[MandelSoft]

Looks like an interresting update. I'll give further comment later, since my computer refuses to load any picture on this page 

EDIT: Well I can see them now. Here are some points of critic:
- You're starting with a RHW-6C. I know this is common in the UK, but in "continental" Europe and the US a four-lane motorway (two lanes in each direction) is more common. Even in the Netherlands, one of the densest populated countries in the world.
- You missed something: you haven't placed a neighbour connector piece at the neighbour connection of your motorway, making the connections useless.
- I always use accelleration and deccelleration lanes at my ramps. Therefore I use more C- and D-style ramps, rather than A- or B-style Ramps. At these lanes, drivers can accelerate and merge with the traffic on the motorway more fluently, and this is particulary usefull when the motorway is busy with traffic. Decelleration lanes are also helping controlling the traffic flow. With your setup of the fork/Y-interchange, the congestion problems at the southbound will be significant: 5 lanes are merging to just three lanes in a quite short distance. I see congestion to occur very quickly.
- I would use FLEXFly for the fork interchange southbound ramp in a situation with RHW-6C. Personally I would use for this interchange RHW-8 Splitters and let a ERHW-4 pass over a diagonal RHW-4.
- If I was building a motorway here I would stay in the valley at the south side of your city tile.
- The roundabout interchange is nice. I believe you use asterconn's method for that one?

Best,
Maarten

[WillG_75]

Useful topic. I never knew about the show grid option in Paint.

[Nardo69]

Nice one. RHW is one of those task that old oldfashioned donkey of me hasn't mastered - maybe because never really tried.

One think I need to criticize though: before I start laying out highways and main roads I layout the railway network. Historically older and more sensitive to slopes it'll create some fix points for highways and roads, not the other way round.

Other than that_ like it!

Take care!

Bernhard 

[travismking]

heh bernhard I think you lay out the railway networks first cuz thats what you enjoy doing, and your damn good at it I tend to lay out highways first as well

[smileymk]

Interesting reaction. People have spotted things that I clearly didn't! Your suggestions have been helpful, and I thank you for those.

io_bg: What you've spotted is a texture glitch - very annoying, I know. There's not much I can do about it, so we're just going to have to put up with it.

mightygoose: Very well spotted. After some consideration, I've decided to take that advice and reroute the motorway along the edge of the valley. You'll see it below.

malibu_man: Understood, and I'm glad you like it.

j-dub: Lol. Nice try, but it doesn't fool me. Still funny though.

wallasey: 1) I totally agree, but that is for another lesson.
2) Rerouting the motorway through the valley has lead to the route being in a cutting/embankment as it climbs the hill. I think you'll like it.

mrtnrln: 1) My response to that would be to pick the style that's right for you. For me, RHW-6C is ideal, but for you it might be RHW-4 that is preferable. It's your city, do it your way.
2) It's a single-tile region, so the neighbour connectors don't go anywhere anyway, and you do not need neighbour connectors for RHW-6C or 8-C (it says this on the tooltip for neighbour connector pieces).
3) Maybe that is the setup in Holland, but here, accel/decel lanes are only used for important junctions (i.e. between motorways and other motorways/important through routes), so to use them always is, for me, unrealistic. But the spur is fairly important, so I did add another lane to the main motorway south of the fork.
4) I think it's more realistic if the 3 lanes of the main motorway continue right throughout the junction. FLEXFly would probably worsen the junction, as it has to swing to the right then back to the left to go on its journey, which is not appropriate for a motorway. It would also lessen capacity, causing congestion.
5) As I've said, I did reroute it.
6) Spot on. His YouTube tutorials are excellent.

WillG_75: You do now.

Nardo69: Roads did exist before railways (look at the Romans), although not as we know them today. There will be a lesson on railways, and this will teach to adjust the road setup to suit the railway.

travismking: That might be his style of play - if it works for him then great. If your method works for you, then that's also great.

Before we begin the lesson, let me show you that improved motorway:

Accel/decel lanes added to the fork:


Rerouted through that valley:


This illustrates an important point - be prepared to change your plan if, with hindsight, it turns out that there is a better alternative.

Now let's get on with the lesson, shall we?

