Newbie scheduling problem

[thethedev]

Hi there
On my map I have a coal mine, an iron ore quarry and a steel mill in a nice neat row. The quarry and the mine both supply the steel mill.
Since they're in a line I want to just run one bulk goods train between them all. My problem is the train fills to 100% at the mine and can't pick up any iron ore so the mill never gets ore delivered.
I know I can set a minimum load at a stop, but is there a way to set a maximum load so there is still room for the iron ore?
Thanks!

[Zeno]

No, I'm afraid there isn't any max load option. Actually I'd also like to have one.
In this case your options are increasing the line capacity, either by adding vehicles or buying vehicles with more capacity.

[thethedev]

Thanks for the reply! Thats a shame it would make life alot easier. I'll just add more cars

[Combuijs]

Or wait for a longer time. Once storage capacity for coal in the steel mill is over the limit then the production of coal will stop. So in the end you will start to transport iron.

But it is more efficient to use two bulk trains, one for the coal mine, one for the iron mine. They can share a lot of track though.

[Fabio]

Or using a single vehicle/line you can route: coal-mill-iron-mill.

[Roads]

Fabio, what you suggest is what I always like to do but will likely run into the "amounts" problem.  By that I mean getting too much coal or too much ore at the factory.  Really would be good if we could limit output at the factory... 

[DirrrtyDirk]

Or use a little (dirty) trick: build the station at the coal mine shorter than the train (only cars within the station get loaded) and full length stations only at the ore mine and the steel mill. Personally, I don't really like this, because it looks quite ugly to me, but you you coud get the desired behavior from it - plus save some money in building maintenance. 

[AP]

I concur with DirrrtyDirk, the too-short platform is the way to go here. If you have a train needing 5 tiles of platform, build only 3 at the mine (assuming the locomotive is 1 tile...) and you can only get 50% load there.

[thethedev]

Or use a little (dirty) trick: build the station at the coal mine shorter than the train (only cars within the station get loaded) and full length stations only at the ore mine and the steel mill. Personally, I don't really like this, because it looks quite ugly to me, but you you coud get the desired behavior from it - plus save some money in building maintenance. 

Ah ha!! Never thought of of this, didn't know station lenghts worked that way.

Thanks!

[Ters]

For several reasons, servicing both mines with the same train won't be optimal. First of all, the train has to pull wagons from the nearest mine to the farthest, and back again, without any load. Getting the train to load as full as it can will also be difficult, leading to more wasted capacity.