What if, instead of being the head of a rapidly rebuilding railroad on a fast track to running a Berk to Andrews, you wanted to go a little slower? To struggle a little more? To run a penniless industrial shortline with bankruptcy looming over your head?

Introducing the Dillsboro Industrial Line.


You start massively in debt with a lot of track to cover as a small-time short line industrial railroad. You will need to earn the privilege of running captive service and passenger service (more on these rule later).

Heavy debt means regular interest payments and slower expansion.

No captive service means you are only getting paid a little less than $100 a car, one or two at a time only.

No passenger service means you max out at 70% railroad rating and get almost no discounts.

Have fun!

First things first, set the time to 1:1. You'll need a bit more time because you will be doing everything by yourself.

I like the "Somewhat Blocked" option for the interchange traffic. It's varied enough to throw you the occasional surprise without being totally overwhelming. But pick what you like; "Hostile" can be fun if you like switching.

Likewise, I have picked "Low" braking force since that make the trains feel really heavy.

Next, take out a $20,000 or more loan. There is now a ticking clock to your first interest payment.

Now, use that loan to buy the Track to Sylva, the Dillsboro Yard, the Dillsboro Engine Service, and the Dillsboro Yard Storage Tracks. You can't really be the Dillsboro Industrial Line without owning Dillsboro.



Finally, take the two Diesel Fueling Stand milestones and the Repair Ela Track and Bridge. You should now have every single available and almost no money left.

Previous versions of this guide used either selling or deleting much of the rolling stock you start with (selling is less difficult; deleting is much more difficult). But after having played around with things for a while, I've come up with something more interesting.



This Ten Wheeler isn't yours. It belongs to the passenger service that you share this railroad with. Rerail it, pull it down to Dillsboro and repair it, then leave it on the Sylva passenger siding near but not at the station. We will come back to it...eventually.



This passenger car? Same thing (only it's not damaged).



This also frees up the DILL 1 locomotive number for you to use on your Mogul if you like.



These logging cars? They belong to the East Whittier Saw Mill. You can't use them (or sell them!) until you "unlock" their captive service.

Okay, so how do you get captive service going then?

You can start doing the various captive services when you have built and fully fuelled the diesel stand for the closest Engine Service location. This doesn't exactly make logical sense, I know, but it's a good little multi-step process that takes time and money and can be entirely tracked in-game.

You will need to complete all of the Diesel Stand Upgrade deliveries and then bring a tanker car and a half of diesel fuel to each one (this will be expensive and likely take several days for each one).

You must take at least a Tier 1 contract on all industrial customers on the line except:

• Sylva Paperboard and/or Parson's Tannery Co. (unlocked with Dillsboro Diesel Stand)
  
• Whittier Sawmill Co. (East Whittier Diesel Stand)
  
• Robinson Gap Coal Company (Bryson Diesel Stand)
  
• Alarka Copper Co. (Alarka Diesel Stand)
  
• Snowbird Paper (Andrews Diesel Stand)

Keep in mind that other than the logging cars in Whittier, you'll also need to budget for cars for your new captive services.

You will need to use the AI engineer for all locomotive moves except lining up with the coal chutes and water towers (this is really tedious to do using the AI). This is a train operations game more than a train sim game, so lean into that.

Ride in the caboose. Throw switches and connect hoses in first person. The game is easier when you are whipping through the air, but its more fun when you are climbing over and around the rolling stock.

Also, this adds an additional small but ongoing expense to running trains. It's only like one car drop to cover your engineer's wages for a long while, but it's still fun to see come up on the finance panel.

This guide originally had you toggle sandbox mode and delete almost all the rollings stock, then had a new set of starting conditions where you sold most of the rolling stock instead. I've kept both of these earlier versions of the guide below for reference, but you can stop reading here if you are just interested in the current set of rules.

Alternatively, if you want to have something to haul on your first trip to Sylva, you can gather up all the stuff around East Whittier and bring it down with you.



