My 2 competitions the 1998 summer - Mike's tropical scene, and Brian's subarctic U.S.A. - have caused some comments on the 'walking' of TT stations.
Some later competitions have had rules about 'not walking stations far across the map ...'.

But how far is far?

In principle I agree: walking stations across half the map is not a good thing; A competition might be won by the player with the longest station-walk, combined with a lucky subsidy early in the game. After that, no one else could catch up.
But TT should be about many good investments, and good combinations of several resources, and good railway design; not about just one lucky project.

So how far is far? Consider these 3 figures. To avoid stressing my painful mouse-hand, I do this in 'coloured HTML'.
O=station Origin (name plate); B=Bus station; R=Railway station:
s=STRETCH = maximum distance between station elements.
w=WALK = distance from Origin to nearest station element (for w add NS and EW tiles).

A:. . . . . . . this one is walked quite far.

RRRRRR
RRRRRR	...............	B	..................................................................	O

<............s..........><................................w...............................>

B:. . . . . . . this one is walked just a few tiles from the Origin.

RRRRRR
RRRRRR	...............	B	............	O

<............s..........><....w.....>

C:. . . . . . . this one is walked 0 tiles - Origin==Bus station.

RRRRRR	...............	B
RRRRRR	...............	O

The maximum stretch is limited by the program, and can be 8 to 16 tiles, depending on the directions. For some reason (program bug?) the program has left the walk unlimited.

So I would like a discussion, and finally a rule, about how long the allowed maximum walk should be in competition games.

The program has a kind of limit: If the origin of a station is more than 16 tiles (NS+EW) from a secondary resource station element, no secondary resources (Goods, Steel, Food, Paper) will be produced there.

So the maximum walk should be no longer than 16 tiles. That's quite enough. But how long should it be?

16 tiles?
12 tiles?
8 tiles?
4 tiles?
0 tiles?
or some other value?

Reactions please! let's see if we can get a consensus on this!
or put it to the vote.

NOTE! . . It is sometimes necessary to temporarily walk away from the station origin: with the origin on the left, and the Rail station on the right - if one wants full stretch - one must remove station bits near to the origin to complete the rail station. later, one may walk back left to the origin and put bus station etc there.

-- . -- . -- . -- . -- . -- . -- . -- . -- . -- . -- . -- . -- . -- .

Rules or no rules - in the game I'm working on now, I intend to keep station walks quite short - zero most of the time.
But I use any station stretch the program allows me!

Stretching the station is what allows you to gather more than one resource to it. With multi resource stations, trains can carry more than one thing, and can often carry different stuff both ways; making it possible to use long trains without making them too heavy.

With a single-resource station, you may have a choice between 1 train, 5 wagons;
and 2 trains, 3 wagons; not very efficient - engines are expensive.
But maybe the 2 trains are needed to keep ratings up!?
With a 3-resource station - you can now use 3 trains, length 5; or 2 trains, length 7 to 8, but some carriages empty (Wood one way, Coal+Goods the other).

So Stretch is good! It makes the game more complex and interesting. You need to foresee the synergy effects, and what you can earn from them.

Another example: You have found a good 80% 2-way wood line: Wood from A to B. Short trip to C. Wood from C to D. Short trip back to A.
You would like a round trip A - B - C - D - A on 1-way tracks.

       C---------\  /-------------------A
                  \/     (this shows badly...)
                  /\     (on some browsers)
 B---------------/  \---------------D

But you don't like those crossed lines - you don't like bridges / tunnels - maybe there's a city or a mountain in the way?
If B and C are close enough to form just 1 station, the problem is solved.
If not, but still rather close, try this:

. . . .	C
BBB	------	---------------------------------------------	AAA
.	.
. . . . .	CCC	---------------------------------------------	DDD
B

I hope this shows correctly in your browser. the single B, C are Origin + Bus station. The triple BBB, CCC .... are railway stations.
By extending stations B and C across each other, you eliminate the rail crossing problem! and the rail lines get shorter too.

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Last updated: walkstat.htm 2003-0904a ,0203,0105,(990404, 0319)