Chasing Truck Fever Part 2: Permit to Roll

This is part of a series in Transport Fever to chase down the ‘Truck Fever’ achievement. Detailed first in Part 1, including a little setup on Calvin and Asher, who will be used as sort of a light story telling element alongside the game.

Calvin blew out an exasperated breath, stepping out from the bureaucratic prison that was the permit office. The sun rode much higher in the sky than it had when he entered that morning. Midday at least. So not years of his life lost after all. Just several hours. Asher emerged next and blew a near identical sigh. “I’m not entirely sure, Sir, whether our ordeal at sea or our ordeal in there,” Asher said with a nod back toward the ornate wooden doors, “was worse.”

A slight pause in Calvin’s step was the only sign, but Asher caught it. He opened his mouth to apologise but Calvin turned first, and with a tight smile said, “The sea. Definitely the sea. As odious as being in there was, I at least knew we would leave alive.” Calvin’s smile grew broader and a little more genuine, “I was pretty sure, at least.”

The pair walked back through the streets of Long Beach to where they had setup shop. A small office above the general goods store. Apparently Long Beach was a big town so far as this frontier land, but it was hard to avoid drawing comparisons to back home. There were almost no horse drawn carts. Porters at best had hand-wagons. Armed with the sheath of papers obtained from the permit office and a modest capital investment from Calvin’s father — it was time to get to work, building a logistics network the likes of this country had never seen.

It was time to order construction of a vehicle depot and a few freight stations. However this didn’t completely go without incident. Asher thought it best to spend minimally and construct the passenger depot at the edge of town, with stagecoach stops in the town to cart people back and forth.

Calvin wanted to place the passenger depot in the town centre. Become part of the hustle and bustle. Sure it meant paying through the nose to take over a couple of properties, but one day that would pay back.

The conversation grew heated, but ultimately Calvin won. They called it a compromise through placing the freight depots on the edge of town in uncontested land. But the passenger depots were placed right in the middle, and Calvin wore the smile.

Then it was a matter of getting the oil line up and running. Something like this:

With the infrastructure in place and the plans drawn up for the routes. There was just one thing left to put in place.

The company bank account at the end of the (game 10) year period was a meagre $17.5k, down from their starting pool of $1.2m.

It seemed to paint a poor picture. It certainly worried Asher to no end to not to have a healthier amount left over for operating expenses. Capital expenditure was all good and well, but one poor year or unexpected need for replacements could destroy them.

Calvin understood he was driving them close to the wire, but there was still demand taking far too long to fill. The balance sheets with capital expenditure removed were positive and that was good enough for him. He was beyond loathe to admit it, but in the back Calvin’s mind was always the knowledge that he could trade on his father’s name for a significant degree of local investment in the way of loans if it really came to it.

He would rather walk backwards, barefoot over coals than to do so. But it was an option. Still, it was clearly weighing on his friend. … Huh. Friend. The thought still took him by surprise at times. Asher was currently looking down at the maps in their office with the frown that had become his constant companion.

“Look Asher,” Calvin started, “We’ll slow down our rate of purchase of more horse teams. Build a bit of a buffer in our books again. But soon after,” he paused with a gleam entering his eye, “We should look to extend our reach to another town.”