Miniature Railway Tips and Tricks! - OpenRCT2 Tutorial Park Episode 17

[@WasatchWind]

Some additional advice for anyone interested in adding realism elements - A notable one people will recognize is a water tower. I don't know of any theme park railways that have multiple, so it's best placed next to where the locomotive would sit while stopped at a station, or outside the engine storage shed. With the level crossings, while we sadly lack the small pieces in NCSO needed to make crossing signals, something you might make is the impression of a gate slid out of the way next to the crossing. In many parks you'll have an employee waiting there when the train comes to pull the gate closed manually. Like your coasters, your railway should generally be blocked off by fences or foliage from park guests. At stations, the station platform that guests stand on will end where the actual passenger carriages do, so you can take the tile inspector to make the first tile or two of the station normal track (and in real life, the station will be all normal track anyway.) For ease of operations at theme parks, you might see a concrete pad around where the locomotive stops at the station for ease of maintenence. DK's stations do look nice, no shade, but in real life the station roof doesn't usually cover the track, rather being a separate building. The staying building is a great opportunity for a cattle pen queue. As mentioned in the video, all theme park railroads need a place to store and do more maintenance on locomotives. While roundhouses look cool, real life theme park railroads (pretty much all to my knowledge) will use an engine shed of just several tracks similar to what DK built. Sometimes they're fully enclosed buildings with an attached machine shop, sometimes they're just a covering and the park will send the locomotive somewhere else for maintenence. Also as shown, for ease of operations, parks will usually have say, two trains, and only operate one train at a time, with the second train in storage in case the other needs maintenence, or if there's a busy day they'll run both - and larger parks of course will have maybe four trains with two in storage. Last notes on just adding neat little details - many parks will add something to see on the train. Disneyland has the grand canyon and primeval world show scenes. Cedar point has a ghost town with animationic skeletons. My home park Lagoon has a zoo of very depressed animals. Adding a little attraction on the railroad is a fun thing to do creatively that also helps it feel more real. In general, like anything else with building in rct, look up real life references. Look at how Disneyland, Cedar Point, and others do it. If you want something more fantastic and less real theme park, look up real life historic railways to see what trestles and tunnels look like. Sadly we don't at the present time have all the options I'd like for making theme park railroads, but there's still a lot of neat details you can add. A final thought, in theme park history, miniature railroads are often one of the oldest attractions, so like DK said, building them early on helps.

[@brutalseed6643]

Nice! You are a wizard of RCT!

[@TrainNinja21]

I think I can try this out since I'm a railroad enthusiast myself

[@Deurklink]

Sure thing! These tricks all shouldn't be too difficult!

[@WasatchWind]

While OpenRCT2 is lacking in piece and vehicle types I want, it still didn't stop me from building a historic railway once 🙂

[@C.I...]

I have a trick I love doing - you can have more than one train on a shuttle mode track with passing loops, but it takes a bit of setup when you open the ride. In the simplest case (two trains with one passing loop in the middle): 1. Synchronise your two stations by cloning the leading station piece of each station and putting a clone next to the other station. 2. Leave another train length of track behind the station for the second train. 3. Put the ride in test mode. 4. Close the ride. This will release the first train into the section. 5. When the second train enters the initial station, either turn one piece of track behind it around, or delete the extension (I recommend turning and making the rest invisible because you need to do this setup every time you reopen the ride) 6. Congratulation! Now the trains should go up the shared single track, and pass each other in the middle at your passing loop, synchronised forever (until a breakdown screws it up). 7. You can do this with more trains, provided there are more loops and each intermediate station is a double track station (i.e. two next to each other. You only need to do the station duplication sync between individual sections, not all at once - that way you can make your sections different lengths and the trains will wait for one another. If you need to make doubly sure they will meet correctly, or want to make one side of the section longer than the other, you can include another two synced dummy stations immediately before a loop.)

[@SendyTheEndless]

Interesting. I'm wondering if the block brakes trick might make this easier. I'd certainly be turning on the "no breakdowns" cheat for this though! I'll give it a try.

[@conductorjereocheerio]

That looks so beautiful. I love how you used those archery pieces for the buffers, that might possibly be my favorite part of this episode. I've always loved making Miniature Railways in RCT 1 & 2, I also happen to be a huge train fan. Whenever I make a Miniature Railway, always love to use the American Style Steam Trains (they're my favorite train look). Have you ever thought of the using the American Style Steam Trains for your Miniature Railways for once?

[@WasatchWind]

What I wish we had were some locomotives like the narrow gauge ones at Knotts Berry Farm, and with a caboose too. Unfortunately that's low on the priority list for people who are making new graphics for the game. Even for those who've made custom ride vehicles it surprisingly hasn't happened, though there are a lot of neat custom train vehicles.

[@conductorjereocheerio]

@@WasatchWind That would be so cool for the game

[@jackgreen7342]

For the Stoppers at the end of the tracks, you could also use one of the mine track scenery piece from the African Theme Scenery pack.

[@kairu_b]

Nice!

[@SendyTheEndless]

I didn't know you could add block brakes to miniature railways! I always end up fiddling with the departure times to try and spread my trains out and it's a real pain, so this is really useful knowledge! Also, I wonder if it would be possible to make the junctions invisible in-game, and place proper looking branches in the track via edited custom scenery? I'm not savvy enough to do that but I might look into it. I've been wanting a rock wall texture for a while now and don't even know if that would be easy to do. Also, neat trick with copying the triangular board! I usually use the triangular wooden half-block from the base blocks/walls scenery, but the one from the train is less bulky looking.

[@widgetkitty]

Ooooo, these are some great tips - would be good for a model railway build, I'll have to try these out! Makes me wonder though, since trains can go both ways on a track, what happens if you set up a head-on collision? Do they crash, or go through each other cause it's a "different track"??

[@Deurklink]

I don't think trains can actually crash. Trains do have collision with each other, so they will most likely get stuck.

[@widgetkitty]

@@Deurklink Ah right, I didn't think of that - they'd probably just both stop, as if they hit the back of a train

[@thesheq5023]

Use ride vehicle editor and make the acceleration much less (like half or third) Additionally add a block brake behind each station so trains don’t bump into each other in the station Also also mine train track just looks better

[@nickzakos271]

Hey everyone

[@Deurklink]

Hi Nick!

[@ryanvassallo299]

Should honestly do a video on Chris sawyers locomotion! I played that game more than this but not many videos are made on it anymore :(

[@Deurklink]

I might do that at some point! Just like OpenRCT2, there's now also an OpenLoco being worked on!

[@LtBarclay]

You def should, Locomotion is great, not as deep as transport tycoon but way prettier to play.​@@Deurklink

[@ryanvassallo299]

⁠@@Deurklinkyes exactly. I have had openLoco for a few years now. I want to get good at adding more vehicles / assets into the game.

[@C.I...]

I tried to use block brakes on a transport ride, and all powered vehicles just overpowered them. Does that still happen?

[@Deurklink]

That's definitely possible. When I tried it with the trains they didn't overpower the block brakes.

[@joshbannink1312]

Are these cheats part of another program that adds onto the original game or is this a whole new game you need to download?

[@Deurklink]

It's part of OpenRCT2! It's a whole new game you have to download, but it uses the graphics and sounds of the original RCT2

[@chrisjones5411]

No idea if anyone can help, I’m trying to set up a figure of 8 track around a park with the crossover bit featuring a stretch of dual use track but when I try and make the track overlap using the Disable Clearing it just connects and says all done. I’ve tried the “Change ride type then make half of it banked to prevent it from connecting” but that hasn’t worked. All it does is a loop around the lower half. Bit befuddled