Railway stations (Mass Transit) take up a lot of space. Even though they give a clear transportation option to Sims, it doesn’t count as Transportation unit, so doesn’t yield any Transportation bonus. I strive to cover each residential building with all possible specializations, yet for buildings near a railway station, this is nearly impossible. Especially in Frosty Fjords, with its narrow layout.

1For what it's worth I too was a beta tester, the only place I had room to manoeuvre was in Sunny Isles.To paint a better picture, I hadn't yet expanded the 4th island, the first was full of local houses.The second was roughly split 75/25 percent Omega and local, with the Omegas in ascendancy.The third was roughly a third local houses, another third of that island was Art Nouveau and the rest of the island was used for services.The population was roughly 700k not a lot really 😆 I started off with a small station and a loop of track around it, then figured out what to do to get trains running better.I looked at the third island and decided that was gonna be my starting point for a railway line, station to station (I had previously noted the positioning of the new railway bridges that had magically appeared) I started looking at the first two islands as well and started removing stuff I didn't need really. I was aiming to link 2 and 3 islands with railways. I didn't demolish any houses, just moved them out of the way of where the rails were going to have to beThe plan was taking shape slowly but I read someone moaning about the trains not crossing the bridges that just drove me onwards to prove that they actually did!In fact there were more moans about trains than anything else at the time 🤣 I took a lot of stick for pointing out a counter for every moan, such as no space, lost population and yada yada.Anyhow my two islands were linked, trains crossed the bridge but I didn't stop there oh no.I wanted the 4 islands linked by railsLong story short I battered my way through housing including the Omegas, which was a challenge but I got there in the end.The way I went about it was to get the rails and stations in place, with trains running between them, just the basics and I'd worry about the specifics later.Yeah I lost some population but I soon made up for that - basically the trains forced me into having a better and more efficient layout.Eventually I managed to fully expanded the land on the 4th island too.Now I could start on making it all look nice and even put in a branch line to take tourists to the beach 😆 Now my population in Sunny Isles is over 2.6 million and I am still building new houses.I'm still tweaking the rails, still taking a tour around the islands following a train that I have tapped, still waiting on even more stuff being produced in my factories and shops 😀All it takes is planning, patience and common sense to get the trains running.That's the way I have always played the game, never wanting "everything now"There's a new breed of player nowadays who doesn't think about anything, they don't tap buttons to find out information they need, or to find out what the buttons actually do, they don't read the FAQs either.They don't read anything on any fan pages but they and others ask the dumbest questions over and over and as a result, they want it all, on a plate handed to them and they will throw money at the game to get "everything now" with zero effort, no accomplishments in that, no challenge in that is there?That's who the marketing department have in their crosshairs, the new and the gullible, the impatients and those that want everything now!They know that the seasoned players will have most of the classics they don't care about those players very much.I have most of the classics and the bulk of them are still in storage, coming out for the odd design challenge here and there.I hate borrowing stuff from my city to use in DC, mainly because I don't seem to get the same population boost upon the return of what I've borrowed and that annoys me.They know I am not gonna be earning them their Christmas Bonus for meeting their sales targets right? I don't care if they don't care.That's enough of a ramble from me, enjoy the game, your game your way 'n all that jazz 🤣

@Valdonega26 I just use mine to pass the time waiting on items being produced in shops and factories.As much as I like the trains, they don't really add anything other than aesthetics to a city.I'd even go so far sometimes to class them as a punishment.They are so expensive to upgrade (cards, railcoins and simcash only no real money) to be honest I have enough trains running now to complete tasks and milestones in a reasonable amount of time so I have called a halt.I might even take them out altogether due to low value milestones. 😱

@GrumpyBedlam Thanks for your comment! I agree it takes quite some train rides to save for items, let alone train upgrades. In fact, all my trains are still at level 1. Yet I wonder, if you’d remove the stations, certain tasks (e.g. residential building upgrades) would still require items that can only be obtained from railway stations?One aspect of the trains is very nice. If you click on a riding train, you get this movie of the train traveling through your city 🤗To my earlier point though, I believe a train station should give population boost under ‘Transportation’ much like e.g. a bus stop or helipad.

I have 6trains now and all stations at my largest city are in a region, stations as close as possible together, except one small station on another island now. Its almost a separate game like omega. Both, you play for yourself. I started forced as a beta player, and get used to it now. Another of my cities (lvl18) has 5 stations (because i played beta). What i did, i removed almost everything, and bult the track from top to bottom, added residences around the rails and roads, and special buildings which i stored temp. Unfortunately i do not reach the same amount of residents anymore (i had 500k) and lost 50k residents. I do stay at lvl18 though and still saving for upgrades. You get used to the gameplay.