Lesson 5 - Roads

Roads. They form an important backbone to your city, and it's easier to build them now than to squeeze them in later.
This lesson focuses on the main roads thorough the city. Later lessons will address the streets.

Our motorway has given us a couple of starting points to choose from. We will start from the roundabout interchange, where avenues branch off on either side. The plan calls for a roundabout to the east to serve the ring road. All you do for this is plop the roundabout in line with the existing avenue and drag out from the corners the other routes, like so:


The plan states that the avenue to the roundabout runs through the city, passing through the roundabout with the spur motorway. So we just drag a route through - but we soon hit a problem:


The slopes are too steep, even for an avenue. So we can't go straight through the valley. We have to pick an alternative route through that is more slope-friendly:


Note the shallower slopes, and also the smooth curves. This is a fairly fast road, and the curves need to reflect that. They also improve the look of your main roads.
On the other side of the motorway, the avenue needs to cross the river. Find a spot to drag it over, and drag it over the river to create a bridge:


Pay attention to the type of bridge we're using. For short spans like this, the plain road bridge will do just fine. Taller bridges could be done through arch designs, whilst your suspension bridges are strictly only for long spans.

At the other end of the avenue, it runs into the ring road and continues on afterwards as an ordinary road. This junction can be created simply with the avenue roundabout. Start off by levelling the ground using single road tiles:


Delete the tiles and then you can just plop the roundabout and drag out the roads like so:


You can now build the northern half of the ring road, creating a route that runs in accordance with the plan, is suited to the terrain as best as is practical, and uses smooth curves for a better appearance and the stubs at either end as a guide:


Notice that plain bridge again! It's important.

Now I've decided that the eastern half of the central avenue should be a MAVE-4. This improves the realism of the central avenue, as they will often have to be squeezed in in an urban environment and MAVE-4 can help with that. It also provides a bit of variation and sophistication to improve the standard of your city.

To build a MAVE-4, you need to download the Network Widening Mod, if you haven't got it already.
Start by building a transition from avenue. You'll need to demolish some of the avenue for this, as the MAVE-4 uses road as its medium for dragging:


Build one at the other end, demolish the avenue in between, and drag out the MAVE between the transitions using road:


Our MAVE-4 is finished, but at the western end of it, it needs to intersect with a TLA-3 (also in the NWM) and another little road leading to the TLA-3 to the south which provides an easier access route to the westbound avenue.
It is more realistic, and more sophisticated, to build turn lanes at these junctions. To do this our MAVE-4 needs to become a TLA-5. Transitions to the rescue!


That road is that little access road. The TLA-3 can be created by using a starter piece, and dragging out. Drag the access road to meet it to the south. Don't forget those smooth curves! You should end up with something like this:


To create the turn lanes, you use TuLEP pieces (available in the Roads menu). The setup for the T-junction with the access road is shown below:


The crossing with the TLA-3 is exactly the same, but with two important distinctions:


And they're now done. And don't they look better than ordinary junctions?
We can now complete the TLA-3 by dragging it out like the avenues. When it reaches the boundaries of the town, however, we need to convert it to ordinary road.
At the southern end of town, the road crosses the river and runs into a roundabout where the ring road ends. Drag out the bridge, then place a Road - TLA-3 Transition at the northern end:


At the northern end of town, the TLA-3 will end when it crosses the ring road. We can convert to ordinary road through the junction by means of a simple TuLEP setup:


It's that piece at the top that works the magic, and that is the Road TuLEP Type A - Base Network Transtion (Non-T).

South of the bridge where the TLA-3 ends, we can now end the ring road at the ordinary road by means of a roundabout. This is very simple - create a 2x2 circle of road, and drag one-way roads in the correct left-hand or right-hand setup at the eastern edge. Then drag out roads as needed and avenue from the one-way stubs:


We can now complete the ring road with avenue. It's just like the northern half - drag it out and use smooth curves when you can:


To the south of the ring road, another roundabout is needed for another route that will provide the southern fringe of the town.
The one-way roundabout is better for this, as we can get the terminating road to be in the middle of the roundabout.
Drag a 3x3 circle of one-way road (and you MUST do it in the right direction, depending on the driving rules of your game!), plop a street tile in the centre, and drag roads out:


We can now drag the vertical route to the edge of the tile, to go off to some other town.
As for the horizontal route, however, this needs to form the town's southern boundary, so drag it out as stated on your plan (as for all other roads) - and stop when you hit the spur motorway.
We need to cross it, and we can't just build an at-grade junction because this is a motorway. We also can't build a diagonal flyover (as was originally intended) because there isn't a diagonal on-slope piece for road. So we have to use FLUP pieces.
You need to first level the ground for this:


Then delete the single tiles and build the FLUP. You only need two pieces: the Road - FLUP transition at the edges, and FLUP under RHW-4 in the middle:


You can then drag a road out from that, as we will now do.
At the western end, this southern road meets another road. As this is at the edge of town, a roundabout is more appropriate and better-looking:


It's the same as the other one-way roundabout we built.

This new road ends at the north at the central avenue. Ideally, we'd use TuLEPs to make this junction better, but the roads are both diagonal, so we don't have the resources to do it.
What we can do, however, is use ordinary one-way roads as slip lanes by dragging them out:


At the other end of the road, it needs to cross the main motorway - just cross it, mind, not intersect with it. Both roads are straight at this point, so a flyover for the road would be perfect.

First task is, yes, you guessed it, preparing the ground. My game wasn't having single road tiles here, so I had to make do with the parallel roads method:


To create the abutments for the flyover, it's just like the bridge for the fork interchange - use parallel hole digger lots and use single road tiles to extend the abutments (or to get them in the right shape). The abutments need to be like this:


Notice the single tiles made to make the abutments just one tile wide.

Now we can delete the tiles and build our flyover. At the edges, it's the Straight Road on Slope piece you need (such that the central tile is on the first tile of the abutment and the elevated bit points to the motorway), and in the middle, it's Road over RHW-6C:


Look at that! Now it's just a case of dragging out the roads.

And that's all you need to know. Build the rest of your main roads, going with your plan, using the techniques we've covered today.
Once you're done, you'll have a sophisticated road system. This is the one for Faulkner's Bridge:


And that, guys, is the end of the lesson.

Next thing on the agenda is the last of the transport lessons - the lesson on railways.

Bye for now,
Chris

[MandelSoft]

Well, that's a good road layout tutorial! Although I would use AVE-2 and AVE-4 instead of TLA-3 or TLA-5, but the basics are the same.

About the rebuild of the motorway:

This illustrates an important point - be prepared to change your plan if, with hindsight, it turns out that there is a better alternative.

This often applies to my freeway networks in Imaginia. I rebuild interchanges every now and then to make them look more realistic, mostly because of the new features of a new RHW version. For instance, the A40 in Guilliano was initally build as a 2x3 motorway between Sebeshaber and Guilliano south, a 4x2 motorway between Guilliano South and Guilliano CBD and 2x2 from Guilliano CBD to the all the way to the city border. Now I've lengthen the 4x2 section to IC (interchange) Tagone (where the A4 crosses the A40). Also in the same city tile, I've widened the 2x2 section of the A6 between IC Terra Majora and IC Foxshire to 2x3 (RHW-6C). This couldn't be done before RHW v4.0, since this section curves a little and I find the current RHW-6S and 8S diagonals ugly.

The last picture of the final road layout is very pleasing

[mightygoose]

the northernmost avenue bridge east approach needs to be demolished and the east approach graded with single road tiles. then redraw the bridge to get a friendlier slope.

also your slopes are very steep for the future rail network, i eagerly look to see your solutions.

[Jmouse]

Hi Chris! I'm afraid I haven't been able to start the transport network tutorial yet, but I've saved it to do later. I'm so pleased to see the interest you've generated with "...Dummies," and the resulting exchange of ideas. This is shaping up to be a valuable reference, and I hope you continue the project. I'll be in and out as time permits, and I'll try to post at least semi-regularly!

Good work...
Joan

[travismking]

Looks pretty good, The new path for the RHW looks much better here.

Only thing is I would say there are too many bridges in the southern half of the tile to be realistic (at least from what I'm used to). The part I notice most is the avenue/road roundabout. I dont really think a planning commission would approve two bridges right next to each other when you can re-route the road to intersect the avenue on the same side of the river.

[Nardo69]

Looks pretty good.

With the railways: Your are right that a kind of roads existed before railways. And even a especially good one as the Roman street were used for more than 1000 years without without maintenance as no one had the knowledge to build really good roads over long distances in Europe between the end of the Roman Empire and Napoleon Bonaparte. (I stressed Europe because Maya / Inka etc. did build roads but with stairs as they didn't know the wheel).

HOWEVER these roads followed the local topography with some deviation to earn money by lending oxes at some (deliberately) steep slopes etc. These roads did not cut through the landscape like the modern traffic arteries that were developed and build in the 20th century (with Germany as a pioneer). These roads for fast car traffic are much younger than railways and thus their fix points were defined by railways and not vice versa. And these are the roads you showed us in the last update.  
Usually when the railways were built in Europe and America even main roads were dirt roads designed for horse and ox cars, the better ones separated in a summer way (pure mud) and a plastered winter way. These roads lasted long - in the USA until Eisenhower's interstate highways, in Europe and especially in Germany modern roads started in the thirties.

So I still say FIRST railway THEN highways / roads as the railway network is older than the road traffic network.

(I might be known for my rural style and my love for railways but I am a civil engineer who learned traffic technology and (road) traffic infrastructrure during my university time)

Take care


Bernhard 

[malibu_man]

Awesome update Chris!! Great lesson on laying out the main roadways.    Can't wait to see you plan out streets between all them roads, thats always the most interesting part. 

[wallasey]

Its good, but I have to be honest by saying, I cant tell where your CBD is going to be! Your roads don't really lead to a central area if you get what I am saying. They just traverse the tile.

Obviously it depends on the type of place you are building but take places like Bradford, Huddersfield, Wolverhampton and Chester where the roads radiate out from the CBD, the latter example is dictated by the river which has historically flooded onto the plains to the Dee Estuary. 

Generally the rule of thumb is that in RL, the roads going into town generally head for either the Church/Cathedral/Priory, The Market Cross/Square, the principal crossing point of the river (look at Widnes or Liverpool for the Bridge-Tunnel-Ferry) and / or the Castle if the place is that old (like Carlisle)

I hate to be critical but I am hoping you or someone can see where I am coming from here?

[Grneyes]

Okay, dumb question: By changing the config you're making the region consist of one large city tile and not converting all the cities in the region to one huge region/city, correct?

Pardon me if this was asked/answered in another thread, but I couldn't find anything.

[Terring7]

My cities are very far from realism . But still i can use some of your ideas

[Skimbo]

Hm... let's see how you solve the railway problem.....

Nice one for beginners

[farrell1701]

I'm in agreement with wallasey, mostly because I'm a fan of natural growth as opposed to putting down all of the infrastructure first. That would mean starting this map strictly with basic roads as opposed to the avenues and no RHW (if I'm playing an area that was built up before the highways came to town), then putting in various villages, and adding to everything over time by expanding the roadworks as needed to meet capacity demands.

It also would likely mean that the southern ring road (around the 9th-from-last image in the last update) wouldn't have a bridge, but instead follow the bank to reach that avenue -- bridges are expensive, after all, more so than cutting down trees. But that's just me. I've played this way before as well, and think this is a great guide for that. In every other way, I like what you've done here, from having a plan to follow, the landscaping, and using TuLEP/NWM, and look forward to the next updates! Bravo!

[FrankU]

(I stressed Europe because Maya / Inka etc. did build roads but with stairs as they didn't know the wheel).

As far as I know they actually did know the wheel: they were used in toys. But not in adult people's life. My guess is: the use of the wheel requires good and plane roads. To make these in the high countries would have been an enormous job. So I guess the wheel was not practical to them.

[Battlecat]

Fascinating update, you're certainly putting good thought into your approach!  The resulting road network so far is very visually appealing!

[smileymk]

A few debates and observations going on here, and I for one am happy for it. Keep those ideas coming!

mrtnrln: I guess you've got to stay on your toes. Again, nothing wrong with building to your own personal style.

mightygoose: It looks OK to me. Avenues can go up slopes, and I don't think the town planning committee would be too happy about spending a lot of money building a cutting to level out an avenue that isn't too steep anyway.

Jmouse: Cheers. I'll be waiting!

travismking: Fair point, but I think that the current setup is better for access between both sides of the river. Having a single road bridge would be a bottleneck, and would bring the ring road a little bit close to the centre!

Nardo69: You do it your way. If it works for you, then that's great. There's little point in me arguing with you.

malibu_man: I agree. I'd like to think that I'm quite good at that street-laying bit, so that should be a good lesson when it comes. Also, I do believe that that comment is the 50th reply... I won't go too crazy about it but that's a good milestone to reach in a very short space of time. Thanks to you all.

wallasey: Find that roundabout where the motorway spur ends, and it's between there and the river. I can see what you mean, and I think that there are a number of roads that hover around the CBD without quite reaching it - that is a feature of many towns.

Grneyes: That is correct. You can't, unfortunately, make one big city with the config - that's a limitation of SC4. What you can do, however, is use lots of tiles to make one big region, and build it as one big city - which we will do in the next project.

Terring7: From what I've seen of your work, it looks pretty good. If my ideas help though, that's great.

Skimbo: Cheers.

farrell1701: Welcome to SC4D! Hope you like it here. As for your point, well, I don't really follow all of that natural growth stuff (or any other fancy style for that matter), and I like to build cities as they are. Don't get me wrong, some great natural growth cities have been made, but I'm here to teach how to build a realistic city - nothing else.

FrankU: What exactly has that got to do with this MD? I know you meant well, and discussions and exchange of ideas are great, but they would be even greater if it stayed relevant to what we're doing.

Battlecat: Thanks. Glad you like it.

And now it's time for the lesson.

Lesson 6 - Railways

One thing you can't ignore in a realistic city is the railway. Fifty years ago, they formed the backbone of pretty much every country in the world, and even today, although the infrastructure has been greatly rationalised, they're still vital to the success of today's economy.
So you need to build a railway line for realism in any reasonably sized town.

A good starting point is the passenger station, so you can make sure that the railway is in the right place.

You need to choose the right station for the job. In this case, it needs to be 4 platforms, which are stationed on the edge of the lot so we can electrify the line through the station, the platforms need to be long enough to handle decent length trains, and it needs to look nice.

I won't recommend any particular station because it's down to personal choice. Go to the STEX or LEX and find some examples that you like.

Once you've chosen your station, you need to prepare the ground to place it using single road tiles.
Remember Rule No. 1 for railways: They MUST be flat. These main lines were built in the Victorian era, when even the slightest gradient would cause the train to come to a screeching halt:


The column of tiles 2 tiles wide is where the railway will go. You can delete the tiles for the station, but don't delete the stubs in this column. You need these to keep the line flat.
Now you can place the station. I used the Perry Station (available on the STEX), but you can use any station you like:


Place it where it states on the plan - but it should be on the edge of the CBD, as when it was built, this would be on the edge of town.
But it's not enough to just build a station now. This station now forms an important part of the daily commute for many, so we need to provide ways for them to get there. That means parking and bus stops.

To make these look good, they should also be flat. You know what to do:


You can drag that road out to meet the avenue, providing a distinct route to the station for commuters.
Now place bus stops and parking facilities next to the station. It's a case of using your preferred tools for the job again:


Now we've got a proper station! The platforms could be longer, but tinkering with the lot is something for another project.

We can now extend the railway using the single road tiles until we hit obstacles (like roads), demolishing them, and building the railway where the tiles were:


You can see now that we've hit a problem. It's not realistic to build a tunnel here to go under the road, and a freightyard is to be built immediately to the south of this road. But the road is too high to build a flyover directly, and the spur motorway is very close.

The solution here is to reroute the road such that it dives down to go over the railway on a flyover, then rising slightly to pass under a flyover on the motorway spur, before resurfacing on the other side.

First thing to do is to demolish the road and then extend the cutting through it:


Notice those two stubs on the sides, and the third column. The two stubs are for hole diggers, and the third column is the entrance for the freightyard - it's not uncommon to have bridges over complex pointwork, and having it where it is will put the freightyard closer to town.

Now you can raise those stubs with hole digger lots, and build the railway through:


Notice how we've used that smooth point for the freightyard entrance. You shouldn't use curves where possible on railways, but when you have to, then it's vital that they are really, really gradual. Much more so than roads.

