Format:
5 year updates hopefully, with pictures detailing what has been happening

First post; Settings, and plans


I decided to keep the game hard, so i decided on mostly high settings, mountainous is just overkill, and hilly provides a nice balance, high running costs and construction costs make me have to manage my loan really well, and no industries mean i only have passengers and mail as my main cargo


Most of these newGRF's are basic, but make the game look a lot better, and i love playing with them, i used more expensive construction and more expensive bridges to make the game even harder, and actually making going around things cheaper than demolishing straight through with terraforming/bridges/tunnels. New industries add a twist and make them more realistic as well; For example, steel needs both coal and iron ore, also, powerplants can only be built close to towns to mimic realism.


The map, what can i say, let's get building.

Looks good, I shall watch this.

Starting out small

1920:
And so it begins, we started out with an early scouting of the area, and found a pretty good place for construction, more specifically the town of Canhall with 1,200 inhabitants, and with nearby cities; Chadston(705), Wundtown(394) and a slight distance away lies Nuninngley Market.




We quickly started work on a bus line, with a terminus in all 3 cities, and one road stop in Canhall Central, which will hopefully help us with making some profit. It was not cheap, and we had to increase our maximum loan, but by the end we had 4 bus stations, a depot, and 2 buses ready to move passengers to their destinations.

However we realised that would not be enough to give use enough profit to offset the loan interest, so i quickly decided to add a small passenger line between Canhall and Nuninngley Market, using a small train to help us with the profit.


The tracks were laid down fully, accompanied by a bus station in Nunningley for future expansion at the start of April. We had to increase our loan again to place a depot and ready our train, but we still had maneuvering rooms, we purchased a 0-4-0 Steam Tank engine for 12,000 pounds, with 2 passenger carriages and a Mail Van to get us started.
The train in action:


And our balance including the loan after our initial building:


As you can see, we still have some loan left to take out, but we have to be careful to make sure the interest costs do not slash back at us, for now, we are going to make small improvements to the network, and take it slowly until we can find a bigger expansion point.

1921:
We start off the year on a positive note:


The train was making a fair bit of income, but however, it was obvious it was not enough to manage the huge demand of 500 passengers at the train station, but that was unable to be fixed due to us not being exactly loaded with money, however, we started work on a new bus line, this time in Tredingworth Falls


The route is serviced by two model T buses, and has room for a train station which will soon be built there, and hopefully a service connected to the town of Chadston to remedy the passenger problem, however the bus purchase limited our loan to only 30,000 pounds, and we will now have to build slowly and take our time. However, by the end of the year we had a length 3 platform for trains ready in Tendigworth falls, and construction of rails has begun

1922:


1922 was a very quiet year for a company, where really next to nothing was happening apart from the construction of the railway connection being half way done, the company hopes to have it fully connected by at the latest, the year 1924, and have a train running on it by the year 1925.
(yes, the rail line is very twisty, remember what i told you guys, terraforming is bloody expensive, 8k for one spot, making it more cost efficient to go around until i have enough money to sort out the land)

1923:
Was more of the same from 1922, any the company became concerned over the rising costs of track, however the track building now entering the downhill section, there is still hope to have the track completed by 1924.

1924:
As is trend with most companies, the track was still not finished, however it was soon approaching Chadston, once the track is finished, it will cost a lot of money to run a full train on it, so at the start, the company might only run one 0-4-0 Saddle Tank with only one passenger carriage, due to budget restrictions.

1925:


It looked like the railroad connection would never get finished, but Nationwide Transport as now known by their new name, finally managed to lay rails from Tredingworth Falls to Chadston in Decemeber. However, with little money, it might take a few years before an actual train service is set up, with there still being no station and depot in Chadston, and the increasing cost of trains.

After this update I'll expand updates to 10-year updates.

The beginnings of a network



The company managed to build the train station in Chadston towards the end of June, but it was until November that the train depot was built, and at the end of november, the train made it's first stop at Chadston.



The train was a 4-4-0 express, which prevented the company from buying the optimal amount of rolling stock, but they hoped that it's speed would offset the extra passenger carriage, the train made it's first stop at Tredingworth falls Central, and made a profit of 2,000 pounds, which was enough to justify the cost of running it, and with further rolling stock, the train would hopefully be able to make an even bigger profit.
At the start of 1927, the train was given another passenger carriage, giving it greater capacity, making one round trip worth 8,000 pounds, not pocket money. However, it was obvious the network would have to expand, and due to a huge amount of passengers in Tredingworth falls and Canhall, those two cities were the likely target, with a stop in Wundtown as well. As well as a possible engine upgrade to the Nunigley - Canhall train, to increase profits, the company was thinking big.

Construction was started in June 1927, with the platform at Canhall expanded to handle bigger trains, and the railroad was already being laid, construction was going smoothly. Soon there was a station at Wundtown, but the long leg of the journey towards Tredingworth falls was now beginning, and construction was sure to take a while. However, disaster struck.



