Episode 24 is a live stream, and the commentary calls it "probably a weird episode": most of it is train debugging. Basket rebuilds an iron mine that the biters destroyed, gives it a train stop and a loop of track so a train can turn around, and sends a new ore train out. It works, slowly, until the train reaches its fuel stop and finds nothing there. The video ends with the power out for lack of coal and nothing researching.
The network so far
The opening tour shows the rail network as it stands. Ore trains drop off at a smelting area, and other trains pick up iron and copper plates there. Trains swing past a fuel stop on their route, and a coal train makes its own runs. One area "used to be an iron production, but was since destroyed, by the bad guys."
Two quick fixes come first. An assembler making train parts has stopped for lack of steel, and the old steel furnaces get no iron anymore, so Basket splits the iron line: "half of the iron I make is gonna be turned into steel, which I guess is probably fine." There is also a new line making laser turrets automatically, because "the regular turrets just aren't cutting it. The bad guys are too strong."
Rebuilding the iron mine
Mining drills go back in at the wrecked site, feeding chests that act as "a big buffer," with medium power poles between them and a splitter to fill both sides. A train stop goes in beside them, long enough for an engine and four cars.
The first plan is an engine on each end so the train can run both ways without a return loop through the forest. That runs into trouble at the fuel stop: "I don't have a way for the refueling thing to refuel the rest of the car." So the trees come down instead, and a curve of track goes in so trains can turn around. Rail signals set which way trains are allowed to go: "you can program which way they're allowed to go."
The new ore train
A new engine and four cars go on the track. The schedule window shows the route: IronOrePickup2, then FuelEngine, then OreDropOff until the cargo is empty. The train first takes "the weirdest route" to get there, then settles in at the stop to fill. Basket reworks the belts so they feed "evenly distributing between the four cars."
Filling takes a while. Basket moves ore from nearby chests into the last cars by hand ("I'm impatient"), and the full train finally pulls out. "Choo choo!"
A fuel stop with no fuel
At FuelEngine the train waits, but "this thing actually doesn't have any fuel, so that's a problem." The solid fuel is being sent the other way first. At the drop-off two other trains are already unloading, so there is a queue: "a little bit of a backup with this whole process, but it's being productive."
After combat near the drop-off ("there's a lot of dead bodies out there"), Basket places laser turrets around that area and replaces one that was destroyed. Then back to the fuel. The solid fuel is made more slowly than it is taken out, so Basket adjusts both sides of that handoff until "I might be producing them fast enough now."
Where it ends
Just as the commentary wraps up, a new problem: "all of my power production has stopped because there's no coal here. Let me fix that." The video ends before the fix, on the boiler area. The research box reads "Press T to start a new research" all episode.