Part 7: 1905-1910: First Blood
1905-1910: McDUCK III: First BloodLocomotion Soundtrack - Easy Winners
The final 'Starting Era' song.
Click here to name a vehicle!
The first order of business after the holidays is the shared trunk of the mainline. Double-tracking work begins immediately.
New junctions are fitted.
Meanwhile, rumors fly about a competing transport company, but nothing concrete is spotted.
The double tracks have a designated up and down line.
Construction completed!
Construction is then followed by a six months of checking the services and reworking train orders. You can see waypoints in the screen with the train orders. The Chowick express carries it's first paying passemgers since goodness knows when. Ratings at Howick were so bad it was empty most of the time. For some reason, it was completely failing to register waypoints and stops that it passed, shich is a bug I've never seen before. A complete redo of it's orders fixes things.
The line upgrade is a success and as soon as it's finished, all misrouting problems stop.
Another farm in the worst terrain on the map! The lives of these lunatics will one day be immortalized in the film The Piano.
Trams are installed on the prosperous farming supply town of Pukekohe.
Off they go. I couldn't do the accent on tramptåg with an alt code or copy and paste. I don't know if there's any other input methods that the game will allow.
Plenty of people want to emulate McDuck's success, but still no competitors have turned sod.
With things running smoothly, the maritime department eyes up the islands of the Hauraki gulf. A service is inaugurated between Devonport and the town of Oneroa, on Waiheke island.
After a couple of tries, an offering to the deep ones gets a correctly spelled name.
Boats need a highly controlled course to avoid cruising along every indent in the coastline. The also don't sail in diagonals! Frustrating.
To avoid boats going back and forth without passengers aboard, they are ordered to wait for a full load at Oneroa. This does mean that the passengers are delivered slowly, and boats may queue up at the docks.
Now here's a feature that I absolutely love! If you have multiple vehicles on one route, you can click on the line at the end of the route manifest to copy it over to your current vehicle. I believe this was new in Locomotion.
After dinner every night, McDuck goes out to his shed and wades around, ankle deep in ha'pennys. If he wants to swim, he still has to go to one of the region's many fine beaches or rivers.
While the sailors sort out the workings of the boat line, Scrooge turns his attentions to the town of Hunua. Nestled in a valley towards the East side of the map, It was the smallest town at game start, although it has grown considerably in the six years since. The current smallest town is Clark's Beach, with a population of 89.
Scrooge will double track the line further South,
start a branch somewhere between Manukau and Papakura to use the valley floor out near Ardmore,
and follow the stream gullies up into the valley between the Drury Hills and the Hunua Ranges.
Work begins with only the occasional speedbump.
But this has never happened before!
Seems that the Papatoetoe town councillors don't think much of our services.
We are forced into a constriction.
News arrives that the Island line is working well.
At least the next town along the way is OK with us.
It proves impossible to double track through Manukau city without demolishing houses, filling in the harbour, small radius curves or excessive flattening of the ridges, so it is left as single track. At least the track is straightened out.
The Hunua line will branch off here.
Progress along the valley floor at Ardmore is quick.
And McDuck is able to negotiate the rise up into the Hunua valley with ease.
At the other end, provision must be made for Auckland station to take multiple trains at once. It's immediately apparent that further work will be necessary.
Meawhile, at the other end of the line.
The single track near Manukau works, but it can result in long waits if there's traffic.
The Hunua Line train.
With the line running, it's time to improve the newly named Auckland station. Apologies, no old swedish style øs are available at this time.
Another one of those curious anomalies, in real life there is a tunnel in pretty much the exact same place.
Just a fluctuation as an old office building is replaced, but get used to seeing this type of notice, there'll be more of them as we get more stations.
Next target is a wheat farm conveniently close to the Tuakau Food Processing Plant. The South is becoming a bastion of our operations.
A mighty road network using the latest in roading technology is constructed.
Ready to go.
Oh, what a lovely day. Chrome shines outside the goods depot at Tuakau.
The Copy orders command is a godsend here.
"Righto, Trev, Kick 'er in the Guts!"
Tryhard Deliveries tries harder!
Instantly there is a backlog.
Straight away we have to expand the stations, the trucks are queuing up. The loading station is expanded without incident, except that one of our trucks nicely demonstrates it's manoeuvreability.
But when it comes to the other end, the road crews get lazy with their warning signs...
The union is not going to be pleased. Those involved in the clashes between the McDuck and the Union in the next few months will forever know this bit of highway as 'The Fury Road'.
Normal service resumes.
It's piling up on us!
This is 1909 and we refuse to countenance such blue language, sir.
Reinforcements are called in!
"You've increased our transport capacity one hundred-fold, but we wanted two hundred-fold."
Service is occasionally interupted. Sometimes when the drivers get tired of waiting, they go hunting for a way around, but are forced to turn around when they hit a corner.
McDuck's is sucking up every trained driver in the region.
And are starting to flood the road.
So Scrooge raises the capacity of the problem station.
It's 1910! Time for a smoko break.
Damnit! I really didn't want to demonstrate that mechanic until later. So far the only time I had to stop a vehicle during works was when I changed the layout of Auckland central, but obviously I'm going to have to be a lot more careful. Strange coincidence, I was doing that last bit about the time that Galaga crashed his trains.
I'm not sure what causes an opponent to make a start. They often lie idle for a while. I did a test load where I put it on fast forward and they started about 1907, so maybe they only start after when the player isn't actively building or something. I was also hoping rename the competitor after one of our other transport companies and name some of the new industries for the others, but you can't do that! Apparently I've spent too long in the scenario editor. Speaking of which, has anyone managed a successful download of the LP scenario yet?
Stats update tomorrow, hopefully.
Time to think about the grand strategy of our line. If we want to swim in our money, then we need to transport all the goods and passengers, and at the moment I favour a twin track S shape that wiggles through the isthmus, with branches off to all the cargo sources.