A snippet of relative pricing information

[jamespetts]

I have managed to dig up - partly by chance - a fascinating and extremely useful guide to the relative purchase prices of carriages and steam locomotives in the 1920s and 1930s. This is far from the comprehensive breakdown of relative pricing information that would be invaluable to game balancing, but it is a good start. If it can be linked, bit by bit, with other pricing information, it might well form the basis of some sort of outline for balancing purposes.

The source is "The history of British railway carriages 1900 - 1953" by David Jenkinson, ISBN 1-899816-03-8 at pp. 303-4. In summary, it gives the cost to build a Southern Railway eight compartment third in 1924/5 as being around £2,500, and the cost of an LNER five compartment brake third in 1929-30 as being about £2,300. By comparison, it gives the as new cost of a medium to large sized locomotive, the LMS "black" 5MT as being about £6,000.

Interestingly, it estimates the cost of the LMS "Cornoation Scot" vehicles, the top-flight passenger express train of the late 1930s, were £2,000 - £2,500 - no more than that of ordinary carriages of the era, although the author suggests that this might be due in part to more efficient manufacturing methods adopted at around that time.

It goes on to suggest that a non-corridor vehicle from the early 20th century (pre-first world war) cost about £1,000 at the time, although some caution is needed in respect of that figure, as there was significant inflation during the war. Official records of inflation since 1750 are, however, readily available: see the Office for National Statistics web page here (this is UK-based information).

In 1900, the composite price index is given as 9.2. In 1924, it is given as 18.6. This would suggests a rough doubling of prices in that period; thus, one would expect a non-corridor carriage to cost around £2,000 in 1924; in other words 80% of the price of a corridor type. The book is not clear whether the non-corridor type is a bogie vehicle, or a 4- or 6-wheeler; given the relatively small difference in price, I should estimate a bogie vehicle, and venture to guess that the price of the latter types were lower still.

Sleeping cars (not yet present in Pak128.Britain, but a possible future addition for very high comfort (near 200), very low capacity, very high loading time vehicles for use on very, very long non-stop journeys where the lower comfort rating of ordinary vehicles would impact on revenue) cost considerably more than the rest: the average before the first world war was about £3,000 and after it about £4,000.

This suggests that one can begin the exercise of price balancing with the premise that a mid-sized locomotive should cost about 2.4 times more than a corridor carriage, and that a corridor carriage should cost 1.25 times more than a (bogie) non-corridor carriage, on average; further, that sleeping cars should cost 1.6 times more than ordinary carriages.

A further interesting piece of information is given on a more contemporary vehicle, the BR Mk. III carriage, introduced in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Then, the price of a single one of these vehicles was £100,000 or so in "the early 1980s". The ONS composite price index for 1982 is 320.4. Normalising this with the 18.6 figure given for the 1924 Southern Railway vehicle gives an equivalent 1924 price of £5,805.24: an increase of a factor of 2.32 even after account is taken of (general) inflation. Either railway carriages had become more than twice as expensive to build in real terms by the early 1980s than they had been in the 1920s/1930s or variable inflation (in other words, markedly different rates of inflation in different commodities such that the inflation of anything in particular is not accurately reflected by generalised inflation statistics) is at work. Nonetheless, it may be reasonable to suppose that the general inflation rates are reasonably matched in fares, even if not carriage-building costs, so it may not be entirely unreasonable to apply the real time increase of 2.32 to construction costs generally, and extrapolate further from there.

Of course, none of this gives any idea as to the relative maintenance costs of carriages as compared to locomotives (or, for that matter, multiple units), nor does it give any idea as to the relative capital or maintenance cost of different sorts of locomotives as compared to each other, nor the relationship between variable (per unit of distance) and fixed (per unit of time) maintenance costs. Any sources of such information would be much appreciated. In the meantime, however, some  use can be made of the data that we do have.

In Pak128.Britain-Ex, a Maunsell type carriage, similar to that for which a price is quoted in the above book as about £2,500, costs 1,582c with the default four tiles per kilometre setting. The LMS Black 5 costs 11,495c. This means that, in Pak128.Britain-Ex, the locomotive is 7.3 times more expensive than the carriage, which suggests either that the carriage is too cheap, or that the locomotive is too expensive, or some combination of the two (although I rather suspect the former).

Similarly, a BR Mk. III vehicle costs 1,475c, slightly less, rather than 2.32 times more than the 1920s vehicle. This, too, looks as though it will need considerable adjustment.

