How to build embankment railway?

[Boeing777300ER]

Hi I am looking to learn how to build a railway on an embankment other than using the embankment rail peices available in the STEX downloads, which are excellent but just don't do the job I am after. There is a great looking 4 line embankment station available and I have no idea how to build the corresponding rails to use it.

Any help, or a kick in the right direction would be much appreciated.

Thanks, Dave.

[belfastsocrates]

Can you post a link to the station you want to use? That may help us determine how best to build.

[isii94]

You can build embankments simply by lifting the ground by 15.5m (there are hole diggers/ground lifters included in the NAM). After lifting the ground you can level it by placing street stubs next to each other. The railways can either be heavy rail or GLR, for bridges simply switch to viaduct rail or standard elevated rail. For decoration you can use things like retaining walls, trees, grass or fences.

[Boeing777300ER]

Thanks for the replies so far, I have posted the link to the station I would like to use which seems to be higher than the 15.5m height mentioned above. The poster said that there is a topic in the forums as to how to build the embankment to match, but I cannot find anything.

http://community.simtropolis.com/files/file/3693-embankment-rail-station-4track/

Once again any help is much appreciated.

Regards, Dave.

[isii94]

This embankment can be built just as I said. It will look better with rail viaduct bridges instead of tunnels through the embankment.
I'm not sure, though, if the hole diggers/ground lifters are included in the default installation of the NAM.

[APSMS]

Hi Dave,

While the lot in question certainly looks like it's on much higher ground, I doubt that is going to be a big issue. Likely the reason the ground is so high is because tunnels were used to let car traffic pass by (the NAM didn't exist at the time, so no rail viaducts).

I suspect the lot would work well on any rail embankment of reasonable size. I think ground lifters come with the NAM by default, but I'd do quick look-through of your Misc. Transit menu to be sure. The icons are numbered and unmistakable.

If you really want the ground to be as high as in the pics (a tad too high since the trains will start becoming easy targets for stray wind gusts), remember that the ground lifter effects stack. Plop one, extend it out a bit (3-7 tiles or so). Then plop another (any height) and repeat until you have the height you want, then use the single road-tile leveling effect and plop away (no need for the lifters once you reach your needed height; the road tiles do the rest of the work). Keep in mind that anything over the 15.5m mark will prevent you from using the Railway viaducts properly (they'll look off if you're just a bit over or under; after that they either won't place or they'll change your slope, neither of which you want).

[mgb204]

I think it's already been said, but that's a pretty old lot you've linked to, the problem of using a station with an embankment was due to the fact that the Maxis station sits next to the rail line, not upon them. Therefore if you had an embankment, you'd have to place the station on the embankment too because the game will auto-terraform when you plopped the station on uneven ground making a 2-track embankment a minimum of 3 tiles wide.

Thanks to the NAM and newer features, you could just plop any station that actually sits on the rails, just place it on the raised embankment (I use 15m), and connect it to a road below using any Pedestrian Transit Enabled Lot or NAM Pedmalls on the slope. Here is an example of where I've done this, the TE lot is from MAS 71's Walls pack.



Using this setup you can use pretty much any station you like, for example if done with Marrast's stations you could keep an embankment only one tile wide for 2-track rail as these stations do not take up any space outside of the rail tiles.

[Boeing777300ER]

Many thanks for all the replies, they have proved to be most useful. I now have a fully working embankment railway system, with stations.

I hope someone else finds this info as helpful as I have, now I think we can send this subject to bed!!

Once again thanks guys!