Thanks @GrumpyBedlam for sharing that history! It was fun to read and I share your philosophy! I guess I’m also the geek that tries to find out how to optimize layout to boost population.I see a lot of people cramming their land with housing buildings, yet never reaching high population because they simply forget to include the basic needs like parks and other specialization buildings. They leave a lot of bonus points on the table and waste their space!For the 1st island on Sunny Isles, I experimented with a ‘core-shell’ structure: housing on the outside, specializations on the inside. I managed to cover all housing with all specializations except Landscape, which was introduced when I finished the design. this design yields approx. 500k population just for the 1st island, with room to grow thanks to upgradable, regional specializations like the Volcano Casino and Luau Party.I’m now applying a similar philosophy (core-shell) to my other regions as well. I level up slowly (at Lvl 74 yet playing since 2014), as I’m mostly doing assignments for gathering fancy specializations. I was a little frustrated when trains were introduced, as I agree with you that Sunny Isles is ideally suited for a long track across all islands. As I didn’t want to change my first island design, I decided to ignore the railroad bridges on Sunny Isles and instead created artificial islands in Limestone Cliffs (see earlier post) to run my trains there. So, I hope one day a railroad bridges will be available in Landscape, so that I can upgrade the current land bridges in Limestone Cliffs.

Reiterating my request for Mass Transit to yield Transportation bonus

15 Replies

7zwq7f0qx00n
Newcomer
13 hours ago
completely agree!
GrumpyBedlam
Seasoned Ace
1 year ago
@Valdonega26 I have 5 Maxis Manors. There is no way on this earth that I will be buying a 6th one! 🤣
Valdonega26
Seasoned Vanguard
1 year ago
@GrumpyBedlam Acquiring the 4th Maxis Manor would require 8,000 SimCash, which is the equivalent of €112,93 if one takes the 8,500 SimCash offer. So, yes! Pricey! My third and last one costed 4,000 SimCash, which I got for a discount offer at approx. €36. Also pricey, yet still worth the investment.
GrumpyBedlam
Seasoned Ace
1 year ago
@Valdonega26I've already used that new land in the capital 🤣
As for Maxis Manors yes I have a few of them, have done so for years but I called a halt to buying more when the SimCash price got ridiculous 😀
Valdonega26
Seasoned Vanguard
1 year ago
Hi @GrumpyBedlam, they added a strip of land to Capital City, so you’ll have some room to expand! 🤗 Also, are you using Maxis Manor? I have three of those and it frees up space for more residential buildings. I’d love to buy another one, yet the price for the 4th Maxis Manor is 8,000 SimCash, which is a bit too much.
GrumpyBedlam
Seasoned Ace
1 year ago
@Valdonega26 Yeah Epic tasks are a thing I used to consider to be a chore and I only done them for COM if asked.
Now I do them whenever I can especially in my capital where I have no land spare again 😂
Valdonega26
Seasoned Vanguard
1 year ago
Nice approach, @GrumpyBedlam ! I’m using the same combination for the second island. One cannot have enough Epic Buildings 🤗 Plus, they require less utilities than e.g. Tokyo or Omega buildings.
GrumpyBedlam
Seasoned Ace
1 year ago
@Valdonega26 My first island of Sunny Isles the high risers are epics, which I am trying to introduce to all regions now 😀
Valdonega26
Seasoned Vanguard
1 year ago
@GrumpyBedlam Here you see the artificial island in daylight.
Valdonega26
Seasoned Vanguard
1 year ago
Thanks @GrumpyBedlam for sharing that history! It was fun to read and I share your philosophy! I guess I’m also the geek that tries to find out how to optimize layout to boost population.
I see a lot of people cramming their land with housing buildings, yet never reaching high population because they simply forget to include the basic needs like parks and other specialization buildings. They leave a lot of bonus points on the table and waste their space!
For the 1st island on Sunny Isles, I experimented with a ‘core-shell’ structure: housing on the outside, specializations on the inside. I managed to cover all housing with all specializations except Landscape, which was introduced when I finished the design. this design yields approx. 500k population just for the 1st island, with room to grow thanks to upgradable, regional specializations like the Volcano Casino and Luau Party.
I’m now applying a similar philosophy (core-shell) to my other regions as well. I level up slowly (at Lvl 74 yet playing since 2014), as I’m mostly doing assignments for gathering fancy specializations.

I was a little frustrated when trains were introduced, as I agree with you that Sunny Isles is ideally suited for a long track across all islands. As I didn’t want to change my first island design, I decided to ignore the railroad bridges on Sunny Isles and instead created artificial islands in Limestone Cliffs (see earlier post) to run my trains there. So, I hope one day a railroad bridges will be available in Landscape, so that I can upgrade the current land bridges in Limestone Cliffs.