Cargo weight revamping

[Gumboots]

Just thought this was worth a new thread, since existing discussion about the concept is spread over several threads at the moment. Also figured it should probably go in this board, since the overall idea is to eventually get some sort of patch pack together. This one may have a better chance of getting done since it doesn't involve screwing around with industry chains, and it doesn't require any rebuilding of models or making new ones. All it needs is some testing, and editing of locomotive stats.

So to re-cap: some of us have been thinking that the ways freight and express weights are done by default isn't right, and we should revamp them to get a clearer definition between freight and express locos. This basically means making freights proportionally heavier.

One catch is that this will make freight locos more likely to break, due to greater load. Another catch is that the faster express locos already carry a reliability penalty simply due to greater speed. Because of both factors, I'm thinking what we should do is increase freight weights to some extent, but also reduce express weights. To compensate for that, existing express locos would have their hauling power reduced a bit. WP&P and RoR seemed to think this made sense when I ran it past them.

If done right, this should give us express locos that are only good for express, but that can still haul express up grades, and are more reliable as well for the same nominal reliability rating. It should also give us freight locos that are only good for freight, but are still reliable enough to be useful.

To balance things out a bit it will probably be necessary to set all the dedicated freight locos to Ugly for passenger appeal, and make sure they aren't too fast, with express locos set to Looks Sharp or Ultra Cool depending. Ok, so that bit is easy.

The tricky bit, as far as I can tell, is what do we do about mixed traffic? We're presumably going to want to be able to haul mixed traffic too. Anyone got good ideas on how we can have mixed traffic locos that are slow enough to not take over from express locos, but fast enough to be better than pure freight locos, and grunty enough to be useful on grades hauling some freight without being over the top? Or do we just forget mixed traffic locos on grades, and make everyone use freight locos for mixed on grades?

This is all stuff that has to be nutted out and tested if people want it to happen. The actual code changes are a piece of cake. Skinning and modelling doesn't matter. Skinning and modelling can all be done whenever anyone feels like it, if they ever do.

As a start to get my head around it a bit, I went through the default PopTop cargoes and cars for the C era (1900-1949) and listed their weights. Cargo weights are for full cars. I've also included some of WP&P's custom cars for comparison. One interesting thing I've found already is that although the majority of PopTop freight cars have the same all up weight (60 tons incl. cargo) the auto carrier is heavier than the rest. If your train is hauling all autos it'll be working harder than with other freights.

*Note that the auto carrier doesn't have a C era. It only has A and B. A does up to 1949. The tank car only has A, B and C. B does up to 1949.

Anyway, short version is that by default freight consists are roughly 50% heavier than express consists, so we'd probably be wanting to change that to somewhere around 100% at a guess.

Code: Select all

-------------------------------------
EXPRESS CAR AND CARGO WEIGHT - C ERA
-------------------------------------
-------------------------------------

POPTOP DEFAULT MAIL VAN

MailC.car		13 tons
MailC.cgo		27 tons

Total			40 tons
-----------------------------

WP&P CUSTOM MAIL VAN

MrpoC.car		20 tons
MrpoC.cgo		40 tons

Total			60 tons
-----------------------------

POPTOP DEFAULT EXPRESS CAR

PassC.car		13 tons
PassC.cgo		27 tons

Tota			40 tons
-----------------------------

WP&P CUSTOM EXPRESS COACH

CoachC.car		20 tons
CoachC.cgo		40 tons

Total			60 tons
-----------------------------

DINING CAR

DinerC.car		45 tons
No cargo file.

Total			45 tons
-----------------------------

TROOPS

TroopC.car		13 tons
TroopC.cgo		27 tons

Total			40 tons
-----------------------------

-----------------------------------------------
AVERAGE 8 CAR EXPRESS CONSIST WEIGHT FOR C ERA
-----------------------------------------------

PopTop default (any):					320 tons.

WP&P custom cars (mail or pax):			480 tons.

PopTop default (troops):				320 tons.

WP&P custom cars (50% troops/ other):	400 tons.

-----------------------------------------------

CABOOSE

CaboC car		27 tons
No cargo file.