I suggest that any further titbits of information that people are able to discover about real life prices of transport related costs be added to this thread so that, by cross-referencing and extrapolation, a complete picture can by small pieces eventually be formed and Pak128.Britaiin-Ex be balanced in a realistic and pleasing way. All contributions very welcome!

[jamespetts]

I have found a new and probably better way to account for inflation of old: this rather intriguing website.

Having seen, in this photograph of a carriage interior built in 1911 and recently restored by the Bluebell Railway that it cost £787, 15s, 2d I wondered about the discrepancy with the £2,500 cost given for corridor carriages in 1924 and £1,000 cost given for non-corridor carriages in the 1900s. The result for the LSWR carriage comes out at about £1,500 in 1924 (although there are different measures, which is most interesting; they fluctuate between about £1,400 and £1,600). Changing the start year to 1904 (the year that the first carriage of that type was built) increases the range (depending on the measure) from about £1,500 to about £1,800.

Re-running the longer time period calculation is more interesting. £2,500 in 1924 inflates to anything between £40,200 (RPI) and £161,000 on the basis of the share of the GDP. The measure that is closest to the actual cost of the Mk. III vehicle in the "early 1980s" is the average earnings value of £118,000. This, however, assumes that the vehicle would not have cost more to construct even if there had been no inflation between 1924 and 1982, which may well be a false assumption, so the rate cannot be relied on for this purpose.

Running the calculations backwards, £2,500 in 1924 equates to between £1,400 (RPI) and £1,190 (average earnings) in 1911; £100,000 in 1982 equates to anything from £1,550 (share of the GDP) to £6,220 (using the RPI) in 1924.

£1,000 in 1900 equates to between £1,900 (RPI) and £2,320 (share of the GDP) in 1924.

For a final comparison, the "black 5" locomotive as £6,000 in 1932 gives a current price of anything from £309,000 (RPI) to £1,980,000 (share of the GDP)!

[waerth]

Great!

[jamespetts]

I am currently considering seeing whether I can arrange to access some archive material in the NRM library in York to get better historical comparison data, and making a trip there if I can. It might be the best way to get this information.

[ӔO]

that's some great work you are doing there on this daunting task.

[jamespetts]

I have stumbled upon a balancing goldmine: have a look at this site for some intriguing information!

[The Hood]

Some fascinating stuff there.  To give you some insight on how standard pak128.Britain's prices were balanced, larger express locos have generally high costs to deter their use on short convoys (and to avoid excessive profits on long ones!) - carriages are generally cheap so as to work in long or short configurations depending on the loco.  I'm not sure what the game effect of making a coronation cost the same as a black 5 would be - certainly in standard it would make the black 5 redundant!  How do you plan on reconciling these?

[jamespetts]

I'm not sure that anybody's suggesting that a Princess Cornoation cost no more than a Black 5 - I imagine that it cost a good bit more (although I've yet to find out how much more, which is why I'm hoping that a trip to the NRM archives at some point will help).

The balancing exercise that I am planning to undertake is for Experimental, as Experimental's balancing requirements are rather different to Standard's. At present, for Experimental at least, the capital cost of things seems too low compared with overall revenues generated, although I have yet properly to balance that end of things, too.

The view that I take is that, in so far as possible, the same deterrents should apply in the game as applies in reality to using a large express locomotive on a short local train: there is little advantage of doing so when it will not get much of a chance to reach top speeds given the short distance between stops, the extra power is of no benefit on the shorter trains, it costs more to build, it costs more to run, and it is heavier, requiring track and bridges that, in turn, cost more to build and maintain. It is usually also longer, taking up more platform length, possibly requiring longer platforms.

I shall know that I have got at least close in the balancing exercise when players are having to think hard about the costs before making any significant capital investments.

[ӔO]

hopefully these two pages will be useful.

they talk about journey time and investments to improve the average speed.

http://www.mysociety.org/2006/travel-time-maps/
http://www.o-keating.com/hsr/investment.htm Mod note: Link dead, but see the Wayback Machine for original content.

[jamespetts]

Thank you - that's very interesting.

[jamespetts]

I have split the discussion on balancing more generally, the posts from which can now be seen here.

Meanwhile, another snippet or two of historical pricing information, this time from the London Transport Museum: the Thames Tunnel in London, which is about 0.4km long, cost about £651,000 to build in 1825, although the project was a somewhat difficult one involving a number of collapses, and ran out of money on several occasions before enough was raised to complete it. Several decades later, it was bought by a railway company for only £200,000, and has been used for rail transport ever since.

