Solution to Cargo Train Terminal Insanity

[normal idol]

I have a huge lumber industry, and I thought having a cargo train terminal would be really beneficial for my city. The problem is the amount of trucks and supply vehicles that originate from the station is absolute madness. I have no good way to get them from the cargo terminal to all the businesses, which leads to major backups on the highways. I have a highway that runs through the city, but I'm not sure the best way to link it.

Any advice on how to deal with the exits and let the trucks disperse evenly?

[drowsy bobcat]

modded or no mods?

first thing I'd do is setup a bunch of commercial goods warehouses on the cargo terminal side of things. Hopefully that will keep those big trucks off the highways. Then work on your roadway network so there is better connectivity. Think of big cities. If everything has to hit the highway to move around, you're in trouble.

[honest fjord]

The big question is how many cargo terminals you have built. It sounds like this is the only one you have currently.

The best solution would be to build a second cargo terminal within your generic industrial area. A second option would be to connect the lumber terminal with one-way (outbound) tracks so that inbound freight traffic doesn't use this particular station.

I do something quite similar with most of my cities - using outbound-only freight terminals in my Industries areas.

[normal idol]

When you say ‘commercial good warehouses’ what do you mean? I’m not sure I know what those are (or maybe I don’t have them unlocked?) I have some mods like TMPE and move it but no extra assets really, I’m still new to the game

[normal idol]

That’s actually a good idea - didn’t realize the terminal was inbound and outbound, nor did I realize having two might help, thanks!

[hard ferry]

I think the warehouse is an industry dlc asset so if you don’t have the dlc you won’t be able to use it

[honest fjord]

In the Garbage & Industry menu, there are two tabs to the right of Farm/Forest/Ore/Oil: Warehouses and Unique Factories.

Warehouses work just like farm silos and log yards, but you can set them for ANY product. One of the options is Commercial Goods, which is the generic merchandise sold by zoned Commercial areas.

Unique Factories use a number of resources from your Industries areas to make Special Goods. These are also sold in zoned Commercial areas (except the cruise ships, for obvious reasons) and make an atomic crapton of moolah. The trick, however, is to balance the logistics flow so the factory isn't sitting idle while it waits for one of the 3-6 resources used to be resupplied.

[normal idol]

Ah yeah don’t have that

[honest fjord]

One thing I forgot to mention...

It's best to place cargo stations on a one-way road, such that the station is on the right-hand side, to eliminate conflicts between inbound and outbound traffic.

[normal idol]

Gotcha, I’ll go back later and build another terminal and have them set to import/export specifically. Thanks for the help

[honest fjord]

If you have a Forestry area, you've got the Industries DLC.

[normal idol]

Is the lumber not in the base game? I had areas of dark green when viewing the resources fbw

[honest fjord]

The resources are there regardless (it's a map feature, automatically propagating wherever trees cluster) and I think specializations for zoned industry is in the base game, but actual Forestry Industry is part of the Industries DLC.

Industries, Snowfall, and After Dark are (imho) must-have DLCs. Green Cities and Mass Transit rank pretty highly as well.

[normal idol]

Ah yeah sorry that’s what I meant, I have a lot of zoned “forest” industry

[honest fjord]

Are you able to use Workshop assets?

[normal idol]

I can, I haven’t really experimented with them a whole lot. I just have a lot of general mods, TMPE/Move It/ACME etc

[honest fjord]

One thing you might consider is the Dual-Track Cargo Station. Connect the outer track to the map's train network, then connect all your other (single-track) cargo terminals to the inner track for an isolated local train network. Helps take a lot of truck traffic off your roads without mixing train traffic.