Total			27 tons
-----------------------------

-------------------------------------
FREIGHT CAR AND CARGO WEIGHT - C ERA
-------------------------------------
-- All of these are PopTop default --
-------------------------------------

POPTOP DEFAULT AUTO CARRIER

AutoA.car		18 tons
AutoA.cgo		55 tons

Total			73 tons
-----------------------------

POPTOP DEFAULT BOX CAR

BoxC.car		20 tons
BoxC.cgo		40 tons

Total			60 tons
-----------------------------

POPTOP DEFAULT COVERED HOPPER

ChopC.car		20 tons
ChopC.cgo		40 tons

Total			60 tons
-----------------------------

POPTOP DEFAULT FLAT CAR

FlatC.car		20 tons
FlatC.cgo		40 tons

Total			60 tons
-----------------------------

POPTOP DEFAULT OPEN HOPPER

HopC.car		20 tons
HopC.cgo		40 tons

Total			60 tons
-----------------------------

POPTOP DEFAULT REEFER CAR

RefrC.car		20 tons
RefrC.cgo		40 tons

Total			60 tons
-----------------------------

POPTOP DEFAULT STOCK CAR

StockC.car		20 tons
StockC.cgo		40 tons

Total			60 tons
-----------------------------

POPTOP DEFAULT TANK CAR

TankB.car		20 tons
TankB.cgo		40 tons

Total			60 tons
-----------------------------

------------------------------------------------
POPTOP DEFAULT FREIGHT CONSIST WEIGHT FOR C ERA
------------------------------------------------

Any of most types:						480 tons.

One of each type:						493 tons.

All of auto carriers:					584 tons.

------------------------------------------------

[Gumboots]

Should have attached this earlier. This is WP&P's provisional spreadsheet stats for revamped cargo cars (see bottom of post).

One reason he said he wanted the freight weights higher was for strategic purposes. His thinking was that if freights became a real burden on grades, this would force more strategic track laying. You wouldn't be able to just drag track across terrain without worrying too much about grades.

I can see the appeal of this, but it may royally screw up AI's. They're stupid enough to just keep laying crappy track anyway. So, if including AI's with heavier freights you may need events to boost hauling power for their trains to keep them operational.

Since he sent me this we have more or less concluded that perhaps the upper limits on freight weight should be decreased a bit, mostly so engines don't break, and if a larger difference between freight and express is needed then express weight also could be decreased a bit. His provisional stats in the spreadsheet have an average freight weight that looks reasonable, but the weights for some particular cars are astronomical. With some of them being up to 300 tons each in the later eras, you could get freight trains up to 2400 tons. By comparison, the default PopTop cars for the D era give a maximum consist weight of 640 tons, so 2400 could cause problems.

Another thing which has been brought up recently is fuel economy. If freights get heavier, you'll burn more fuel to haul them. If they get too heavy, you'll burn so much fuel that hauling them simply won't be worth it. This could lead to an unstable economy, with cargo just building up at the source until the price suddenly spikes somewhere else. It could also cause difficulties with supplying industry. You may need far more use of custom consists.

Old spreadsheet removed. Current spreadsheet attached to this post.

[Hawk]

For folks that can't open an ods file, here's the xls version.

[RulerofRails]

I took a look at WP&Ps planner. It's pretty, and the "averaged" curves look good. Those extra heavy freight cars are a bit strange though. If 2 or 3 cars are represented in an era, why only apply that to some of them?

Most people use auto consists extensively which is really mixed consists. In my experience it's a difficult task without a haul everything except option to get a seperation in cargoes that a train will haul. New maps could be designed for this and some such as SCBC (for 1.05) are not bad.

Even though I like to experiment, I have never played a whole game with custom consists even in TM. Auto consist is just too useful for delivering consumer cargo to the areas of highest demand stress free. 1.06 haul-at-a-loss, while great for industry supply routes, destroys much of a mixed custom consists ability to remotely mimic the auto feature. My motto is not to compete with what the game is good at. I would think seriously about limiting the maximum spread between the freight cargo weights to a sensible figure. If mainly increasing the way WP&P proposes I would suggest trying to limit same era differences to maybe 25%.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I'm going to throw something else out there: consider a much lower maximum around 100 tons. The important thing is the relationship between trains hauling that weight. So what if a heavy freight car "weighs" 300 or 100 tons, no one sees that figure.
Pros (I can think of right now):

• - locomotive setting changes, especially weights, pulling power and free weight are going to be more noticeable at the tight end of the scale
  - reliability and fuel cost ratings can be kept in the mid portion of the range where they look good (most are at or above Average and if neccesary a general bump down a level or two for fuel wouldn't be disruptive) giving the scenario creator better options to increase or decrease these settings.
  - A 8 car Big Boy in 1950 (620+640=1260 tons) will burn 150k+ of fuel and 30k new on a decent years work (2 trips at 120k each, a decent average profit IMO).
  
