Shipping resources via rail

[bloomlwold]

I'm using Sim City Cities of Tomorrow Expansion Pack.

I'm doing something that many people will think is weird in that I am developing the entire  area which amounts to four sections, four cities each for a total of 16 cities in four areas.  I am trying to ship resources by rail to a city in one four city group from a city in another group.  When the area view is up I can see that there is rail running between the two cities.  I have a trade depot in both with rail terminals.  I cannot get a gift to work between the two cities despite having a rail connection.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

LB

[BlackjackWidow]

Hi @bloomlwold - If you're playing the Discovery Delta region and trying to send anything (passengers or gifts) by rail between Huckleberry Island and Sawyer's Crossing, it will never work because of a major design flaw. Those two cities show a rail connection and are supposed to be connected, but someone on the dev team must have forgotten to connect the tracks to a bridge - the tracks just stop at the edge of the water on both sides. It's been that way since the game launched in 2013 and they never fixed it. 

If you're sending resources via rail on any of the other cities that have a railway connection, then the basic resource gifting rules apply.

• Both cities have to be in the same connected group, generally the group of 4 that shares a Great Work. It has been my experience that if you try to send a gift from a city to one that is not  connected, it should give you an error or not allow you to select that city for gifting (so that you don't lose the resources)
• Both cities need a trade port with rail terminals and a storage lot for whatever resource you're shipping. (I know you said you already have this, but I mention it in case it helps someone else reading this)
• Set the resource options in the trade port Global Management tab to either "Use Locally" or "Import"
• When you send the gift, let the sending city run long enough to see the message that the gift has been sent, and watch the resource to make sure the entire gift has shipped
• After the gift has been sent, save and load the receiving city and wait for the delivery
• One of the two cities must have at least one delivery truck garage - it doesn't have to be in the railway trade port, it can be in any trade depot.
• There is no way to force the gift to be sent via rail. 

Researching your question, I've played a few different scenarios now, trying to force the cities to use the train to deliver the resources. I can't do it - if I remove all of the trade depot/port delivery trucks from both cities, the gifting city will not send the gift. Even though I have the train freight terminal set up and everything should work, it doesn't.

The really strange thing is that I can bulldoze all of the delivery truck garages from the sending city, and just have 1 delivery truck at the receiving city, and it will still send the gift. Sometimes it will choose to send it by train, sometimes it will send it by truck, and sometimes it will send it by both. And - it doesn't seem to matter what way it sends the gift in the gifting city, when you load the receiving city, it could be delivered the same way or it might be delivered a different way. If I send 10 tons, it usually sends it by truck and receives it by truck (the trucks can only hold 10 tons each). But let's say I send 30 tons - I might see a truck leave with 10 tons and a train leave with 20 tons. Then, when I loaded the receiving city, it might deliver all 30 tons by 3 trucks. 

So, even with deliveries by rail, you'll also need to have at least 1 delivery truck somewhere in one of the two cities. It did seem to me that I could get more deliveries by train if I was running other trade depots (with lots of delivery trucks) and did NOT have any trucks at the train depot. The other delivery trucks might still be used, but more often than not it would choose the train in that scenario. It's very frustrating and highlights another major bug with the regional sharing. The connections aren't really "connected", each city initiates the transaction separately.

I hope that helps - I wish there were a way to force the cities to use the trains, but there doesn't appear to be.

[bloomlwold]

Thank you for your kind and detailed reply.

Maybe I should give a better explanation of my goal.  

For a region I chose Figaro Forest.  I have built  four cities in all four of the groups (counties) within Figaro Forest.  I have been able to gift cash amongst all the cities as long as they show as connected on the side panel.  My goal was to try to develop all the cities in Figaro Forest so that they could be interdependent in terms of resources. Giovanni Woods is manufacturing metal and alloy and has plenty of raw ore but no coal. I have been shipping coal  from Viridian Woods to Giovanni woods, but looking ahead Viridian will run out of coal so I built trade ports and railroad depots in Viridian and Yorkshire Cliffs so that Yorkshire could ship coal to Giovanni via Viridian.  Both Viridian and Yorkshire show as connected on the side panel but Yorkshire does not show connected to Giovanni, Hence the need to ship the coal through Viridian.

I am looking at other cities for oil production and later refineries for gasoline, some cities as entertainment centers, and so on.  Possibly a crazy idea but fun to give it a try.