Somewhat more vaguely, but also of interest, apparently the horses themselves were the most expensive part of a horse-drawn transportation system (the implication from the context was that this related mainly to maintenance rather than capital costs, although it might have meant both).

Edit: A useful extract from E. L. Ahrons, "The British Railway Steam Locomotive from 1825 to 1925", page 65,

The Stockton and Darlington was a slow-speed coal-carrying railway. Pambour stated that the fuel consumed by the mineral engines was about 54lb per mile, or .86lb per tone gross per mile. He also gave a table showing that during five months, at the end of 1833, 23 mineral engines of all types performed work equivalent to 5,802,562 gross ton-miles on a level at a cost of 0.58 penny per tone-mile for repairs

.

[moblet]

Somewhat more vaguely, but also of interest, apparently the horses themselves were the most expensive part of a horse-drawn transportation system

Nicely consistent with the trains and trucks that followed.

Wikipedia's entry on the diesel loco contains an unreferenced claim that steam loco maintenance was 25%pa of purchase price.

[ӔO]

there is also some mention of cost here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locomotive#Steam

British Rail figures showed the cost of crewing and fuelling a steam locomotive was some two and a half times that of diesel power, and the daily mileage achievable was far lower. As labour costs rose, particularly after the second world war, non-steam technologies became much more cost-efficient.

[jamespetts]

Another small yet potentially important nugget from "150 years of British Railways" (ISBN 0600376559):

An indication of the great improvement in engine design can be gained from the fact that between 1900 and 1939 the steam locomotive had doubled its maximum horsepower with only a 30 per cent increase in weight. It had also reduced its coal consumption per unit of work measured at the drawbar by about 40 per cent.

[jamespetts]

An interesting piece of information on the cost of new DMUs (the class 120) in the late 1950s can be found on Wikipedia:

British Railways placed the order with British United Traction in summer 1956 for the equipment required for the 98 power cars and 47 trailers of the first batch. The order, along with equipment ordered by Cravens for 66 power cars and the 3 parcels cars, was valued at £830,000. The first batch was ordered for the WR's West Country dieselisation scheme, which it hoped to complete by the end of 1959. The sets were expected to work between Bristol & South Devon. Their general reliability and good braking characteristics made them popular with drivers.

[jamespetts]

I have just returned from a holiday to York, where I visited the National Railway Museum, including its libraries and archives, and was able to unearth quite a goldmine of information. The archives themselves were not quite as helpful as I had hoped (although staff suggested that I try the National Archive in Kew for railway company accounts that might well give much more detailed information), but books in the library and, occasionally, information boards next to actual exhibits provided some invaluable information.

The archives did, however, provide some very detailed information as to the price of various items of passenger coaching stock and freight wagons in the 1920s and 1930s, which I shall address in a future post. The information presented below is currently in no particular order: I shall consolidate it in due course.

In a book on railway economics (alas, I did not take identifying details), an interesting statistic on the relative maintenance cost of railways and canals at 1938 prices: £184/mile for canals, but £1,130 per mile for railways. Unfortunately, it is not clear whether this means route miles or track miles. That book also suggested that canals have virtually no variable maintenance cost: i.e., the cost to maintain them does not appreciably vary depending upon their traffic. This will be relevant when variable way maintenance costs are introduced.

Another book, this time on railway economics in particular, and again from the 1923-1948 era, gave rates of net income on railway companies' capital. The Southern it gave as 3.78%, the Great Western, 3.07%, the LMS as 2.63% and the LNER as 2.00%. At the same period, the returns of ten other randomly selected public limited companies were selected, and the returns on them found to be, on average, 14.55%, showing that railways are very slow to turn over their capital.

Manuscript archive material showing a price comparison between the construction cost of a steam locomotive identified only as an "E-Class" between 1910 and 1913 showed that the total cost of construction in 1910 was £1,411-9-3, whereas in 1913, it had risen to £1,605-0-1, an increase of 13.7%. Unfortunately, I omitted to record what sort of E-class locomotive that this was, but I suspect that it was the South-Eastern and Chatham 4-4-0 locomotive of that designation.

According to "Mallard" by Don Hale, the eponymous A4 class 4-6-2 passenger express locomotive cost around £8,500 to build in 1936.

The London and South-Western Railway M7 0-4-4T class cost £1,846 to build new in 1897, according to the notice next to the exhibit of locomotive no. 245 of that class in the museum.

According to a book (the details of which I omitted to record) specifically relating to the L&SWR T9 class of 4-4-0 tender engine, these cost about £3,200 new in 1899.