  Best case: profit = 240k-180k = 60k. A poor showing.
  
  Assuming an average engine weight of 300 tons. An engine with average fuel and reliability stats will perform the same way with WP&Ps average weight in 1950 and the problem will just get rapidly worse after that.
  
  - The game bug which affects all cargo price events restricts a per-scenario modification of prices which would be necessary before any profit could really be made above the 1260 ton level of the Big Boy.

Cons

• - Passenger balance might be problematic, car and train weight can be cut very low, but fuel costs and reliability may look unnatural. But, passenger revenues can be adjusted more successfully per scenario.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Mixed engines need an economic reason to discouraging their use for passenger routes. Maybe they need to "technically" be a bit heavier than the mountain loving freights in order to keep their fuel costs at speed up to a level where they can't compete economically with the express, but still giving a slight benefit against using slow freights.

Now, this is a big question, what type of grades are considered mountainous? With the awesome custom maps and good laying technique, 4% sustained grades are quite easy. But, "flat" stretches may have some 2% stretches. This gives a narrow range for engines to excel in climbing abilities, unless as I said above fuel costs is a big factor in keeping them out of the mountains.

Another big question, before any serious testing should begin, what economic levels for fuel cost are desired, for minimum, maximum, and average? How much spread should be allowed?

Once some parameters are determined, some experimentation and testing should be able to come up with a fairly good relationship graph that compares potential adjustments versus economic performance, to come up with a set of values and a general guide for settings on any future locos or personal adjustments that will fit in with the other locos while fulfilling their express/mixed/mountain role.

[Gumboots]

I took a look at WP&Ps planner. It's pretty, and the "averaged" curves look good. Those extra heavy freight cars are a bit strange though. If 2 or 3 cars are represented in an era, why only apply that to some of them?

It was a uglier until I revamped it a bit, so I could look at it long enough to to digest the data.

AFAIK his reasoning on the extra heavy cars was partly to get some freight train weights up towards what they are in real life, and partly to give a greater range of engine choices over the whole roster. The latter is something people generally seem to want, even if they don't care so much about the former. Personally I like the general idea of a greater gap between express and freight largely because it would finally allow dedicated express to be run on grades. At the moment, most dedicated express locos have such abysmal performance on grades that I rarely use them at all unless the terrain is really flat.

Most people use auto consists extensively which is really mixed consists. In my experience it's a difficult task without a haul everything except option to get a seperation in cargoes that a train will haul. New maps could be designed for this and some such as SCBC (for 1.05) are not bad.

SCBC?

Even though I like to experiment, I have never played a whole game with custom consists even in TM. Auto consist is just too useful for delivering consumer cargo to the areas of highest demand stress free. 1.06 haul-at-a-loss, while great for industry supply routes, destroys much of a mixed custom consists ability to remotely mimic the auto feature. My motto is not to compete with what the game is good at. I would think seriously about limiting the maximum spread between the freight cargo weights to a sensible figure. If mainly increasing the way WP&P proposes I would suggest trying to limit same era differences to maybe 25%.

I'm inclined to agree here. Mixed consists definitely are very useful. I'd be reluctant to turn RT3 into a game that's all about micromanaging consists. TBH I find 1.06's haul at a loss ability to be of limited use. I think that really, the same time and effort would have been better spent coding haul-anything-but instead (assuming that was possible).

I'm not currently sure how limited the spread of freight weights should be, but the spreadsheet column for 2005 goes from 65 tons (livestock) to 300 tons (grain), which is quite a large range. This would need testing, but I simply cannot see hauling grain to be profitable at that weight, especially if the route has heavy grades.

Now this could be a good thing in some scenarios. For instance, if you were doing a low carbon scenario like the one I was thinking of a while back, making coal haulage uneconomical purely by weight could be useful. In fact, custom per-scenario .car files that alter weights could be a useful trick for scenario authors if they want greater range of scripting.

OTOH, having grain at 300 tons and rice at 275 tons will probably mean that you simply won't haul them at all, and they're generally the sort of thing you'd want to be hauling in any scenario that has them, so I'm not convinced they should be at those weights by default for all scenarios.

I'm going to throw something else out there: consider a much lower maximum around 100 tons. The important thing is the relationship between trains hauling that weight. So what if a heavy freight car "weighs" 300 or 100 tons, no one sees that figure.

Pros (I can think of right now):

• - locomotive setting changes, especially weights, pulling power and free weight are going to be more noticeable at the tight end of the scale
  - reliability and fuel cost ratings can be kept in the mid portion of the range where they look good (most are at or above Average and if neccesary a general bump down a level or two for fuel wouldn't be disruptive) giving the scenario creator better options to increase or decrease these settings.
  - A 8 car Big Boy in 1950 (620+640=1260 tons) will burn 150k+ of fuel and 30k new on a decent years work (2 trips at 120k each, a decent average profit IMO).
  
  Best case: profit = 240k-180k = 60k. A poor showing.
  
  - Assuming an average engine weight of 300 tons. An engine with average fuel and reliability stats will perform the same way with WP&Ps average weight in 1950 and the problem will just get rapidly worse after that.
  - The game bug which affects all cargo price events restricts a per-scenario modification of prices which would be necessary before any profit could really be made above the 1260 ton level of the Big Boy.

Good points. By already having some large and uneconomical locos, we've pretty much established the overall train weights above which haulage becomes uneconomical. So really we should be starting there and working backwards, although loco and tender stats tweaks can increase the viable range to some extent.

Come to think of it, this may be a good way of shortening the testing process. It's easier to adjust the weight for one locomotive file than for all the cargo files. We could use this for narrowing down the range of freight weights, since it's the overall train weight that matters.

Cons

• - Passenger balance might be problematic, car and train weight can be cut very low, but fuel costs and reliability may look unnatural. But, passenger revenues can be adjusted more successfully per scenario.

I think we can work around any passenger balance problems. Same for the visible stats for fuel and reliability. TBH I think the defaults for those often don't make sense anyway.

Mixed engines need an economic reason to discouraging their use for passenger routes. Maybe they need to "technically" be a bit heavier than the mountain loving freights in order to keep their fuel costs at speed up to a level where they can't compete economically with the express, but still giving a slight benefit against using slow freights.

This is going to be the really tricky part, IMO.

Now, this is a big question, what type of grades are considered mountainous? With the awesome custom maps and good laying technique, 4% sustained grades are quite easy. But, "flat" stretches may have some 2% stretches. This gives a narrow range for engines to excel in climbing abilities, unless as I said above fuel costs is a big factor in keeping them out of the mountains.

Well, it's pretty easy to open a map in the editor and apply one of the preset overall height modifiers. So if quick and easy changes to overall grades become desirable it's not hard to arrange. My 2c is that "mountainous" is 5% and upwards with the way the roster is set at the moment. That's only a matter of loco pulling power stats though. You could easily make 1% "mountainous" by changing the loco stats. Some of them already have trouble with1% grades anyway.

I suppose the real catch here is that, AFAIK, the game engine does grades in steps. It only allows integer values for grades, so the greater the range of integer values in the map's grades, the greater the scope for differentiating locos. Pulling power isn't limited to integers so is more flexible.

Another big question, before any serious testing should begin, what economic levels for fuel cost are desired, for minimum, maximum, and average? How much spread should be allowed?

Fuel cost in dollars, or do you mean the visible economy rating? I don't think the latter is too much of a worry since it's only relative to other locos.

Once some parameters are determined, some experimentation and testing should be able to come up with a fairly good relationship graph that compares potential adjustments versus economic performance, to come up with a set of values and a general guide for settings on any future locos or personal adjustments that will fit in with the other locos while fulfilling their express/mixed/mountain role.

Yup.

PS: Hey I just had another thought. The visible ratings for fuel, etc are only text in the language file (Data/Language/RT3.lng). Those are very simple to change if we decide we want them to say something else. There's no hex editing involved. It's just plain text.

[Hawk]

SCBC?

South Central British Columbia by John (JSS) Schwarz

[RulerofRails]

South Central British Columbia by John (JSS) Schwarz

Yes, thanks Hawk, that's the one. It's a "beta" but is available in the archives and is on version number 324 or something crazy like. JSS put a ton of work into it. It has limited track building that must be laid on a pre-defined path. These restrictions which give a much more defined win path allow careful strategizing between various options, but probably seem like useless restrictions to others who want to just connect some cities and lay some track yonder and fro. The map is vulnerable to re-hauling tactics, but then again the best attempts at thwarting that are just work-arounds.

