Topic: Cost of bridges

[AP]

I think the capital cost of railway viaducts is far too low, possibly the maintenance too. The current server game in 1828 has seen a massive influx of bridges, railways on top of one another, which just appears absurd. I'm not sure if the companies concerned will survive long term, but something is off.

Problem will be slightly mitigated because owing to the absence of fast track until 1835, companies using viaducts as a primary form of track will have a 2x speed advantage over those with their feet on the ground, for 6/7 years.

[Junna]

I think the buildings should have to be demolished before having any viaduct built over them. Smaller buildings  could then grow later, under the viaduct, but only low-level structures. It looks silly and terrible when buildings protrude through odd viaducts that pass through the city centres.

It's worth saying though, that the two players who have built a lot of viaducts and track early (mayhap one of them is yours, South Empire?) have their maintenance eat up their budgets.

[AP]

I'm South Empire, but I've hardly built any bridges, only a few 1-tile ones over rivers/roads, very few of any substantial size. Have deliberately used the geography or dug cuttings (zero maintenance).  The bridges are mostly by NLT I think, spanning over entire towns.

I am suffering maintenance charges at the moment, because I'm still connecting up the disparate bits of rail network so I can start running trains. Also waiting for a decent locomotive to become available!!

[ӔO]

I think it was either fabio or lindley who suggested somewhere around 20x cost of equivalent way on land.

Which is exactly what I did with the balancing I should be working on.

Initially 20x, and then I add or subtract depending on material and intended use.
preview here: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/17111233/ways-rail-balance-v1.ods

Comments welcome!


I think I will need to change the intro date on some of the earlier bridges.

[AP]

Bridge intro date needs correlating with ways of comparable speed - although perhaps better done from the track side not the bridge side?

[ӔO]

Yeah, they correlate.

I have divvied it into 4 eras for rail.

beginning to 1835. Early days
Limited selection. Everything is cheapish, light and slow. Slow, but still faster than other ways after 1828.

1835 to 1885. Expansion
This is where engineering really kicks off and you get a plentiful selection of bridges. Not that many tracks, since everything is still light, but as an added bonus, some short months of cheap, subsidized rail. Caution should be taken to not over expand the network, because maintenance is still the same.

1885 to 1950. Heavy weights
Faster and heavier trains call for some heavy gauge track and bridges to match. May be hazardous to wallet if you don't pay attention to what you are buying for your needs.

1950 onward. End game
Mostly, the only change is cost and speed when compared to heavy weight era. Still, it should be possible to start up new companies with rail. Concrete and Steel become the staple food, however wood still looks favourable in some situations.

[jamespetts]

AEO,

thank you for your work on this so far! We need to integrate this into a reworking of the tracks, too, based on some historical research that I half did a while ago and need to finish when I get the chance. The idea is to have more precisely descriptive names for the railway tracks (such as "Wrought iron track (70lb/yrd)" instead of "Wrought iron track (improved)") based on actual historical values to get a more accurate progression of track through history, as well as making sure that each type of track has a distinct graphic including icon (even if it is distinguished only by being made slightly darker/lighter in the Gimp). The set of bridges will need to integrate into this new set of tracks.

Another important trend to bear in mind is that the tendancy to higher capital cost and lower maintenance cost in later years compared to the earlier years, and also the same trend within different technologies at the same time (e.g., wooden bridges should cost less to buy but more to maintain than brick bridges, with steel somewhere in the middle, etc.). This latter dynamic I recall being implemented even in the original Railroad Tycoon.