• Cities Skylines Mods Subway Train
• How To Mod Cities Skylines

Oct 1, 2015 - Steam Workshop: Cities: Skylines. Of the More Train Tracks mod I figured we could use a little more diesel powered passenger transport. Cities Skylines Transportation System Guide – Buses, Metro, Trains, Airlines and Ships. There are a number of modes of public transportation in Cities Skylines. You can create and control buses, trains, airplanes, metro, and more. This guide is essentially an overview of transportation system in Cities Skylines. For more help on Cities Skylines, read How to Manage Pollution, How to Build Roads and Milestones Guide. The base game of Cities: Skylines is really good. Throw in the official DLC and you've got a great management simulator. Adding in community-created mods into the mix takes things to the next level.

I struggled at first with making my trains operate in an optimal manner. All they seemed to do is cause traffic jams on my streets, fail to deliver enough of the citizenry and cargo to the various destinations, and general provide a giant pit to throw money into and burn. Eventually the entire rail system would come to a grinding halt, as a myriad of cargo and passenger trains would block each other’s path. This guide is meant to help solve these problems. I learned all of the following through observations and much Trial/Errors. I hope this helps many of you out there.

Station Placement

Passenger stations should be placed first near residential areas and then near any possible destinations like the places of work or commercial centers. (So everywhere, really)

Cargo stations should be placed in industrial areas including the specialized forrestry, ore, agriculter, and oil areas of your city. This will greatly reduce heavy vehicle traffic coming into the city from outside and even reduce heavy vehicle traffic from one area to another. Heavy vehicles will still be present as they still need to travel between the industrial buildings and the cargo station.

Rail Placement

Rail placement is key to avoiding unnecessary vehicle traffic on the streets and to avoiding the backups on the rails that can bring all trains to a grinding halt. Heed the following for much better results.
1. Place two sets of rails! One rail is for your passenger trains and one is for the cargo trains. I know what you are thinking. “That’s going to take up a lot of space and cost double the money!” Well, yes. But its worth it. When you inevitably need to connect the two lines to pre-existing track (to connect to the outside world) place the intersection as far from your city as possible as this will be a choke point. In the photo below- The track on the right is exclusively passenger trains (meaning the track only connects to passenger train stations in the city and only joins the main line as far away as possible) The track on the left is exclusively cargo trains and also only connects to the main line far from the city.

Cities Skylines Mods Subway Train

2. When you construct intersecting rails, make the track long enough in the intersection to hold at least an entire train length. One train may have to wait while another passes in front of it before it can move again. If there is enough space in the intersection, then the train behind the waiting train would not be blocked from continuing on it’s way. (assuming it’s not going to the same location) Also, when placing the passenger and cargo lines to the main line, make the two interactions far from each other so that there is no back up on the main line. If there were more than a momentary back up on any line, it will cascade to backup the entire system.

3. Elevate the rail lines in the city! (Or elevate the roads over the rails, which I found far more difficult.) Trains have the right of way when rail meets the road. This means that your vehicles have to wait for the train to pass through before the vehicles can cross the tracks. Also, if a train is stopped and blocking a crossing, then no vehicles are going anywhere. So to avoid that mess all together, just construct your track off the ground. (page up and page down keys) One elevation is enough to freely pass over ground level roads and other rail. Although you may go much higher if you wish. Just leave enough space to drop the elevation of the track as it approaches the stations in order to make the connections. This will cost a bit more money per section of elevated track. The higher you go the more it will cost. But again, it’s well worth it.

4. All of this may seem to be overkill and a bit paranoid, however, all this work will pay off for your city. It should also be stated that nothing I have done has ever completely worked 100%. Given enough stations and a high enough population, your rails will eventually clog and become useless. This just delays the Armageddon that awaits.