Come to think of it, this may be a good way of shortening the testing process. It's easier to adjust the weight for one locomotive file than for all the cargo files. We could use this for narrowing down the range of freight weights, since it's the overall train weight that matters.

Just what I was thinking. Establishing the fuel burn rates at the various levels for representative train weights will be a good first step in determing what's economically acceptable so there aren't locos like the Big Boy that are currently really useless. I might attempt it when I get a bit more time unless someone else does it first.

For me 6% grades are about the limit of what looks reasonable in the game, with 4% and the occasional 5% being what looks best. My tendency is to run trains that are probably intended for mixed freight traffic over all my network. Cheap purchase cost lures me, and mostly they are the lighter European locos that burn less fuel while having a better economy rating to boot (they are available in most 1.06 North American scenarios). The 4% grades I aim for aren't a real trouble for these mixed freight locos except for a handful that are intended for passenger service (BR 01 after 1900, Mallard, Atlantic, Pacific, Eight Wheeler and maybe a couple others).

I might have one or two routes on the map that I would consdier using an engine that's better for grades. Momentum will get trains up a lot of smaller graded sections. With default stats, I say, if the 6% rating for 8 cars is above 4mph, it'll do the job on 4% grades. 6mph or above on 6% starts getting into my tolerable working range. (Once stats are adjusted I shall change this habit which seems to work best with the current stats.)

Fuel cost in dollars, or do you mean the visible economy rating?

Fuel cost in dollars, but also as a calculation of that train's profit. An average revenue per trip for what is regarded as a long-term viable route (I threw the number 120k city-to-city out there). I should ask the question, What do you regard as a profitable but not super-lucrative long-term route that you seek to run a train on? The more input on this the better. Majority of trains should be designed to run at a slightly decent profit (whether that is 10% of revenue over the long term or whatever).

That's it for now, might be a few days before I can get more time for this.

[Gumboots]

Tend to agree about the grades. It starts looking a bit silly over 6%, but I think up to that is fine (bearing in mind we are thinking of changing loco stats anyway). The way I look at it RT3 grades are roughly double real life grades. IRL 3% is about as heavy on a train as 6% is in RT3, more or less, and is generally considered to be the upper limit.

And the express locos having to be useless on reasonable grades is one thing that has always bugged me. Even the old Stirling was commonly operated over 2% ruling grades (which would be 4% in RT3). On 1% ruling grades it was known to handle up to 28 carriages at times, and still stick to the express timetable. For that matter, the 75 mph top speed it has in RT3 is a speed the real thing recorded as an average speed over 15 miles while hauling 16 carriages.

The RT3 version is joke compared to what the locomotive was capable of. It should be capable of hauling an 8 car express consist of the period at 75 mph on perfect terrain. Same goes for a lot of the express locos. I think this is largely due to the difficulty of balancing the game while allowing mixed consists.

Anyway, profit. Depends on the scenario and goals, etc, but generally I think $100k and up is about right for a rough average lower limit.

[Gumboots]

I think we have a good starting point for testing this idea. We now know how to separate express, mixed and freight locos by using a customised passenger appeal scale. We have a good idea how fuel economy works, and there's enough scope there providing we stop thinking of loco weight units as actual tons and just use whatever values give the desired result.

For example, changing the Big Boy to make it more profitable is easy. Since loco weight apparently costs three times as much in fuel as the same weight in the consist, knocking 300 weight units off the Big Boy's weight should allow it to haul about 900 weight units of consist (7 D era freight cars + caboose) without burning more fuel than it currently does when not loaded.

Although I don't have an exact algorithm for reliability, I have enough empirical information to give good rules of thumb there. Increasing D era freight weights by 50% will increase a locomotive's breakdown chance by about one third. Starting with a reliability rating of Above Average, increasing that to Good would cut the breakdown chance to 63% of the current value.

If D era freight goes up 50%, a locomotive with Good reliability should have a breakdown chance about 1/6 less than it does with an Above Average rating when hauling current D era freight. So if after some years it's now commonly operating with the breakdown bar showing 25% (which is pretty normal for 7 freight + caboose + 100% oil) that would drop to about 21% even though the consist was 50% heavier. This should allow locomotives to have useful lives of up to 20 years.

