Sunk another half an hour into the game yesterday. Did quite a bit of development quick. With little understanding exponential expansion can be achieved (which makes the game boring after a while, as noted on the previous occasion when I wrote about the game).
I rebuilt the tracks around Huainan because congestion started to block the traffic. I added another station just for to dump industrial cargo (cattle and cotton), directing three trains there instead. This was a little experiment as well. The processed goods (goods and food) are available in both of the stations, and can be picked up from any of the stations. Ofc the main station is preferred, since the incoming goods are consumed by the residents in the houses, and these are only in the vicinity of the main one, so trains which will leave with cargo, will arrive here with cargo first. Essentially, I can supply the industry via another station, but products have to be moved where the passengers (and mail).
Problem is two of the supply trains have to cross the main line running toward other cities, and they have to stop all the time to wait until trains with higher priority pass. This cannot be resolved without building tracks with long detour. Still tried to alleviate the problem by changing that sharp turn of that track which came out of Huainan to a couple of gentler ones so trains can pass faster. Maybe gonna try come up with something else.
I think I have to make "rationalizations" in the lines, which train to run where and with what. And plan the next steps of the expansion.
Speaking of which. As the central hub of the trade, Huainan started to grow due to all the supplies coming in (raw material for the industry; food, goods, lumber, passengers, and mail for the residents). A cannery and two steel mills popped up - and one steel mill in Nanjing as well. Problem is, iron can be found only far away (coal is nearby) towards the south west. So probably next move will be connecting Wuhan, and cities further down that way.