LOCOMOTION UK - Station Guide

Building stations is what Locomotion is about... let's face it, trains are awesome, and rake in the cash. The downside is the fortune they cost to build, especially when you start involving bridges. Luckily, the station catchment areas in Locomotion can be extended with the sneaky placement of other station pieces, but for this example I've used the humble bus stop because they're cheap and cheerful, and let you run buses to the station too!

Say you built the following station:

You can see from the catchment area that the houses in the circle aren't included in the catchment area. I want them to be. We can build some bus stops to achieve this:

Placing the bus stop here would cover the desired area, but would start a new station (as shown in the road construction box, top left).

To extend a station, stations must be built within 2 squares of the existing station, otherwise a new station will be created. Thus, by placing a station here...

...within 2 squares of the station, I can now place another station in the original desired location, because it's now 2 squares rather than 3 from an existing station 'building'.

The bus stop has now been placed as shown above, and the passengers from the houses can use the train station :)

By adding bus stops every 2 squares along the bridge, the catchment area now includes the oil well, and so you can pick oil up from the station too.

This technique isn't always a great idea - the extra 2 passengers a year obtained from including an extra house might not generate the money you spent on extending the station, but the 4 bus stops along the bridge is far cheaper than building a new bridge and station! In theory, the station could be extended across a town to an airport or such, or to link 2 train terminals on 2 sides of a town, just build one first, then a chain of bus stops and then the other. Once built, stations can't be joined.

There is a limit to how large stations can be, but if you're trying to stretch them too much, I'd say it's time to dust the moths off the wallet and splash out on a new station Scrooge!