We like to take the long view. It is best to spend money on
good routes, good equipment, etc. Spend as much as you can
afford. Build up your cities soon. Update to faster equipment
when ever you can afford it.
Start With Trains
In the early days (before you can buy good airplanes) trains
are the best money makers. Don't spend a lot of money on
making absolutely level and straight routes. Just get a
reasonable track from point A to point B. You can improve the
routing later as the traffic gets heavy.
Find a coal mine and a generating station that are near each other but
not too close. Build a line between them. Make sure to set the coal
train to load fully before leaving the coal mine. Now you have an
automatic revenue generator.
Look over the cities that you plan to serve, and pick out some
pairs that have about the same traffic potential. Build passenger lines
between them. A single track line with a passing track in the middle
will let you run two trains.
Put an enginehouse at each station. Trains develop a strong need
for service, and will do anything to get to an enginehouse. It can
be really aggravating to see a train arrive in a station, then without
dropping passengers, leave and go to the other end of the line
to get to an enginehouse. Then, of course, the train must come all
the way back to let off the passengers and get a new load. Lots of
wasted time with no earnings!
