that y'all all think I just made some error.  On reflection since I am so new to the game, that must be right.  So I'm really sorry I began this thread and from now on when I think I've figured something out, I'll just keep it to myself.

[jbode]

Not true! Every player can load or unload at a public station. The only way to connect two players networks is having public stations in between. In other than public stations indeed no "foreign" player can load or unload.

upppps, think I need to play with the set of different "players" - thanks for the hint!

Jörg

[DirrrtyDirk]

I needed the fuel tank because I was transferring gasoline farther on down the line.

The fuel tank is not needed for transporting gasoline. As I (and others) have told you earlier, simutrans stations only differentiate between three types of freight 1) passengers, 2) mail and 3) goods. So as soon as a station accepts "goods", it accepts all of them - both as final destination or for transfers. The truck loading bay already enables the handling of goods, so no other building for that purpose is necessary any more.

[Magic_Gorter]

Adding a fuel tank (or other buildings) will AFAIK only increase the loading capacity of the station if it's already accepting the type of freight.

[Roads]

OK Dirk, I think I got it now - passengers, mail and goods.  Thank you again.  I know it must be frustrating for you but please know I would be up the creek without a paddle if not for you guys.  I am sure many of you think I should be reading the manual.  I have.  There is an awful lot to aborb.  I'm not stupid, just ignorant.

And thanks Magic Gorter for pointing that out.  Someday I might actually need a fuel tank.

[Combuijs]

I would be up the creek without a paddle if not for you guys

We have all paddled up that creek! Even if you are close to its source, you still need as many paddles as you can get. But the journey is a breathtaking adventure.

[DirrrtyDirk]

Yes, we were all beginners once... 

Still, try to remember what people already told you.  What I saw when I last looked into a mirror, didn't look much like a parrot... that might explain why I don't exactly love to repeat myself over and over again.

But you'll see: one day there'll be a "click" inside your head and you'll find that it's actually not all that difficult and follows a certain logic. And that's when the fun really starts in this game! So keep working on it - it's worth it!

[Roads]

Well Dirk if the fun hasn't really started yet I'll be playing for a long, long time and you can take that to the bank.  Honestly though, I don't think the train connections are intuitive, maybe they can't be.  I'm not saying it is not good, but at first blush, it is hard to get a handle on it.  The reason I say this is you have not seen one post from me about buses, boats or signals.  Yes there is a lot about signals I don't know and the posts other people have made have helped me a lot.  But so far I've got them to work great for the few trains I have running.

It is a wonderful game, wonderful board and dang nice people.  I'm a happy camper.