I'll try your suggestion about keeping Yorkshire open until I see the gift acknowledged.  I tried that but possibly did not give it enough time considering the distance.  When I ship coal from Viridian to Giovanni I see the little truck icon moving from Viridian to Giovanni and the game will note the delivery so I can see how that should work with rail.  The reason I chose to use rail was there was no road connection or water connection between Yorkshire and Viridian.  I assumed that because the only possible connection seemed to rail that is what I should establish the rail connection.

BTW when I use the heavy rail creator to make the connection it only goes to the immediate beginning of the rail just outside the city.  There seems to be no way to construct the rail any further than that.  Could that be the problem?

Anyway I've rambled on enough.  Thank you gain for your kind and helpful assistance.

LB

[BlackjackWidow]

@bloomlwold - I'm sorry it took so long to get back to you, I've been testing different scenarios and had difficulties with many of the options in your scenario. Thank you for the details, and also the challenge. It really helped me to figure out what was happening, and I love trying different challenges such as yours. A couple details - I believe the region you are working in is Viridian Woods (Figaro Forest is a city within that region, as are the other cities that you mentioned). 

I was finally able to accomplish your ultimate goal - Gifting coal from Yorkshire to Giovanni. I was able to accomplish this directly via train, without having an intermediary stop.

However, both cities MUST have the following:

1. Trade Port (not trade depot) built near the railroad tracks
2. Freight Rail Terminal Module added to the Trade Port
3. Resource Storage Lot added to Trade Port

The gifting city must have the resource (coal) in the Trade Port Storage Lot. (The game ignores coal in the trade depots when shipping via rail.)

The receiving city must have enough space available in the Trade Port Storage Lot.

It absolutely takes some work to unlock the Trade Ports and then the Resource Storage Lots, but it's absolutely necessary to ship anything via rail.

Hope this helps, and thanks again for the challenge! Happy Building!

[bloomlwold]

I should have contacted you sooner and possibly saved you work you did not want, although from the gist of your note you enjoyed the challenge

I also got it done and there are some interesting things I observed and don't know if you it saw them too.  I had originally sent 40 tons of coal to Giovanni Woods and 20 tons to Traviata Knoll.  The trade port and railway connections were set up for Giovanni Woods and Yorkshire Cliffs and so once I took your advice and kept the sending city open it worked. 

Here is the funny/interesting thing and I don't know if you saw it.  When the coal was sent to Giovanni a grey arrow with arch accompanying ran from Yorkshire to Giovanni.  First a truck left the trade depot at Yorkshire and delivered  10 tons of coal to the trade port. Once that was done a train arrived from Giovanni and picked up the coal.  At that point the arrow and arc were shutdown and the coal was delivered.  Once the coal was delivered the arrow and arc reappeared and the process above was repeated.  This process repeated four times accounting for 40 tons.  Eventually the tonnage showed up in Giovanni's trade port storage yard.  I had not set a trade port and railway connection in Traviata Knoll.  I kept getting a message that the coal shipment was stalled at Traviata's border.  Once I set up a trade port and railway freight connection in Traviata the coal was delivered.

I thought it was pretty cool watching the little truck take 10 tons from the trade depot to the trade port and only then did a train depart Giovanni to transport the coal.

Next I am going to set up trade ports and seaports to move oil from city to city. We'll see how that goes.

It is becoming more interesting and fun all the time and I really appreciate your efforts to help and advise.

If the publisher were ever to update this game I think the best thing they could do is allow the shipper of say coal to collect X number of Simoleans from the receiver and same with other raw materials or manufactured goods.  Also the cities that specialize in research should be able to collect a licensing fee from cities who use their inventions and/or researched ideas.

Thanks again.

LB

[BlackjackWidow]

I got the message about the shipment being stalled at the border, too, under the same circumstances. That's what finally clued me in to the fact that both cities had to have the port resource storage. It was a very helpful message at the time. I really liked watching the train pick up and drop off the resources. When it's traveling across the region like that, it can take some time to actually arrive. I would get the message that the gift had been received as soon as the train left Yorkshire but not receive the resources until the train made it all across the region and delivered to Giovanni. A lot faster than truck deliveries even if they had a road connection, though. No traffic!

In my case, I imported coal directly to the trade port so did not experience any intercity deliveries from the trade depots. But I did find out that the train will deliver a maximum of 50 tons at a time. I gifted 100 tons from Yorkshire to Giovanni and it delivered in 2 separate deliveries. So, maybe most efficient to fill the trade port storage before gifting so that you don't have the multiple deliveries as it fills from the trade depot 10 at a time.

Thanks for sharing - good luck and have fun with your region. Happy Building!