The LMS 2500 class, a large suburban passenger 2-6-4T locomotive of 4p designation, cost £6,444 to build in 1934 according to its sign-board in the museum. Wikipedia states that later types of this locomotive built from 1935 onwards had only two cylinders and were therefore simpler, implying that they also would have been cheaper,

"Evening Star", a BR 9F 2-8-0, the steam locomotive ever built for British Railways, cost £35,500 to build new in 1960 according to the notice-board in the museum. It was designed to haul freight wagons at 35mph, although was recorded as having achieved speeds of up to 90mph on passenger trains!

Turning to diesels, the museum's example of a BR Class 31 (originally built as a class 30) states that it cost £78,000 to build in 1957.

According to a book about the BR "Warship" class of diesel locomotive (the details of which publication I omitted to record), the cost of one of these early type-4 diesel hydraulic locomotives when built in 1957 was £87,500.

According to "British Railways: A business history 1948-1973", the Deltic diesel locomotives (type 5) cost about £150,000 new at 1959 prices, whilst the average price of diesel locomotives around that time (excluding the Deltics) was £100,000 each (suggesting that type 4 locomotives other than the Warships cost more than £100,000).

The 1955 modernisation report stated that 1,100 electric locomotives (which one presumes are of A. C. type, as the report recommended that all future electrification schemes be of this standard, except the expansion of the Southern Region) would cost between them £60,000,000, working out at an average cost per locomotive of just under £55,000. It also gave the general statistic that new diesel locomotives cost around 2.5x as much as steam locomotives of equivalent power, and stated that 40 years was the normal life-span of a steam locomotive.

Turning to multiple units, the 11th of June 1981 edition of the New Scientist gave the cost of a two-car BR Class 140 DMU (the forerunner to the Class 142 units to be found in Pak128.Britain) as £400,000, whereas the Class 210 DEMU (which were never built in quantity because of their cost) cost £1,000,000 for a three-car set.

A somewhat questionable figure in relation to HST power cars: a pre-production estimate of costings in 1969 gave a single locomotive with the necessary power the likely cost of £239,000. In fact, as we know, the HSTs were introduced in 1976 and had two power cars each with less powerful engines to make the combined necessary power; this was a more expensive arrangement than a single large locomotive, but produced faster turnaround times and made for lighter vehicles (and thus ones that could travel on a wider variety of lines). It estimated the maintenance then at about 8-9p/mile, although the book later suggests that this was a considerable overstatement, as that equated to over £600,000 per annum in 1969 prices, whereas the entire trainsets (locomotive and 7-9 carriages) only cost £500,000 per annum to maintain in about 1983 (annual mileage is not given).

Before turning away from vehicles, one interesting and unexpected piece of costing information from York Castle Museum: a new horse-drawn hearse in 1908 cost £40 5s 9d. Although, obviously, there are no hearses in Pak128.Britain, one can imagine that the cost of a single specialist horse-drawn vehicle like a hearse would be quite similar to the cost of, for example, the hackney carriage; thus, a comparison can be made between rail and horse-drawn vehicles of the age.

A final section on costs of electrification: A. C. overhead electrification is less expensive both to install and maintain (taking into account power consumption) than D. C. overhead electrification, although by how much is not clear. The 1955 modernisation report gives the cost of electrifying 390 route (not track) miles with overhead A. C. catenary as £40,000,000, and 250 route miles of 3rd rail D. C. electrification as £25,000,000.

Meanwhile, a book specifically on Southern electrics gives the cost (at 1925 prices) of electrifying 67 track miles with 3rd rail D. C. as £833,000, and a small section of 6.2 route miles in 1928 as £51,700, although the latter figure is of dubious relevance, as that particular electrification scheme did not involve the construction of any new substations.

Edit: Some information not from the museum itself, but about a railway vehicle exhibited in the museum: Hamilton Ellis's "Railway carriages in the British Isles from 1830 to 1914" gives (at p. 31) the price of a thee-compartment four wheel composite of the Stockton and Darlington Railway a cost of £230 when built in 1846.

[jamespetts]

Some more information from York; the cost per vehicle of building various carriages of the North-Eastern Railway (which records seem to have continued when the North Eastern was absorbed into the LNER):

Dining cars
(Selected vehicles - as described in the records)

Note: the numbers appear to describe compartments of that class: e.g. "3.3.3" would be a series of 3 third class compartments, and it appears as if "3.3.3 (open)" would be a series of three third class seating bays in an open/saloon arrangement. I am guessing that where "g" appears, it stands for "guard". "Lav," and "T." appear to stand for "lavatory" and "toilet" respectively. I suspect that "Att." might be "Attendant", but I am not sure. The "???" appears where the manuscript is illegible.

