Railroad

Basics

Railroad systems allow your Whiskers the opportunity to travel much faster than their little feet can carry them, even over stone paths. This is vitally important as your Whisker colony grows into a Whisker nation. Resources and farmland will require them to travel further and building railroads can help them reach those resources faster.

All you need are a Rail Segment or two and two Rail Stations to get started. Slap a cart down and watch your Whiskers ride to their destination.

Placement

Placing rail is much like placing any pathways. You can lay down multiple segments in a straight line and will have to pay additional costs for any needed log supports.

Where things get a little bit different are that you cannot create intersections (no T-shaped railroads), and you can create sloped tracks by raising or lowering elevation while trying to place a sufficiently long track.

You may place any number of Railway Stations on your tracks, but you need a minimum of two for your Whiskers to even consider using your railroad system. They have to have somewhere to go, right?

Just keep in mind that only one train cart (12 Whiskers maximum) will run on any given system and will operate automatically. This means it will wait a few moments at each station before moving onto the next. If you add too many stops. Your Whiskers may have to wait a long time for the next train.

Physics and Steam

Railroad systems are subject to some level of in-game physics such as friction on the track. If you are building small railroad systems or ones with frequent stops, you may never notice that your carts are slowing down between stops. That is because each time a cart stops at a railway station, it gets a little boost of speed when it gets on its way again.

If you are planning to use railroad systems to cross large distances (50+ segments), you will need to plan accordingly. This is where steam may come in handy. The Rail Booster allows you to apply a significant single-direction speed boost to your passing carts. You may use one or more in each direction to accelerate them to their destination, both fixing the friction problem and decreasing transit time.

You may use more than Rail Booster on a line (remember to duplicate for the return trip or between each station) to achieve increased speeds. There are diminishing returns on speed enhancement, so your dreams of sending a Whisker to the moon won't be happening.

Cost

Before you get started in building railroads, it is important to take note of their significant cost. At 1 iron ingot and 1 plank for each tile of distance, the cost can be extraordinarily high when first unlocked. Make sure you build a sufficient supply of resources before you get started.

Don't forget to calculate in the cost of railway stations, rail boosters, and the necessary steam piping if you decide on using rail boosters. All of these cost iron ingots too!

You also cannot forget about any support costs. Crossing waterways with rail can get extremely expensive. Remember to check out the masonry tab as archways can help reduce the log cost at the price of cut stone.

Congestion

Your Whiskers are happy to queue up at a railway station if they think it is their fastest route to a location. Since a cart can only hold 12 Whiskers, this can lead to long lines of idle Whiskers if you are not careful.

Whiskers will struggle to recognize the congestion issue, and even if you build another line next door, they might not use it. For the most part, Whiskers will choose the station closest to them that gets them to their destination. Keep this in mind when trying to solve congestion issues.

You can also consider speeding up the rail line with rail boosters to reduce wait times or limiting the reasons Whiskers need to use that particular line (e.g., fewer job assignments on the other side).