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Engines allow you to move goods around. The number and type of the engines you have, determine the amount of goods you can transport, and thereby how much money and prestige you earn.

Each era has its own selection of engines on offer. The goods that become available in each era can only be transported by the engines that belong in the same era or higher - except that each era has a final item of technology that can be researched, a coupling, that allows all trains of the era to carry the goods of the next era.

You can see the specs of each engine type by following the media link on the rail-nation home page, or on this wiki.

In Rail Nation, there are three types of engines: steam, diesel and electric.

  • Eras 1 and 2 have Steam engines.
  • Eras 3 and 4 have Diesel engines.
  • Eras 5 and 6 have Electric engines.

The only time this makes a difference, is when you have a worker that gives a boost to a certain type of engine, e.g. Rudolf Diesel increases the speed of diesel engines by 30 km/h.

The number of engines you can own is determined by the level of your Engine House. As you advance through the game, you'll upgrade your engine house to operate more engines, and you'll replace your engines with better models. The maximum number of engines you can have is increased with the each era.

The sales price when discarding an engine is always 44% of the purchase price, independent of any upgrades made to the engine or by the current condition when selling.

Upgrades

Each engine has a number of available upgrades. An upgrade can only be bought once it has been researched. Some upgrades are also requirements for researching the more advanced engines of an era. These are shown with full lines on the Research screen. The upgrades shown with dashed lines are optional, and not required for researching the next engine.

Servicing

Keywords: DA: Reparation, DE: Wartung, ES: Revisar, FI: Huoltu, NL: Onderhoud, NO: Reparasjoner, PL: Serwisowanie, PT: Manutenção, SV: Reparation

The condition of an engine affects its max speed. If the condition is low, the max speed drops. The condition is restored by servicing the engine. The reliability of an engine determines how quickly its conditition deteriorates.

Bonus Engines

Each era, and the endgame, has a bonus engine. The bonus engines have quite good specs, and don't count towards the maximum number of engines you can own. You can only own one of each bonus engine. The bonus engine can't be bought like a regular engine. The only way to get it, is to win it in the lottery,in a competition or if you purchage the retail-box. In the lottery you can win the bonus engine of the current era, whereas competitions will only let you win the bonus engine of the previous era.

Evaluating Engine Performance

Reliability is a measure of decrement of engine speed in time. If the reliability of an engine is 60%, it implies that the speed of that engine will drop to 60% of its rated speed in 24 hours. The drop in speed is linear in time. In other words, engines with higher reliability will need less servicing.

Acceleration is increment of speed when the train departs from a station. It is given without a standard physical unit, and it varies between 1 and 20 in the game. The acceleration is independent of the mass of goods hauled.

WSP is short of "Waggon-Speed Product". If an engine can haul 6 waggons, and its maximum speed is 120km/h, then its WSP value is 6x120=720. WSP is a measure of amount of goods carried in long time, assuming that the delay of initial acceleration is neglected. An engine with higher WSP will carry more resources between distant locations. The WSP should be adjusted for the number of slots an engine takes up in the engine house, before it is used to compare engines.

Choosing the right engine should be done by referring to these criteria. Some engines have very high service costs, so reliability is important for them. If goods are transported between two neighbour stations or goods-integration is used frequently, an engine with high acceleration should be preferred. If goods are transported between two distant points, speed is more important than acceleration. The importance of tractive force is of course the same for long and short distances. In practice, and particularly in the later eras of the game, you'll often be transporting goods over long distances, so the WSP will often be a good indicator of how useful an engine is.

Lists of Available Engines

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