Based on all that, I'm thinking that a good starting point for testing would be to boost D era freight weights by 50%. To get greater separation between categories, I also think express weights should be reduced by 25%. This would mean half freight and half express would be the same weight as a current all-freight consist. So the new all freight would be 3x weight, half and half would be 2x, and all express would be 1x. This isn't too far from real life. 600 tons or so is a pretty hefty express consist, but freight can easily get to 1800.

---

Oh and while I remember: WP&P's spreadsheet only accounts for the cargo weights set in the .cgo files. It neglects the car weights set in the .car files. That means his figures for default freight need to be bumped by 50% to get the real consist weight. So when I'm talking about bumping freight by 50% post-1950, I'm talking about cargo weights 50% higher and car weights 50% higher. In other words, actual consist weights 2.25 times those shown as his default freight curve.

Another thing: although I do like the general idea of using the extra W, X, Y and Z eras, at varying intervals for different freights, to make locomotive upgrades more of a thinking process, what I don't like is how messy and confusing the implementation is. I want to be able to open files any old time and immediately know what the effing things are for. It saves a lot of aggravation.

With that aim in mind, what I'd like to do is rename the eras so they make sense. I want to forget about the default alphabetical crud and use something meaningful. If the eras for each cargo are named according to their start years, the files will make sense. If you are looking at the directory and want to know which file applies for grain in 1957, you'll be able to tell that it's the one that is named Grain_1943, which just happens to be sitting right between Grain_1924 and Grain_1979. This will work.

[Gumboots]

Ok, so RoR just had a brainwave and proved that the effective consist weight seen by the game's code has nothing to do with the cargo weight set in the .cgo file. That means I am going to have to revise my estimates of consist weight for testing, as there's no point editing files the game won't use.

Since the only files that have any effect on consist weight are the .car files, just as they affect locomotive and tender weight, the only important values for 50% heavier D era freight will be the 60 "ton" values that will be set in the .car files. That means that even for really heavy freight the game will only be reading a total consist weight value of 480 "tons" for a full 8 cars.

Express for the same era will be 20 tons per car for passengers, troops, and mail, or 160 tons for an 8 car consist.

That reminded me of an odd one out: the caboose. This has a D era weight value of 53 tons in the .car file. That's a full 1/3 third greater than a freight car, which makes no sense at all. That reminded me to check another odd one out, namely the dining car. That is also set to 53 tons, which is stupid considering that a dining car would be nowhere near the weight of a loaded freight car.

What I suspect happened is that back when the game was in alpha stage the devs were thinking of using the weights set in the .cgo files as well as the weights set in the .car files, but changed their minds and ended up using just the values from the .car files to simplify processing. This would make sense of the .car values set for the dining car and caboose. Since neither call a .cgo file, if the game did count the values in the .cgo file for other cars that would make the caboose and dining car 66% the weight of an express car or 44% the weight of a freight car. That would make sense. So I think it's safe to assume that the only reason the D era caboose and dining car are set to 53 tons is because somebody forgot to change them during development. This sort of thing happens more often than you might think.

So as well as changing D era freight .car files to 60 tons and express .car files to 20 tons, I think the D era caboose and dining car should be changed to 20 tons. That would put them at the same weight as an express car, and at 33% the weight of the new freight cars, which seems about right.

---

Edit: I just went through all the .car files for the existing cargo cars (default and custom) and figured out what their start and stop years are, as well as their weights.

Code: Select all

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File name       Start==>Hex         Stop===>Hex         Weight=>Hex
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

AutoA.car       1800    08 07       1949    9D 07       18      00 00 90 41
AutoB.car       1950    9E 07       9999    0F 27       30      00 00 F0 41

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

BoxA.car        1800    08 07       1849    39 07        5      00 00 A0 40
BoxB.car        1850    3A 07       1899    6B 07       10      00 00 20 41
BoxC.car        1900    6C 07       1949    9D 07       20      00 00 A0 41
BoxD.car        1950    9E 07       9999    0F 27       40      00 00 20 42

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

CaboA.car       1800    08 07       1850    3A 07        7      00 00 E0 40
CaboB.car       1850    3A 07       1900    6C 07       13      00 00 50 41
CaboC.car       1900    6C 07       1950    9E 07       27      00 00 D8 41
CaboD.car       1950    9E 07       9999    0F 27       53      00 00 54 42