If you can't figure out how I used the switches and the Connelly Creek wye to assemble this train, maybe hard mode isn't for you just yet.



I used the time while the AI engineer was driving to renumber and customize my cars (I decided on #336699 as my company colour). The logging cars are all getting sold; I'll need to rebuy them all later if I want to start delivering to the mill.



This time I also kept the passenger car and the Ten Wheeler, instead of selling or deleting them. Still not going to do any passenger runs, though. Enjoy a maximum possible rating of 70 percent!



This time, I repaired it, fueled it, and set it out near but not at a passenger station. It brings a nice bit of extra detail to the save without actually making it much easier (it does count towards the collateral for loans, at least!)

Now, switch to Sandbox mode ("/mode sandbox" on the Console) and fly over to the log cars at the Sawmill. Logs are incredibly profitable, and make the game pretty easy.



So delete them!



That second locomotive that just needs to sit in the shop for a bit?



Delete it!

Passenger service gives you a third of your Performance Rating just for making a few passengers stops?



Too easy; delete it!

Oh, and your rolling stock is your collateral for your loans, so now you owe $20,000 out of a maximum of just under $10,000. Enjoy your garbage credit rating.

Switch back to Company mode ("/mode company" on the Console).

You can keep the caboose. That's your office.

Walk (not teleport!) over to the switch to the coal car. Flip it, then tell your engineer to move forward to couple to it. Walk up to it and tie on the air.



Walk back to the switch and tell your engineer to move back on to the engine shop track. Flip the two switches in front of him and roll forward to the water and coal. (You can use manual mode for this part, since the AI engineer can't really do this part.)



Top up on water and take the 1 ton of coal still in the coal conveyor.

Hop on to the back of the tender and hold on while you roll back to the yard (at 15 miles an hour of course, because that's the yard limit!). Tell your engineer to stop short of the switches behind the Engine Shop and hop down. Flip the first two switches. Move backwards to the next switch and go past it.



Hop down and flip the switch after the coal car goes past. Couple it to your caboose. Unhook your locomotive and back up past the switch again.

Using this same process of stopping and jumping down off the loco and flipping switches, take your loco past the Whittier wye, back on to the wye, and head back to East Whittier Yard pointing the other way.





Couple to your little eastbound train you've made, and head to Dillsboro. When you get there, uncouple your two cars on the mainline and back into the Engine Service area. Top up your water and fill your coal all the way up - the Dillsboro Coal Tower comes with 38 tons of coal in it already; lucky you! Note, you will need to save the game and quit to the main menu before you can use the new Milestone unlocks like these.





Use the turntable to reverse your locomotive in preparation for tomorrow's westbound run. Back your train onto the Sylva Interchange Yard. Make sue you set the coal car Loads and Empties if you want to use it right away - I recommend setting it to East Whittier since Dillsboro still has thirty-something tons of coal.

You can take the rest of the day off.

When you wake up, you'll have paid for some coal, payroll on your shops, and your engineer.



You'll also discover that without running passenger service, no one really cares about your dingy little industrial line. Sorry.



Okay, now for the really hard part. Switch to sandbox mode again. Type "/money cheat -xxxx" where the xxxx is all your money. Note the minus in front of the number. Switch back to company mode.



Okay, now you are running an indebted, unloved, dingy little penniless industrial shortline.

Well, no time to worry about that; it's time to get to work. The 1st Class blocked out your cars for you; that's awfully nice of them. But your East Whittier coal car and your caboose are not part of that neat little line, so take a moment to get them ready for your first westbound train.





You'll need to deliver those cars, and do a good job of it because the future of your company depends on it. It costs about $100 a day to run your railroad, you have about 80 tons of coal to keep your engine running, and you owe $2,000 in interest payments in three days. Oh, and you need to pay in full for any new cars you want, because you are broke and your credit is trashed.

Good luck!

Your first full day on the industrial shortline will only give you a limited number of drops and no pickups and you are only going to have Tier 1 because you are an upstart, so it's not the most profitable day.



But you covered your coal and payroll for the day, so it's a start.