Rail support

Rail support is the infrastructure entity used to build elevated rails. A single rail support acts as a foundation tower that holds elevated track segments above ground level, allowing rail lines to pass over terrain, water, cliffs, and many buildings without landfill or demolition. Elevated rails placed on rail supports behave like normal rails for trains while avoiding most collisions with obstacles beneath.

Each rail support can hold up to five straight rail segments in either direction from its center. It can also accommodate two curved rail segments, or a mixed arrangement of one curved segment and three straight segments. This capacity determines how far adjacent supports must be spaced to create continuous elevated track.

Rail supports allow elevated rails to be placed over most obstacles, but some structures are too tall to permit elevated rails directly above them. Big electric poles are an example of buildings that block placement of elevated rails at that position.

Rail supports can be placed on top of water and similar surfaces without the need for landfill or foundation on the following surfaces: water on Nauvis, oil oceans on Planet discovery Fulgora, marshes on Planet discovery Gleba, and ammoniacal oceans on Aquilo. After researching the rail support foundations technology, rail supports can also be placed on Fulgora’s deep oil oceans.

Using elevated rails is significantly more resource-efficient than using landfill for crossing water in most cases. To place five rail segments over water requires a single elevated rail support; the raw-material equivalent for those elevated rails is reported as 66 iron ore and 40 stone (not including the rail ramp or the rails themselves). By contrast, placing five rails over water using landfill requires 20 landfill tiles, which equates to approximately 1,000 stone (not including rails), making elevated rails the preferred option when stone and infrastructure are the limiting factors.

• Each support holds up to five straight segments outward, two curves, or one curve + three straights.
• Elevated rails placed on supports bypass most obstacles but cannot be built above very tall structures such as big electric poles.
• Supports can be built directly on water on Nauvis, oil oceans on Planet discovery Fulgora, marshes on Planet discovery Gleba, and ammoniacal oceans on Aquilo; deep oil oceans on Fulgora require the rail support foundations research.
• For crossing water, elevated rails typically use far fewer raw resources than landfill crossings, not counting rails or ramps.