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Terrible Early Tubes.

Started by DrSuperGood, August 24, 2014, 03:23:48 PM

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DrSuperGood

So underground subways in the form of "tubes" have recently been introduced onto the server. My initial thoughts were this would be a great opportunity to upgrade my existing underground system to something more realistic and efficient. However they just are not attractive enough, in fact there is virtually no reason to build them. I do understand they get an upgrade later on but until then there really is little point.

Here are the features of early tube systems.
1.Higher maintenance than a conventional 80 km/h tunnel with steam (440 for tunnel + 91.20 for power against 480 for just a tunnel).
2.Slower maximum line speed than a conventional tunnel (70 km/h vs 80 km/h).
3.Slower actual line speed than a conventional tunnel (40 km/h vs 80 km/h).
4.Better running costs than a conventional tunnel (tube engines as good as free in comparison).
5.Worse comfort than a conventional tunnel (54 in tube against 66 on train as a measured example).
6.Considerably less passenger throughput than conventional tunnels (about 40-50% as engines are half the speed and less dense).
7.No mail support (there is no mail tube engine).
8.The tube stations have abysmal passenger capacity for their maintenance (27 maintenance per passenger for tube vs 2.4 maintenance per passenger (yes its less than 1/10 of the tube) for conventional passenger stations. This is partly offset by their above ground building (1.19936 maintenance per passenger) however nothing stops one using that same building with conventional stations.
9.Cheaper construction costs (tube tunnels cost a lot less to build than conventional tunnels).

As you can see, only 2 elements are positive about them and that is the running costs of the convoys and the construction cost.

I would strongly recommend considerably lowering the per km maintenance of early tube tunnels to around half what it is currently. Since they are smaller, more sturdy and less pollution prone (no steam) they need less maintenance. Also lowering the cost of their stations would help a bit.

Apparently, according to VOLVO, one is not meant to be able to build conventional stations underground. Although that would also solve this problem it would introduce others and is not even that realistic as places like Glasgow Central Low Level are conventional trains running through an underground stop.

jamespetts

Thank you very much for your analysis of this. The costs are not properly balanced at this juncture, so some of these things should be fixed on balancing. In sumary:

1. I agree that this needs to be fixed.
2. This is realistic.
3. What is meant by "actual line speed" here?
4. This should be true generally of electric vehicles, up to a point, and is balanced by the cost of electric infrastructure.
5. This is realistic.
6. The passenger capacities and locomotive power are all the same as real vehicles, so this is realistic.
7. This is realistic, although there was once a narrow gauge underground railway in London exclusively for mail: it might be worth doing this one day for the pakset.
8. VOLVO is correct here: it is a bug that normal stations can be built underground. If we want a Glasgow Central Low Level type station, we need to have appropriate graphics for an underground enabled station, which should cost much more than an above ground station. Note that the way constraints apply to *ways* not *stations*, so there is nothing to stop players building underground stations on lines with conventional trains and tunnels (as is in fact the case with the Moorgate/North City line in London)
9. This is intended to be one of the benefits of tube tunnels, but this is subsumed by higher maintenance costs at present, which is incorrect.
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DrSuperGood

QuoteWhat is meant by "actual line speed" here?
With conventional trains reach speeds above 100 km/h is easy (then capped by the tunnels max speed of 80 km/h for stone tunnels or 120 km/h for brick). Currently the only convoy type available for tube tunnels goes only at 40 km/h.

Quote8. VOLVO is correct here: it is a bug that normal stations can be built underground. If we want a Glasgow Central Low Level type station, we need to have appropriate graphics for an underground enabled station, which should cost much more than an above ground station. Note that the way constraints apply to *ways* not *stations*, so there is nothing to stop players building underground stations on lines with conventional trains and tunnels (as is in fact the case with the Moorgate/North City line in London)
Looking at the state of Glasgow Central and Glasgow Queen Street which both kind of have underground stations I doubt it costs much more to maintain (next to the fact they are both major stations so have more staff, however other underground stations on those lines exist with considerably less staff and infrastructure present).

jamespetts

Ahh, I see - you are referring to the speeds of the trains? This is based on the speed that those actual trains would have gone. They were used in short-distance urban services, so top speed would have been far less important than acceleration.

The problem apropos maintenance cost is probably more caused by the current imbalance in the ratio of capital to maintenance cost than it is in the maintenance cost itself, as small tunnels would not cost orders of magnitude less to maintain then large tunnels.
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wlindley

It might also be worth noting that goods (including fish!) were an important part of early London Underground expansion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_London_Underground#Goods_traffic from the inception of service until the 1950s.

jamespetts

The goods trains never ran on the tube lines: only the sub-surface lines, which were essentially entirely conventional tunnels in which entirely conventional trains ran. There were never any tube gauge wagons except for those needed for track maintenance.
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