3.3.3.Pantry Kitchen Pantry 1.1.lav, 12-wheels, 64' 2 1/2" long, dia. no. 214, built 1905, total cost £2,979-15-8
Kitchen Pantry Passage | 1.1.1 (open) | 1.1 (open) | vest, 12 wheels, 65' 6" long, dia. no. 259, built 1906, total cost £2,500-12-8
Lav|3.3.3.3 (open) | 3.3.3 (open S.) | Passage Pantry, 12 wheels, 65' 6" long, dia. no. 260, built 1906, total cost £2,179-17-2
1.1.1 (open) Pantry Kitchen ??? | g |, 8 wheels, 52' 6" long, dia. no. 1266, built 1909, total cost £2,304-4-5
1.1.1 (open) | Pantry | Kitchen | Pantry | A | T, 8 wheels, 61' 6" long, dia no. 4773 N, built 1925, total cost £4,646-4-0
3 3 | 3 3 | Pantry | Kitchen | Att. | T, 8 wheels, 61' 6" long, dia no. 30A, built 1925, total cost £4,330-9-9
T | 3.3.3.3 | 3.3.(1/2 3) | Pantry, 8 wheels, 61' 6" long, dia no. 28A, built 1925, total cost £3,668-15-1
1 1 1 (open) | Pantry | Kitchen | Pantry | Att. | T., 8 wheels, 61' 6" long, dia. no. 78L, built 1928, total cost £5,279-3-11
T | 3 3 3 3 (open)  | 3 3 (1/2 3) | Pantry, 8 wheels, 61' 6" long, dia no. 28B, built 1929, total cost £3,191-2-8
Saloon (unclassed) | Saloon (unclassed) | Pantry | Kitchen | T., 8 wheels, 61' 6" long, dia. no. 78M, built 1929, total cost £5,473-3-9
1 1 (Sal.) | 1 1 1 (Sal.) | Pantry | Kitchen | T., 8 wheels, 61' 6" long, dia no. omitted, built 1931, total cost £5,223-5-2

Other types of vehicles to follow.

[jamespetts]

Brake thirds
Selected vehicles - as  described in the records)

(The notes above as to the notation apply also here). "Vest." means that the vehicle is of the vestibule type, and "Non-vest." means that it has no vestibule (and I suspect also no gangway or corridor). All of the dining cars above were marked "Vest.", so I did not record that designation individually. "Bk" refers to the brake compartment.

Lav. 3.3.3.3.3 (Corridor) Bk, Vest., 8 wheels, 58' 6" long, dia. no. 251/1, built 1906, total cost £1,459-10-0
Lav. 3.3.3. (Corridor) | 3.3 (open) | Bk, Vest., 8 wheels, 58' 6" long, dia no. 308, built 1906, total cost £1,389-8-4
Bk. 3.3. (Corridor) Lav., Vest., 8 wheels, 58' 6" long, dia. no. 466, built 1907, total cost £1,290-0-2
Lav. 3.3.3.3.3 (Corridor) Bk, Vest., 8 wheels, 58' 6" long, dia. no. 823, built 1907, total cost £1,397-12-9
3.3.3 (Open) | Lav. / Lav. | 3.3.3 (Open) Bk., Non-vest, 8 wheels, 58' 1" long, dia. no. 479, built 1907, total cost £1,281-19-3
Lav. 3.3.3. (Open) | 3.3. (Open) | Brake, Vest., 52' 6" long, dia. no. 823, built 1909, total cost £1,373-16-6
3.3.3 (Open) | toilet | 3.3.3. (Corridor) Brake, Vest., 8 wheels, 61' 6" long, dia. no. 1053, built 1910, total cost £1,515-14-11
3 3 3 (Open S) | T. \ T. | 3 3 3 (Open) | Brake, Non-vest., 8 wheels, 58' 1/2" long, dia no. 479, built 1910, total cost £1,192-1-5
Bk 3 3 3 3 3 3 | 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 | (Twin suburban), Non-vest, 3-pairs 4 wheel bogies*, 77' 2 1/2" long, dia. no. 1167, built 1911, total cost £1,528-7-1
T. | 3.3.3. (Open) | 3.3. (Open) | Brake, Vest., 8 wheels, 52' 6" long, dia. no. 823, built 1912, total cost £1,259-15-11
Bk. 3.3.3.3.3 | 3.3.3.3.3.3.3 | 3.3.3.3.3.3.3 | 3.3.3.3.3.3.3 (Quad suburban), Non-vest, 5. 4 wheel bogies*, 166' 2 1/2" long, dia. 467B, built 1923, total cost £6,203-18-7
Toilet 3.3.3. Brake, Vest., 2 4wh. bogies, 61' 6" long, dia. no. 12112D, built 1925, total cost £2,640-3-7
T. 3.3.3.3. Brake, Vest., 8 wheels, Dia. no. Std. 114, built 1934, total cost £2,135-16-2

* It would appear that these are articulated sets.