Chadston was now running with one less bus, however, this was not a massive setback, as the railroad line was nearly completed, which would make busses obsolete for anything other than inter-city travel. By the end of 1928, the new connection was complete, although without signals, so trains could not run on it yet, however, with the money rolling in that was soon to be a problem of the past(Construction cost was 35k, and that is without including signals, depots and trains, total construction cost will probably be in excess of 100k, especially considering the upgrading of my oldest train).

By august 1929, the route was completely finished, and by the start of 1930, the company was making a profit, however before another train would be set up, the company would need to have at least around 70,000 pounds, to even consider placing another train, which would take a while to build up.

Very nice log. The high building costs really adds to it, I might have to try that myself.

Only one problem I have is with the Trendingworth - Chadston line, which seems to be pointlessly windy, but I'm guessing you're going for the realism/looks approach?

More expansion
The company made some calculations, and decided that it would need roughly 140,000 pounds in order to run an optimal profit train on the Canhall-Trendingworth line, the company went into silence, slowly started repaying the loan to lower interest rates and in 1930 and 1931 there was no activity.

However it suddenly pounced back to life in 1932, and maxed out their loan, and bought themselves a shiny new locomotive and rolling stock, costing a total of 141,824 pounds.



This new train would be dubbed the "intercity express", offering blazing fast passenger transport on the Canhall - Trendingworth falls route, with an extra stop in Wundtown, it will also carry a mail wagon, in order to quickly move the amount of mail that was being left behind. The new train was the companies "major weapon" and provided the lucky citizens in selected cities, the chance to travel in complete luxury. The 4-6-2 pacific hauling 3 passenger wagons and a mail wagon, was a true beast of a machine. During it's first round trip, it made a total profit of 11,319, boosting the companies money stash significantly.

For 1933, the company did not do much, they added a mail wagon to the Chadston - Tredingworth Falls train route, and mostly focused on planning additional train routes, including a possible train station expansion at Tredingworth. They also built a bridge for road vehicles at the site of the old road vehicle accident, hoping to fix the problem. The company was also on the lookout for potential towns to add to the train network, and found a suitable candidate, however it would not initially be connected to the rail network, and would rather start off as it's own branch.



The Sardstone - Prendingstone Bay - Wratfingway triangle was selected as a prime candidate, the later two towns would be connected by a bus service, while Sardstone would have a train line going towards Prendingstone Bay, construction would be expensive, but the company deemed the expenses small enough to give the go ahead to construction.

The bus route excluding buses came to around 80,000 pounds cost, but the bus profit per trip was around 300 pounds, and the company had hoped to get 4 buses running on the route by 1935. The goal was achieved at the start of 1934, and the company began plans on building the railroad connection. However the initial costs were shocking.



This small bit of rail, that would cost about 5,000 on regular OTTD, cost me FIFTY THOUSAND, just to give you a general idea of just how batshit insane the prices can be. It was obvious the company would have to take it's time building this, and that it could not be rush, but the investors were sure the connection could be completed.



During april, the company added an extra bus station to both Canhall and Trendingworth falls, and added double deckers to the route, also helping out the bottleneck of passengers at both towns, another further bus station was also built between Canhall and Wundingtown, as the towns actually started joining together, the new buses were far better than the old Model T buses, bringing in a profit upwards of 1,000 pounds a month. In march 1935, the construction was complete, however, the cost was high;




The investors were shocked when the cost came in, excluding the trains, the rail construction alone required nearly 300,000 pounds to be constructed, the train would really have to pull a lot to make it through this, however the potential is there, and the investors hope the train will make a profit of at least 30,000 pounds per year, in order to make this project worthwhile. The train was to be passenger only, and started operating in December 1935, the 4-4-0 Express with 4 passenger wagons cost roughly 110,000 pounds. With the basis of the network being laid down, the company started work on repaying the loan.

However due to the increasing amount of passengers in Nunningley Market and Tredingworth Falls forced the company to build a second platform at Tredingworth, and added an extra train going towards Nunningley market in order to help with the passenger bottleneck at the station. This also forced a doubling of the track going from Wundtown to Tredingworth. However once up, the train helped the station move passengers, and while there still being passengers remaining at the station. Along with this came another station platform at Canhall, with the company starting to build another line towards a small town called Chafield (421) nearby.

Once the line was connected, the company investors decided that they want the newest top of the line train running on it, so the company had to drop down 200,000 pounds for their newest addition to the train fleet, a 4-6-2 Streamliner with 3 passenger wagons and a mail wagon.



More construction happened with Chadston connecting with Wundtown, and a train was added going from Chadston to Canhall, however without stopping at Wundtown. The train is a Pacific 4-6-0 Standard Five, giving a nice balance between cost, speed and power, at a fair price of 68,000. It is running 2 passenger and 2 mail wagons, making it differ from the usual train fleet, and to help the massive amount of mail being left behind at Canhall. The train began operating in September. For the rest of the year the company started paying back as much of the loan as possible, and when 1940 came the company managed to pay of 90,000 pounds of the loan.
1940 main train network overview: