TrainCraft Operations

The idea for this section really started as a way for me to abuse TrainCraft and document its real capabilities. TrainCraft’s developers were pretty smart from the beginning. They knew that real-world trains are more often than not colossal and need multiple locomotives to move, and they programmed this same thing into TrainCraft. If you really need to you can utilize multiple locomotives on your train. Be mindful that you now have to monitor fuel on two engines, and I really wouldn’t suggest doing this with steam locomotives unless it’s an emergency or there is a player to man each locomotive and watch the fuel consumption.

Double-Heading & Helpers
This is covered in TrainCraft’s guidebook, but since we’re here let’s describe it.
Place your lead locomotive on the track. Place your trailing locomotive behind it so that they are back-to-back. Shift-right-click the trailing locomotive with the coupler tool, and the game will give you a text blurb saying the locomotive can be pulled. It will basically act like any other freight car, but if uncoupled from the lead locomotive it can be urged to move on its own.
If you’re using steam locomotives with tenders, this gets tricky. The tenders try to muck with everything.

Traincraft also allows helper locomotives on the rear and and cut into the middle of your train. Both are procedures also followed by the railroads of the modern world for handling heavy trains.

More Power!
As I write this section, I have a WIP 1.7.10 modpack running in the background, and I have four SD40-2 locomotives running around a loop. These work fine together but the second I start attaching cars, everything goes to hell. For now it’s best to limit to two locomotives unless you just want to drive a bunch around at once. I’ll do some more brutalizing later on and see how many will actually work with a train at one time.

Update: 1/22/17
As of my abusing TrainCraft as much as possible in the closing days of Trainserb one, I discovered that 1.6.7 TrainCraft can support 10+ locomotives on one train. I gathered as many as 16 diesel locomotives of different types and coupled them all together for one hell of a trip. We’ll see what 1.7.0 is capable of.

The Benefit
So what does the extra fuel consumption really get you? A heavy train that is slightly easier to handle. Your second locomotive does not add extra mass to your overall train, and will actually contribute power to acceleration and braking.
This said. Most locomotives, especially the SD40-2 and SD70 will handle 8 cars on their own just fine. Personally, my trains rarely get longer than this even after a long day of digging or chopping. With smaller, early-game diesels like the GP7, GP40 and CHME3 that are lower power, it’s worth considering using more than one at a time to get things done.
The real area of benefit is going to be on trains of liquids. Oil, water, lava, whatever. Those black tank cars look nice and can hold a lot of liquid, but once loaded they are the heaviest freight car available in TrainCraft. Some extra muscle on a string of tankers full of oil will make a noticeable difference.