[jamespetts]

Composites
(Selected vehicles - as  described in the records)

(The notes above as to the notation apply also here).

Lav. | 1.1.1 (Corridor) | (1/2 3).3.3 (Open) | 3.3 (Corridor), Vest., 8 wheels, 58' 6" long, dia. no. 305, built 1906, total cost £1,723-18-8
3.3. (Open) | Lav. / Lav. | 1 | 1. | Lav. / Lav. | 1 | 3. | Lav. / Lav. | 3, Non-vest., 8 wheels, 58' 1 1/2" long, dia no. 480, built 1907, total cost £1,592-9-2
3. | Lav / Lav. | 3. | 1 | Lav. / Lav. | 1. | 3 Lav. / Lav.  | 3.3. (Open), Non-vest, 8 wheels, 58' 1 1/2" long, dia no. 674, built 1908, total cost £1,556-3-0
Lav. | 1.1. (Corr.) | 3.3. (Open) | 3.3.(1/2 3) (Open) | Lav. **, Vest., 8 wheels, 52' 6" long, dia. no. 824, built 1909, total cost £1,594-14-1
Toilet 3.3. (Corr.) | 3.3.(1/2 3) (Open) 1.1.1. (Corridor) | Toilet, Vest., 8 wheels, 58' 6" long, dia no. 970, built 1910, total cost £1,621-0-5
T. | 3 3 3 3 3 3 (Corridor) | (1/2 1)-1-1. | T., Vest., 8 wheels, 58' 6" long, dia. no. 1047, built 1911, total cost £1,600-16-6
3.3.3 | 1.1.1.1 || 1.1.1.1.2.2, Non-vest, 3 pairs 4 wheel bogies*, 88' 0" long, dia. no. 1118, built 1911, total cost £1,794-19-4
Toilet 3.3.3.3.(1/2 1) 1.1.1. Toilet (Corridor), Vest., 2 4-wheel bogies, 61'6" long, dia. no. 164K, built 1922, total cost £4,521-13-1
3.3.3.3.3.3.3.3 || 1.1.1.1.1.1.1, Non-vest., 2 light type and 1 heavy type bogies*, 103' 4" long, dia no. 164T, built 1929, total cost £4,048-13-5
T. 1.1.(1/2 1). 3.3.3.3.3. T., Vest., 8'6 light type bogies, 61'6" long, dia no. 3, built 1930, total cost £2,732-16-0

**  I suspect that these vehicles might be non-gangwayed corridor vehicles (i.e., those with an internal corridor but no connexion to other vehicles)

[jamespetts]

A brief break from railways to some 'bus related research: this political website gives the cost of 500 of the new Routemasters as being £100,000,000: that is £200,000 apiece. According to this article, they should cost 40% less (in fuel) to run than an ordinary double-decker, although note that they will be double-crewed, so their per month cost would be much higher even if the per kilometre cost is lower (suggesting that they would only be economical at higher utilisations than more conventional 'buses).

Meanwhile, according to this reference to an article in the Oxford Mail, a more conventional body type of 78-seater double-decker 'bus, but with hybrid propulsion technology, cost around £300,000 each (although note the lower numbers purchased).

[jamespetts]

The next set of data from York in respect of carriages is the somewhat generically titled, "Cost of carriage stock constructed by G. E. Section". Less information is given about these carriages than the North Eastern records  (and the date is not clear, save that it appears to be somewhere in the 1923-1929 bracket), but I shall reproduce what is available:

Third brakes, bogie, non-vest; 5 compartments; total cost £1,616-16-4
Third brakes, bogie, non-vest; 6 compartments; total cost £1,667-1-7
Compo brakes, bogie, non-vest, 2 first, 3 third compartments, total cost £1,784-19-4
??? (query Covd.) carriage trucks*** 45' 0" 1925/6 cge. building programme, total cost £902-7-7
Bogie brake vans, non-vest, total cost £1,249-19-3

***This appears to be just either the bogies or bogies plus underframe - at any rate, not including the body.

[jamespetts]

