Trains And Track

• Often the limiting factor on speed of a train is the quality of the tracks. It seems very unrealistic that tracks built in 1950 can withstand 165mph trains in 1994
• It seems to assume that after the year 2000 nothing else will happen with conventional trains. The French TGV has a world speed record of 302 Mph (fast trains section) on conventional railway track. Perhaps while maglev and monorail can be alternatives, it shouldn't necessarily be mandatory to switch over to them.
• In the extreme climates by about 2010 there are no conventional railway engines available at all, this is irritating as often you are really waiting for maglev to arrive before you upgrade, so you are stuck with old trains constantly breaking down and making no money. As I said, just because of monorail, why does that have to mean the end of conventional railways?
• Electric trains should be available in the extreme climates as well as in temperate climates, because it is annoying having to rely on slow diesels. However the game could be more interesting if say you had to supply a power station with coal and install overhead centenary all the way along the track before you could run electric trains, this would be more realistic as one of the big problems with electric trains is the cost of the extra infrastructure required.
• We all know that trains can get lost on a very large complex system, often requiring you to build extra tracks in case it does get lost, which complicates things further. Ships can be ordered to go to buoys at sea, perhaps a similar thing could be done with trains, so you can order them to go to points along the route in order to get to their final destination.
• Better signalling is definitely required, it is too simplistic just to have the section ahead occupied therefore signal red. Perhaps the signals should be sensitive to where the trains are, because at the moment you need to build complicated crossovers to avoid delays, with better signalling this would not be required.
• Improved Graphics would be a nice touch curved railways for starters, and perhaps you could choose the radius of each curve, with a speed limit implied of course, but the larger the radius the higher the speed limit. Points could be improved too
• Embankments should be an available option, that is train running one level higher than the rest of the land, without having to re-landscape. Also such embankments should be able to go down one level, over a variable amount of distance, so you can reduce the gradient the train has to negotiate when going up hills.
• One of the options should be to build double track, two tracks side by side can easily fit onto one square, and this would be more realistic because double track railways in real life are usually right next to each other. This would save some hassle, then if you wanted to put signals along the track, they would automatically make one direction signals for both directions, simplifying things further.
• Railway carriages should have speed limits too at which they can safely travel, because them if you wanted a proper modern high speed train you would have to have proper modern high speed carriages to go with it, which would be more realistic.
• A distinction should be made between passenger stations and cargo stations, with the exception being that passenger stations should continue to handle mail and only large passenger stations can handle goods.
• I think that when connecting to industries stations should be right next to the industry, or be forced to build a conveyer belt (not longer than 3 squares). While passengers can easily walk to the station, how is several tonnes of iron ore supposed to walk across a three squares of forest?
• The maximum number of trains should be determined by the amount of ram in the computer, because I know a large amount of ram remains unused when I click on the "about Transport Tycoon" option. However I am not a computer expert so I don't know how feasible that would be.
• You should have to pay to maintain railways, and the cost should be proportional to the number of trains and the speed of the trains running along it.

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