Electric Locomotive

The Electric Locomotive is a vehicle used to transport cargo and engineers along the Railway. Connected Freight Cars can be loaded/unloaded via a Freight Platform. The Electric Locomotive can be automated, by setting a list of Train Stations for it to stop at.

Multiple cargo freight cars and locomotives can be attached together to form a single train. Trains are currently the fastest vehicle in game, capable of reaching over 365km/h downhill, allowing for efficient long range resource transportation.

Power

 * It requires 25MW of power to operate, and up to 110MW if the train is going uphill or gaining speed.
 * If the railway is not powered, you cannot accelerate the train. You can still brake a moving train on a powerless railway.

Construction

 * Do not build the locomotive on a slope, as it will start moving by itself, making it difficult to take control of.
 * To add more locomotive or Freight cars to the train, select the blueprint and hover your mouse near the railway around the rear of the current locomotive until you see the 'snap', then click to confirm. You can connect to either to the front or the rear. You could connect them even if the train is moving.
 * There is no option to detach nor attach the connected trains. The only way to re-arrange the train is by de-construct then re-construct.
 * A locomotive need not to be at the front portion of a train. It could be placed at the end or at the middle. However, automated trains will only work if there is at least 1 locomotive at the leading section of the train, or both ends if the train is double-headed.

Deconstruction

 * You cannot deconstruct the locomotive when it is moving, wait until it completely stops. You could deconstruct the trains and railways in any order.

Collision

 * Trains and railways currently do not have any collision along the travel direction. Trains will not collide with each other nor with anything else. This holds true even if a player is in the train, that means riding a train can clip through build-able structures and natural terrain, if the railway is built to do so. Engineer will not die if hit by a moving train.
 * The side of the train has collisions. However it only prevents the player from clipping through the side and will not cause train collisions.

Train length

 * On horizontal railway, a locomotive can pull more freight cars easily (up to 100 per locomotive has been measured).
 * On uneven railway, it is advised to keep the ratio of locomotives and freight cars at 1:2.
 * A single locomotive can pull a maximum of 2 freight cars when moving steep uphill with a steady speed of 54km/h. More than that and the train will stop moving up somewhere middle of the slope.

Speed
Trains have horizontal max speed of 120km/h, or 121km/h without any freight car. When going down a long slope, trains can reach over 365km/h. Trains suffer speed loss when going uphill or in curves. Locomotive alone moves at 91km/h when climbing up the steepest possible slope of 1:2.322. Trains with higher freight cars to locomotive ratio take more time to accelerate and brake. Manually driven trains can go backwards without receiving speed penalty.

While in manual driving, pressing the opposite direction key will brake the train. Pressing the hand brake key together to brake the train more effectively.

Round Trip Time
Two end-to-end stations with a 8 km-long railway in between are built, and the time taken for a round trip is measured: The train is configured as 1-n-1 double-headed train, where n is the number of freight cars attached in-between. Double-headed train with no fright car and manual drive is measured as a reference. Where freight car is present, the loading and unloading time of 25sec each are included.
 * (More precise measurements needed, please help.)

As shown from the table above, it is always advantageous to extend current train length instead of adding more trains. It saves power too.

Horn
Press left mouse button to horn.

Automation

 * Pressing the vehicle menu while in the train, or interact with any connected train station will bring up the train schedule. Set the name of the train and station name before doing so. Select your train in the train list. Set at least 2 different stations, you can pick the station and edit their order in a route.
 * The train station will only accept the incoming train from one direction. The train can depart from the station into any direction though.
 * If the train route is set for that train, it will always attempt to run in automated mode, there is no button to toggle between manual mode and auto mode. Entering a train will switch the train from auto mode to manual mode. To return to auto mode, the engineer has to exit the train. (You can stand above the locomotive if you want to take a 'auto' ride)
 * If the train does not want to move when in auto mode, check if the railway is connected properly. Check if all train stations are build at the correct direction. Check if power is connected to at least one of the station.
 * Automated trains accelerate slower, brake slower and brake more often at turns.
 * In a long train, all connected locomotives are treated as a single train. All connected locomotives provide pulling force regardless their direction faced. Thus it is advantageous to build at least 1 forward and 1 backward locomotive in a train.

Leaning
Train visually leans when curves.