Example City

Here are some photos of a city I constructed to test these concepts. ( Early photos before I allowed it to develop so its easier to see the lines and stations.) It is a bit complex and way overkill, but it worked really well. I made about 7 million, then leveled everything and made this which costs about 5 1/2 million. Although an easier way would be to do this to your favorite city, section by section so that it isn’t a money pit and a big risk of utter failure for going bankrupt. I had to restart several times from this save to jump start this city into existence and I had 1.5 million in the bank. I didn’t help that the weekly road maintenance was 11,000+

Please feel free to leave any tips or corrections on this subject in the comments. I may include them, time and testing permitting. Thanks.

Source: Ultimate Guide to Proper Train System

The base game of Cities: Skylines is really good. Throw in the official DLC and you've got a great management simulator. Adding in community-created mods into the mix takes things to the next level. We've compiled a list of some of the mods we use on the PC version of Cities: Skylines. If you've played through the game a number of times and wish to look at adding something new to the experience, take a gander at our recommendations.

Automatic Bulldoze (v2)

This mod is actually a spin-off of the original Automatic Bulldoze mod, which is no longer supported by the developer. Luckily, Mexahuk took over and released a new version in the Workshop to allow mayors to continue taking full advantage of the automated removal of buildings. Why is this mod so important? When running a large city with thousands of people, it becomes a chore to spot and remove abandoned buildings. This handy tool takes care of it.

Precision Engineering

Colossal Order improved the road tools in the most recent free update rolled out with the Mass Transit DLC, but it hasn't gone far enough to replace everything Precision Engineering brings to the table. The mod adds angle and distance measurements when laying down asphalt, as well as height (relative to ground level). It actually works well with the latest version of Cities: Skylines, though there is a slight overlap.

City Vitals Watch

This is one of my favorites. City Vitals Watch gives you a glance-friendly overlay of all important statistics regarding city management. There are level indications for electricity, water, sewage, employment, trash, and more. This saves clicking on each services tab to see just how departments are performing.

Rush Hour

How To Mod Cities Skylines

This is the big one. I don't recommend playing Cities: Skylines without Rush Hour enabled, it's that good. Unfortunately, the mod has yet to be updated to take advantage of natural disasters, let alone Mass Transit, but we're hopeful the developer will return to bring us up-to-date magic. Here's just a taster of what Rush Hour brings to the table:

• User-creatable events, allowing for buildings to have events of their own.
• Special random events that draw in a large number of 'cims'.
• Population reacts to the time of day (schools and jobs are more accurate), which progresses slower than vanilla — hence the mod name.

The last highlight we've covered is the main feature of Rush Hour, which offers more challenges to even more experienced city planners. Prepare your road network!

Traffic Manager: President Edition

Traffic Manager: President Edition adds a number of new features to — unsurprisingly — help better manage traffic. With this mod active, it's possible to toggle traffic lights and yield/stop signs at junctions, set up timed signals, modify speed restrictions, and even disallow vehicles on certain roads. My favorite feature is the ability to connect lanes to switch up which lanes vehicles need to be in to use a junction exit. Also, with this mod installed and the setting enabled, it's not required to install a dedicated no vehicle despawn mod.

Prop & Tree Anarchy

This is a super simple mod that simply allows for the placement of trees and props in-game under water, on roads or within building footprints. While this can lead to strange encounters where traffic moves through foliage stuck on roads if not removed, it's an incredible piece of kit that allows for a more realistic-looking city. Here's a helpful hint: use the More Beautification mod below with this one to get the most out of Prop & Tree Anarchy.

Network Extensions 2

Should you happen to find yourself with a lack of roads to choose from, Network Extensions 2 is your golden solution. This mod adds a number of new road types, including highways, residential roads, and even some dedicated public transport types.

Move It!

This mod does exactly what it says in the name. With it installed it's possible to move all manner of things, including buildings, trees, props, and nodes (for roads, quays, etc.).

Other Must-have Mods

Here are some other mods that are worthy of honorable mention, so be sure to check them out alongside our main feature list to see if any catch your attention.