Freight Car

Freight Cars are non-motorized vehicles that can be attached to Electric Locomotives or another Freight Car to form a train. They have a capacity of 32 item slots or 1,600 m³ for fluids and allow for the transportation of resources over Railways. Freight Cars can be loaded and unloaded via Freight Platforms or Fluid Freight Platforms.

Appearance[]

If at least one item is loaded, a freight container will be shown. Items can be either loaded manually or with Freight Platforms.
If any fluid is loaded, a fluid tank will be shown. Fluids can be only loaded with Fluid Freight Platforms. Much like Pipeline networks, a single Freight Car can only carry one type of fluid at a time.
- When carrying fluids, a flush option will appear similar to Pipelines. Flushing a fluid tank will remove all the fluid from the car, and the tank.
- Only the selected car will be flushed. Other cars in the train and any Fluid Freight Platform will be unaffected.
A single Freight Car cannot carry fluid and items simultaneously.
If nothing is loaded, only the undercarriage is shown.

Weight[]

An empty Freight Car weighs 30 t. The weight of its payload is determined by the following factors:

If any cargo is loaded at all, the weight increases by 14 t
For each full stack loaded, the weight increases by 1.75 t
For each 10m³ of fluid, the weight increases by 0.35 t

Therefore, the maximum weight of a Freight Car is 100 t while fully loaded with items or fluid.

The table below shows the number of Freight Cars a single Locomotive can pull, depending on the incline of the Railway.

Data	1m Ramp (2m Double Ramp)	2m Ramp (4m Double Ramp)	4m Ramp* (8 m Double Ramp)*
Max. weight of Train	1644 t	838 t	509 t
Max. weight of Freight Cars	1344 t	538 t	209 t
Max. number of Freight Cars (empty)	44	17	6
Max. number of Freight Cars (half full)	18	7	3
Max. number of Freight Cars (fully loaded)	13	5	2

(*Note: Railways can't actually be constructed on 4m Ramps. Use these numbers as guideline for really steep inclines instead)

Train throughput[]

Main article: Electric Locomotive#Train throughput

The maximum throughput of a single train can be calculated in stacks/min or fluid m³/min using the following values:

Total round-trip duration of the train
Amount of Freight Cars
Storage capacity of each Freight Car (currently 32 stacks or 1600 m³)

Then, the equation is:

$Throughput={Storage\ capacity\times Amount\ of\ carriages \over Round\ trip\ duration}$

E.g. for a train of three carriages that completes the round trip in five minutes:

${32\times 3 \over 5}=19.2$ stacks per minute or ${1600\times 3 \over 5}=960$ m³ per minute.

For more detailed info see the section on throughput on the Electric Locomotive page linked above.

Trivia[]

During the unloading animation, the crane at the (Fluid) Freight Platform will grab the container (tank) from the Freight Car and then drop at the cargo of the Freight Platform.
If the Freight Platform does not have enough free space to load/unload all items, a different animation will be played:
- When unloading a Freight Car, the container/tank will be hoisted above the Freight Platform cargo. Its door is opened from below with its contents dropped into the Platform cargo. It will then be placed back onto the Freight Car undercarriage.
- When loading a Freight Car, the Freight Platform crane will pick up the cargo of the platform, hoist it above the Freight Car and load it similarly.
If an engineer is standing on the undercarriage and loads an item, the freight container will spawn and instantly kill the engineer. If a Freight Platform loads a container over an engineer, the engineer will die the same way. However, engineers can ride the container when it's being unloaded.
Unlike motor vehicles, trains do not knock down the player upon contact, instead, the train phases through.
While docking, freight platforms performing a loading operation will pause belts and manual interactions, but platforms that do not load or unload anything do not pause. However, all freight cars in the docked train will refuse manual interaction during the docking sequence, regardless of loading.
Freight Cars are the only building in the game that can be loaded with either fluids or items. All others are restricted to one or the other, or else take both at once.

Current issues[]

Dismantling a Freight Car carrying fluid will cause a dismantle crate with the fluid to appear, instead of deleting the fluid much like when a Pipeline or Fluid Buffer is dismantled. The fluid cannot be picked up into the inventory, therefore, the only way to get rid of the crate is to drag the fluid within to the trash slot (Ctrl+drag deletes all of the same type).
Loading items into an empty Freight Car while standing on the undercarriage will cause the freight container to appear over the pioneer, causing instant death.

Gallery[]

A train with four Freight Cars at Freight Platforms (old graphic)
An arriving Train with two Locomotives and seven empty Freight Cars
Three Freight Cars, one empty, one with a fluid tanker, and one with a cargo container

History[]

Patch 0.5.0.0: Freight Cars now have weight based on whether and how much cargo is loaded
Patch 0.3.7
- Attempt at reducing Freight Car update costs
- Fixed tick type for Freight Cars
Patch 0.3.4.14
- Trains and Freight Cars now snap better to each other at track intersections and turnouts
- Fluid Freight Cars now display the proper capacity of the buildings in their description
- Increased storage capacity for Fluid Freight Cars, from 500 to 1600 m³
Patch 0.3.2.0 Fluid Freight Cars now have proper fluid UI
Patch 0.3.1.1 Fluid Freight Cars can now handle 500 m³ of fluid instead of 50 m³
Patch 0.3: Now supports fluid containers and allows fluids to be transported
Patch 0.1.16: Are now unlockable in game