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

WP&P Custom Cars

CcornA.car      1800    08 07       1847    37 07        5      00 00 A0 40
CcornB.car      1848    38 07       1881    59 07        8      00 00 00 41
CcornX.car      1882    5A 07       1921    81 07       17      00 00 88 41
CcornC.car      1922    82 07       1961    A9 07       22      00 00 B0 41
CcornD.car      1962    AA 07       9999    0F 27       50      00 00 48 42

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

WP&P Custom Cars

CgranA.car      1800    08 07       1846    36 07        5      00 00 A0 40
CgranB.car      1847    37 07       1890    62 07       13      00 00 50 41
CgranX.car      1891    63 07       1920    80 07       25      00 00 C8 41
CgranC.car      1921    81 07       1956    A4 07       35      00 00 0C 42
CgranD.car      1957    A5 07       1984    C0 07       45      00 00 34 42
CgranZ.car      1985    C1 07       9999    0F 27       50      00 00 48 42

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ChopA.car       1800    08 07       1849    39 07        5      00 00 A0 40
ChopB.car       1850    3A 07       1899    6B 07       10      00 00 20 41
ChopC.car       1900    6C 07       1949    9D 07       20      00 00 A0 41
ChopD.car       1950    9E 07       9999    0F 27       40      00 00 20 42

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

WP&P Custom Cars

CoachA.car      1800    08 07       1845    35 07        3      00 00 40 40
CoachW.car      1846    36 07       1859    43 07        5      00 00 A0 40
CoachB.car      1860    44 07       1909    75 07       13      00 00 50 41
CoachC.car      1910    76 07       1944    98 07       20      00 00 A0 41
CoachD.car      1945    99 07       1969    B1 07       15      00 00 70 41
CoachZ.car      1970    B2 07       9998    0E 27       18      00 00 90 41

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

WP&P Custom Cars

DinerA.car      1800    08 07       1844    34 07        7      00 00 E0 40
DinerW.car      1845    35 07       1874    52 07       15      00 00 70 41
DinerB.car      1875    53 07       1909    75 07       25      00 00 C8 41
DinerC.car      1910    76 07       1944    98 07       45      00 00 34 42
DinerD.car      1945    99 07       1969    B1 07       40      00 00 20 42
DinerZ.car      1970    B2 07       9998    0E 27       35      00 00 0C 42

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File name       Start==>Hex         Stop===>Hex         Weight=>Hex
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

FlatA.car       1800    08 07       1847    37 07        5      00 00 A0 40
FlatB.car       1847    37 07       1899    6B 07       10      00 00 20 41
FlatC.car       1900    6C 07       1949    9D 07       20      00 00 A0 41
FlatD.car       1950    9E 07       9999    0F 27       40      00 00 20 42

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

WP&P Custom Cars

FruitA.car      1800    08 07       1849    39 07        5      00 00 A0 40
FruitB.car      1850    3A 07       1899    6B 07       10      00 00 20 41
FruitC.car      1900    6C 07       1949    9D 07       20      00 00 A0 41
FruitD.car      1950    9E 07       9999    0F 27       40      00 00 20 42
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

WP&P Custom Cars??? (check this)

GoodsA.car      1800    08 07       1849    39 07        5      00 00 A0 40
GoodsB.car      1850    3A 07       1899    6B 07       10      00 00 20 41
GoodsC.car      1900    6C 07       1949    9D 07       20      00 00 A0 41
GoodsD.car      1950    9E 07       9999    0F 27       40      00 00 20 42

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

WP&P Custom Cars

HbauxA.car      1800    08 07       1906    72 07       10      00 00 20 41
HbauxB.car      1907    73 07       1930    8A 07       22      00 00 B0 41
HbauxC.car      1931    8B 07       1959    A7 07       30      00 00 F0 41
HbauxD.car      1960    A8 07       9999    0F 27       45      00 00 34 42

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

WP&P Custom Cars

HcoalA.car      1800    08 07       1845    35 07        8      00 00 00 41
HcoalB.car      1846    36 07       1888    60 07       13      00 00 50 41
HcoalX.car      1889    10 07       1913    79 07       20      00 00 A0 41
HcoalC.car      1914    7A 07       1945    99 07       28      00 00 E0 41
HcoalD.car      1946    9A 07       1967    AF 07       35      00 00 0C 42
HcoalZ.car      1968    B0 07       9999    0F 27       50      00 00 48 42