Wagons built at Shildon in 1906

Weights given are carrying capacity, not gross weight. Carrying capacity here is 61-71% of total weight

Mineral wagon, 12t; total cost £89-8-3
Mineral wagon, 15t; total cost £105-11-11
Mineral wagon, 15t; total cost £125-19-11
Mineral wagon, 20t; total cost £129-9-11
Mineral wagon, 20t; total cost £128-18-11
Mineral wagon, 23t; total cost £146-10-5
Mineral wagon, 23t; total cost £173-0-4

Coal wagon, 10t; total cost £81-0-1
Coal wagon, 20t; total cost £137-13-8
Coal wagon, 23t; total cost £150-12-1

Unspecified mineral wagon type, 30t; total cost £246-19-6

[jamespetts]

And now for some information about steamships' purchase costs, since these do not appear currently to be well balanced n the game.

* "The Fronteac", a steamship built in Canada in 1816 cost £20,000: see here.
* "The SS Great Eastern" of 1858 cost £377,200, of which £275,200 was for the hull and the remainder for the engines; the hull price should give some guide as to the cost of an equivalent sailing ship. Source.
* "The SS Great Britain" of 1843 cost £117,000. Source.
* "Pennsylvania Class" steamship of 1874: $520,000 (source).

As to profit/costs:

* The SS Great Western produced a revenue of £33,400 against operating costs of £25,600 in 1843 (source). This ship was similar to the SS Great Britain (above).

[jamespetts]

No figures, per se, but an indication of relative pricing to a small extent: this web page suggests that the SDR 1001 class should cost less to maintain (and quite possibly to purchase) than other similar locomotives of its time, yet it is more costly than the LNWR DX Goods - it will probably need re-pricing accordingly (and its power and tractive effort possibly also adjusting downwards: looking at the web-page, this looks as though it ought be positioned as an economical locomotive of relatively poor performance). The weight is also wrong.

[ӔO]

I've recently come to know a place called the "National Maritime Museum" in London, which is nearby Greenwich park. They should have some good info on ships.

[jamespetts]

Another new source, this time giving the cost of some (for the day) large steam locomotives of the Midland Railway in the 1870s intended for hauling goods: see this page under the heading, "0-6-0: Johnson designs". The prices are shown as follows:

Makers             Locomotive   Nos             Year built    Cost each
Kitson             1142-61, 381-5, 400-404    1875-6    £2,920
Dubs              1162-91                            1875            £2,735
Beyer Peacock     1192-1221                    1876     £2,650
Neilson             1222-51                            1876            £2,635

Edit: The page also mentions the cost of the 1347 class of 1878 as being £2,274.
Edit 2: It further mentions that the 1377 class 0-6-0T of the same year as costing £1,691.

[ӔO]

interesting tidbit from the japanese wiki for A1/A3:
I sort of ran across it by accident while reading up on smoke deflectors.

cost of one locomotive out of initial batch of ten.
GWR castle class: ￡6,840
LNER A1 : ￡8,560

http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=ja&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fja.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FLNER%25E3%2582%25AF%25E3%2583%25A9%25E3%2582%25B9A1%2FA3%25E8%2592%25B8%25E6%25B0%2597%25E6%25A9%259F%25E9%2596%25A2%25E8%25BB%258A

[jamespetts]

Thank you - that's very helpful!

[jamespetts]

A recent trip to the London Transport Museum has revealed some interesting pricing information on 1900s paddle steamers: the "King Alfred Paddle Steamer", a Thames riverboat introduced in 1905, carried 500 passengers and cost about £6,000 new.

This suggests that the costs of river boats are vastly less than the cost of the ocean-going vessels to which I referred in an earlier post on this thread.

Edit: Web source here.

[jamespetts]

Muser made the following post in the Simutrans Discussion forum recently, which I thought worthwhile copying here:

I generally play pak128.Britain, but I think this information would apply to any pak set, and may be useful to someone pursuing game balance.

Here is a table summarizing the running costs between steam and electric here in the US in the early part of the last century. I expect it would generally apply to any region at that time. It is taken from the General Electric Review volume 25 of February, 1922:

http://hoist.hrtc.net/~arabento/pubfiles/steam_vs_electric_costs.jpg

The entire original article can be seen here:

http://books.google.com/books?id=lPHNAAAAMAAJ&dq=general%20electric%20review201922&pg=PA88#v=onepage&q=general%20electric%20review%201922&f=false

Basically, it describes a reduction in running costs from about 0.50 per mile for steam to about 0.10 per mile for electric. Of course that doesn't include the huge investment in constructing the electric infrastructure, but if I'm reading the article correctly the railroads could expect to see an annual reduction in overall operating costs equivalent to 14% of the cost of the upgrade to electric.