Now build the flyover and demolish the motorway to be elevated:


Now, using hole digger lots and single road tiles, prepare the ground for the flyover (you can drag your road to the east and between the 2 bridges now):


Building the flyover itself is done in exactly the same way as the flyover at the fork interchange - use RHW-4 On Slope pieces (in the correct orientation) and drag between them:


You can now finish off the road, and this little sticking point is now solved.

I mentioned the freightyard - we're going that way so we might as well build it now. First thing to do is, well, I've said it plenty of times so I shouldn't need to tell you again:


Now build the pointwork. The idea is to provide sidings, so that shunting can be carried out without getting in the way of freightyard operations. Strictly speaking, the middle roads should sprout from the outer road, but we only have the resources to do it like this:


To be honest, this doesn't look too bad anyway.

Now we can build the freightyard, which needs to have rail access on the outer siding. Again, choose the lot that's right for you, and prepare the ground for the approach on the other side:


Notice that the street's there to provide access, and there's space in the freightyard for the lorries to turn around to get out. Another street was used to smooth out the cutting so that it doesn't look ugly.

Having done that, we can now build the approach on the other side. It's the same idea - prepare the ground, build the points, and drag the main lines to the edge of the city tile:


The southern side is now done, so let's turn our attention to the railway north of the station.
Immediately there's another sticking point - the central avenue. There isn't the space or the height difference to build a flyover, so the only option is to reroute the avenue so that there is enough depth in the cutting for a flyover.

Start by demolishing the avenue and extending the railway through:


Then create the stubs with hole digger lots:


Then build the flyover (use the Straight Avenue on Slope piece), and drag the avenue to the roundabout:


Now we have to reroute the avenue to the bridge. You just need to drag a good route through. Unfortunately, we no longer have the space for smooth curves, but it is better to sacrifice smooth curves for the avenue than sacrifice the railway's straightness:


Continuing the cutting on, we reach another problem - a parallel road:


In this situation, surely it's not too much to move the road one tile to the left to create space for the cutting:


The cutting's pretty deep now, and the terrain doesn't get any lower, so here it might be a good idea to build a tunnel from just south of the ring road to the edge of the city tile.
But we still need to make sure that the railway remains flat. To do this, we carry on the cutting, all the way to the edge:


Now this is the clever bit. Go to the north edge and drag a couple of tiles of rail to create the neighbour connection and stubs for the tunnel.
Then fill in the cutting using single road tiles:


Continue this to the other end of the tunnel. Now you can just drag out the tunnel:


The tunnel is now complete - but there is still a visible cutting in the landscape. We need to get rid of this. Drag roads through the cutting every two tiles to get rid of it and make the landscape look natural again:


Now don't forget to put that avenue back:


The railway is now complete, but as this is a high-speed main line, it makes sense to electrify it. Overhead catenary is the standard method of doing this, as it is better for high speed running than third rail. Overhead wires are also more widely used across the world.

You need to download the SFBT Rail Catenaries first (these give you more flexibility and a better appearance than the Rail Catenary Mod, and I'd therefore recommend these).

In open country, the standard spacing between catenary pylons is 60m - or 4 tiles in SC4. You can use the 2-tile catenary lot for this - place one every 4 tiles:


At pointwork, you need to provide enough catenary as appropriate to service all of your lines. If that means reducing the spacing between pylons, so be it:


At the freightyard, we need to provide catenary for the sidings, so that electric-hauled goods trains can be run, but you should NOT provide catenary for the actual freightyard line. This is primarily for safety, but also because it would be a bit difficult to use that crane with overhead wires in the way:


In a cutting, you don't have the space for the standard catenaries, so you need to use the transit-enabled versions:


At the station, it's just like the rural catenary. You should keep the wires going through the station, but you need to use the standard versions as you can't build the TE lots in a station:


And that's it. You don't need to build the pylons in a tunnel, for obvious reasons.

And our railway is now finished. Really, we should provide other niceties like fencing - but these are just niceties, and are therefore better off in the Finishing Touches lesson.

Next up it's something a little different - the utilities.

I probably won't post again before Christmas, so I close by wishing you all a very merry Christmas.

Chris

[WC_EEND]

Very interesting bit about the railway slopes, but erm, are you aware that this mod exists?

Xander