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

WP&P Custom Cars

HironA.car      1800    08 07       1840    30 07        5      00 00 A0 40
HironB.car      1841    31 07       1876    54 07       10      00 00 20 41
HironX.car      1877    55 07       1906    72 07       17      00 00 88 41
HironC.car      1907    73 07       1936    90 07       25      00 00 C8 41
HironD.car      1937    91 07       1964    AC 07       35      00 00 0C 42
HironZ.car      1965    AD 07       9999    0F 27       50      00 00 48 42

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

HopA.car        1800    08 07       1849    39 07        5      00 00 A0 40
HopB.car        1850    3A 07       1899    6B 07       10      00 00 20 41
HopC.car        1900    6C 07       1949    9D 07       20      00 00 A0 41
HopD.car        1950    9E 07       9999    0F 27       40      00 00 20 42

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

MailA.car       1800    08 07       1849    39 07        3      00 00 40 40
MailB.car       1850    3A 07       1899    6B 07        7      00 00 E0 40
MailC.car       1900    6C 07       1949    9D 07       13      00 00 50 41
MailD.car       1950    9E 07       9998    0E 27       27      00 00 D8 41

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File name       Start==>Hex         Stop===>Hex         Weight=>Hex
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

WP&P Custom Cars

MrpoA.car       1800    08 07       1840    30 07        3      00 00 40 40
MrpoW.car       1841    31 07       1863    47 07        6      00 00 C0 40
MrpoB.car       1864    48 07       1893    65 07        9      00 00 10 41
MrpoX.car       1894    66 07       1914    7A 07       15      00 00 70 41
MrpoC.car       1915    7A 07       1944    98 07       20      00 00 A0 41
MrpoD.car       1945    99 07       1974    B6 07       18      00 00 90 41
MrpoZ.car       1975    B7 07       9998    0E 27       20      00 00 A0 41

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PassA.car       1800    08 07       1849    39 07        3      00 00 40 40
PassB.car       1850    3A 07       1899    6B 07        7      00 00 E0 40
PassC.car       1900    6C 07       1949    9D 07       13      00 00 50 41
PassD.car       1950    9E 07       9998    0E 27       27      00 00 D8 41

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PulpA.car       1800    08 07       1847    37 07        5      00 00 A0 40
PulpB.car       1848    38 07       1899    6B 07       10      00 00 20 41
PulpC.car       1900    6C 07       1949    9D 07       20      00 00 A0 41
PulpD.car       1950    9E 07       9999    0F 27       40      00 00 20 42

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

RefrA.car       1800    08 07       1849    39 07        5      00 00 A0 40
RefrB.car       1850    3A 07       1899    6B 07       10      00 00 20 41
RefrC.car       1900    6C 07       1949    9D 07       20      00 00 A0 41
RefrD.car       1950    9E 07       9999    0F 27       40      00 00 20 42

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

StockA.car      1800    08 07       1849    39 07        5      00 00 A0 40
StockB.car      1850    3A 07       1899    6B 07       10      00 00 20 41
StockC.car      1900    6C 07       1949    9D 07       20      00 00 A0 41
StockD.car      1950    9E 07       9999    0F 27       40      00 00 20 42

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

TankA.car       1800    08 07       1899    6B 07       10      00 00 20 41
TankB.car       1900    6C 07       1949    9D 07       20      00 00 A0 41
TankC.car       1950    9E 07       9999    0F 27       40      00 00 20 42

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

TroopA.car      1800    08 07       1849    39 07        3      00 00 40 40
TroopB.car      1850    3A 07       1899    6B 07        7      00 00 E0 40
TroopC.car      1900    6C 07       1949    9D 07       13      00 00 50 41
TroopD.car      1950    9E 07       9998    0E 27       27      00 00 D8 41

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Just quoting this here so I don't forget:

Since we started getting into this detailed analysis I have thought of one obvious fault with the WP&P cars as they stand. In the early 20th century (roughly 1910 to 1950 IIRC) his express cars are the same weight as most freight cars. This is why I have been having trouble getting the Schools to be a good express hauler, without being able to haul freight like Superman on methedrine. With the way WP&P set car weights, if it's going to be a good express hauler in the 1930's it just has to also be a good freight hauler. This is obviously going to be a problem for game balance, so his cars need complete revision of their stats.