Although the article doesn't speak to it, I believe I read somewhere, years ago, that the initial purchase cost of the electric loco was about 30% to 50% more expensive than its equivalent steam counterpart. I'll see if I can find a reference to that and post it here.

[jamespetts]

Some more information on the cost of early carriages and wagons on the LBSCR, from this source (see the link to the .pdf file for the chronological carriage data), which, despite its indication, is publicly available and indexed by Google.

The cost of a first class LBSCR carriage in 1844 was recorded as being £319/10, and the cost of a second class carriage £231/10. Some LBSCR horse boxes of the period (which were built to carriage, rather than wagon standards) cost £129/10, and third class carriages (which one presumes in the era were not fully enclosed) cost £160 each.

In 1845, LBSCR parcel vans seem to have cost £175-200/each, coal wagons £55-70/each, goods vans about £93-99/each and cattle trucks £115/each. Further first class carriages were obtained that year for £315-335/each, second class carriages for £250-265/each and open third class for £148-£165/each.

Similar amounts were paid for similar vehicles in the years immediately following, and the details I have not reproduced here.

Of some interest, in 1850, a second class carriage was acquired secondhand for the sum of £90. This might be of relevance when implementing the secondhand purchases feature in Experimental.

In 1851, ten brake vans were purchased at £112/each.

In 1851, a new carriage shed at Brighton was built at a total cost of £790. A further unspecified sort of shed was built in 1861, at a cost of £6,271. In 1868, a figure of £20,000 was given for the cost of a "shed to cover five hundred vehicles". These figures are of some interest when considering the cost of depots.

In 1859, what were called a "superior description" of second class carriages were built at £197/each, as well as some coke trucks at £85/each.

Further first class carriages of £350/each were built in 1861. In 1862, a resolution was passed limiting trains to 13 carriages per locomotive.

In 1866, further first class carriages were built for between £283 and £315 each; open goods wagons at £94/15 each, covered goods wagons at £112/15 each, second class carriages for £277/10 each, third class carriages at £269 each and brake thirds at £295 each.

[jamespetts]

From the thread on Giuseppe's lovely new Ford Trimotor (see here), the cost of one of those early aircraft was reported to be $42,000US in 1933.

(I am reposting this here so as to have all pricing information in this thread).

[jamespetts]

WLindley has found some excellent information on bridges in this forum post, which I reproduce here for comprehensiveness:

I found a reference of page 53 of the Google scan of the 1832 American Rail-Road Journal for construction costs on the Fifth Division Baltimore & Ohio Railway.

This division had 11 miles of grade, and "three bridges of one arch each, and of the following chords, to wit, 30, 20, and 10 feet respectively; and one viaduct of the Rail-road for the Georgetown and Frederick turnpike road, of stone abutments and superstructure of wood of 24 foot span. This viaduct is elevated [16 feet 1.2 inches] above the gradated surface of the Rail-road."

The 11 miles of gradation cost $66,614 (about $6,000 per mile) while the masonry for division altogether cost $12,068 (for 84 feet (!) in four bridges plus an unspecified number of smaller culverts).

Altogether my feeling is that this example suggests a Simutrans tile of masonry bridge should cost about 20 times a standard tile.

This document for Washington State's Sound Transit lists a cost of $10,140 per foot for a long post-and-beam bridge, while this document from the State of Michigan lists an installed cost for railroad sidings (spurs) to be about $170 per foot (for 115-pound rail with 9-foot concrete roadbed)... the bridge costing sixty times a simple siding. However a siding costs less than a main-line track... again, 20 times seems about the right answer.

p.s., That 1832 article has a variety of figures quoted for European railways as well, unfortunately the scan process has obscured too many of them.

[jamespetts]

Some information as to profitability of early railways from this source:

...the Liverpool and Manchester Railway was an immediate success. In 1831 the railway carried 445,047 passengers. Receipts were £155,702, with profits of £71,098. By 1844, receipts had increased to £258,892, with profits of £136,688. During this period, shareholders were regularly paid out an annual dividend of £10 for every £100 invested.

[ӔO]

This 6 page pdf gives an insight into the costs of constructing tunnels. http://www.ita-aites.org/fileadmin/filemounts/general/pdf/ItaAssociation/ProductAndPublication/ConfPapersExCo/71.PDF