this game is so bugged you can have ridiculously hacks.

eg: 'walking' stations aka 'double track then delete' to create create zero travel distance between two towns.

Right, this is called "Excessive Station Moving" and violates all 4 rule systems. There are only 4 "cheats" in the Base Rules (the advanced rules) and this is one of them.

But ultimately many of the things in the game are on purpose I think. This is one that was a necessity for other reasons but unfortunately can be used in this silly way.

Check the Base Rules for what is legal here and what is going too far... movement is ok, but not excessive movement. Excessive movement is clearly defined in the base rules.

Those extreme right turns seem like cheating to me. You are exploiting a weakness in the game to get no slow down on a turn that in reality you would have an extreme slow down on that would out weigh the distance saved. But I guess there's no real way to prevent you from doing it.
They also just plain look ugly.

No, the more I think about those crazy right turns the more I am absolutely convinced that it is cheating. You are clearly exploiting a bug in the program. Shame on you.

Band- 1st, it is not a right angle, it is a sharp radius curve. It shows that way because of the inflated scale of the track. 2nd, if the track being laid is too sharp a turn or too steep a grade, the program won't let you lay it. 3rd, to say there is no slow-down is incorrect; there is a speed reduction, you probably just missed it -- watch your game more closely, and on ½ normal game speed. 4th, it's not a bug, not a cheat, it just is. Just like 12 inches to the foot railroading, sometimes you accept a speed reduction due to a sharp radius curve over a short distance to head directly where you want to go. It is often more efficient, just as it can be more efficient to level the ground before laying track, to maximize track for money.

1: Please do not argue that this an issue of scale. If it were I would agree with you because a train can make a 90 degree turn within a mile or so, but it is very evident that this whole game is "not to scale".
2: Here you are making my point for me. When you try to lay track "normally" you will get a 'turn too sharp' error. But if you pull the track out veeery carefully just a fraction of an inch you can get this glitch to show itself. See below;


As you can see, turn A is "legal" and yet turn B is not legal. Why? It is evident from this that the game designers never intended for either of these turns to be legal. "A" was just achieved by exploiting a weakness in the program.
3: Yes, there is a speed reduction, in most cases(1), but not nearly as much as there should be and it is all moot because we have already clearly established that a turn like this is illegal.
4: See #2. This is clearly not what the game designers wanted. It is just like the 'ghost stations' and other odd manifestations of this game and is a bug/glitch whatever you want to call it and therefore clearly illegal..

*(1) I wrote "in most cases" because I have seen in game where trains have not slowed down at all on turns like this and worse ones.

Ok. Let me wade in on this.
First and foremost there are two schools of players in this game and it depends on what your goal is.
In the first are those who go for the esthetic of the games. They avoid silly bridges, 90 degree turns, long tunnels. These are model railroad types. BandOFan and myself belong to this group.
The other group are those who want to win the economic goals of the game, beat your opponent, no matter what. They exploit every little glitch in the game as long as it is within the limit of the original design. If they can make route an inch shorter they will. They look at the $$$ balance sheet not the spaghetti bowl they build.

But most importantly they enjoy the game and they participate and also they greatly contribute to our knowledge of the game.
So everybody to his/hers own.
Jancsika

Let me take a step back for a moment and say that if my use of the term "cheating" insulted anyone I apologize. I understand that saying something is "cheating" can imply that I am calling someone a "cheater". That was not my intention. Let's just say that, IMO, turns like this "violate the spirit of the game".

This discussion of Point #1:No curved Track and the crazy right angle turns got me curious. How much of an actual advantage is it to have those 90 degree turns? I tested it.
Case 1 : 7.97 miles of track

Case 2 : 9.71 miles of track


After running the same brand new train the same amount of time (ten years in both cases) I compared my starting and ending cash to get the total profit I made and the Lifetime amounts made for both cases for this commodity ( Livestock).
I found after running this a couple times that the advantage of Case 1 was only around a few thousand dollars. This was out of a total amount of around $450,000. A completely insignificant amount.
I did not factor in the cost of the track. I'm sure the track cost in Case 1 was lower than Case 2, but I don't believe it was that significant.
Oddly though, in all the times I ran it the "Reported Profit" for the train was always higher for Case 2.
However, if one player had Case 1 to the commodity and another player had Case 2 to "the same commodity" then Case 1 would probably gather more resources. I say 'probably' because A) I haven't test it and B) I still am not sure that Case 1 is definitively more efficient than Case 2.
Contrary to what I wrote earlier I believe the slow down on that tight curve is actually significant and nullifying most of the advantage of the shorter distance.
I could have run many many more iterations of this test than just the few I did so if anyone else wants to test this and refute me I would be curious to see your results.