Using a third track since I've got it

[Baldy's Boss]

The Gostable embankment (before it became a bridge between two double-tracked sections) appears in the second screenshot in the first post of this thread.

The question marks do annoy...I'm not sure why the coal-truck question marks turn into normal cars when half full but the grain-hopper question marks don't.

[Kevo00]

I think the question marks are a grf loading error.

[Baldy's Boss]

I think the question marks are a grf loading error.

What I gather is the question marks are a side effect of NewGRFs breaking the allocation of certain sprites to the default vehicles (they represent most,not all,default wagons).

[trainrover]

Ahh! central 2-way tracking. I got such a build to work -- finally -- by placing (dummy) opposing 2-way path signals on nearly all its own and nearby entrances and exits to/from it..otherwise no train travelling either direction would freely use it. The set-up -- being the tunneled, underpassing, beltway-like, multi-tracked train route -- with its overly-long signal blocks works precisely how I wish (i.e., train halting thereat still barely necessary). I'd be glad to relate to you why I omitted a dummy signal near by the depot (shed).

[Baldy's Boss]

If any are interested in the ongoing development of the line,there are now nine trains on the three tracks between the farms and the factory,and I'm still not guaranteed that there will always be one loading.
Both the tracks to the factory and now the long-haul goods tracks to Little Grimnor have now been electrified,with new trains being electric but steam trains still running.The two oldest goods trains were Berkshires and have been replaced with GG1s (more powerful,more reliable,faster,longer lasting).
I've noted that the oldest of the engines on the farm-to-factory run are also Berkshires...far from the end of their design life,but should they be replaced because of the obsolescence of the model?

[Baldy's Boss]

Getting the steam engines on the goods line replaced by GG1s is now the priority...a now completed task that massively increased the revenues on goods delivery to Little Grimnor.
Now to de-steam the passenger service from Malberg and wince as my old binge-bought Britannias hit expiration together.

[Baldy's Boss]

With the passage of time,replacing those GG1s with more reliable new models became the priority...now done.But though I have kept adding more trains,the buildup of grain and livestock at Dungrove Rivers North and of goods at Dodean Valley has surged.
Are the three tracks between DRN and DV still adequate?...what options can effectively handle the backlogs?

[Alberth]

Why not give one or more proposals?

[Baldy's Boss]

Why not give one or more proposals?

More trains?
Longer trains?
Faster trains?(options are limited there)
More tracks?
(The Gostable embankment remains difficult to widen on the goods line to Little Grimnor).

[Alberth]

At this level of detail, one cannot answer anything else then "yes if ...":

More trains?

If there is more cargo then you can transport, yes.

Longer trains?

If there is more cargo then you can transport, yes.

Faster trains?(options are limited there)

If there is more cargo then you can transport, yes.

More tracks?
(The Gostable embankment remains difficult to widen on the goods line to Little Grimnor).

If trains get blocked on each other, yes.

If you want more detailed analysis, you should give more detailed proposals.


At a more global level:

I believe you will get much more satisfaction from playing if you understand at a more detailed level how things work, and if you can make decisions like above yourself. It would also increase effectiveness of communication here. There are simply too many answers to questions like "please compare my zillion dollar company X with my zillion dollar company Y" or "please decide for me how to play my game".

I would really like to help you, but all my efforts seem to be useless, and I am running out of ideas.

[Alberth]

I had a chance to look at the game, and a simple re-shuffling of tracks Dodean valley helps a lot.
You do have too many trains running at the tracks, unless you improve flow dramatically, but one track from Dodean Valley isn't going to be enough then.

Edit: A double output track, so trains don't block platforms as much helps too.

[Baldy's Boss]

I had a chance to look at the game, and a simple re-shuffling of tracks Dodean valley helps a lot.
You do have too many trains running at the tracks, unless you improve flow dramatically, but one track from Dodean Valley isn't going to be enough then.

Edit: A double output track, so trains don't block platforms as much helps too.

So in what way do the Dodean Valley tracks benefit from being reshuffled?...I found the terrain a bit difficult to work with.
I believe I made clear that there was more cargo than I could transport,are you saying that track redesign is a better fix than more or longer trains?
(Both the lines into DV (grain and livestock from Dungrove Rivers North) and out of DV(goods to Little Grimnor) have to be able to move more cargo).

[Alberth]

grain/livestock side, the platforms are mostly filled with trains waiting for an opportunity to leave.
That means the entry/exit isn't good enough, mostly because most trains drive somewhat diagonally across the front of the station, blocking the exits.

Make things more straight, don't let trains cross in front of the entire station, and let outgoing trains wait for room on the track outside the station rather than at a platform. (Build a double outgoing track just long enough for trains to wait without blocking the station; also try to double the track as soon as possible, so the outgoing trains get more chance to move.)

For me, that was sufficient to reduce waiting. Then you have to catchup with the backlog at the farms, but they produce slower than you can move stuff, so eventually, you will empty the farm station too.

[Baldy's Boss]

The empty grain/livestock trains now have two tracks out of Dodean Valley (so the line now has four tracks on the slope).The right-hand inbound track now has its own depot,so the trains coming up that way that arrive needing service no longer cut across all incoming and outgoing traffic to get to the left-entrance's depot.

I added two more trains to the Goods tracks to Little Grimnor (making 18).

Backlogs are still huge!

[Alberth]

Backlogs are not a problem, as long as they decrease.

When they decrease, the transport capacity is more than the production, so eventually, it will go down to normal levels.
Note that until you got rid of the backlog, you are transporting more than normal. Downstream factories thus also receive more cargo, and produce more output.


Edit: Change looks ok to me, station at delivery livestock/grain side is now pretty much empty, the bottleneck has moved to getting enough trains in, at the farms side.
That doesn't need solving though, as the amount of backlog is decreasing, so soon your trains will have wait for the farms.

At the goods delivery side, there is a piece of single track, which blocks all traffic. If you want to work on lowering the good backlog, making the entire line run without queues of waiting trains is the first step.
(adding trains before fixing the track blockages just makes the queues longer, it doesn't increase throughput significantly)

[Baldy's Boss]

The farm backlogs decreased,but seem to have stopped decreasing.

I did brave the wrath of the people of Gostable and made the big embankment dual-track.My rating there is now down from Mediocre to the Appalling level it was at for so long after I put the embankment in in the first place.(Remember,until I built my freight line they had a gentle downslope and unobstructed view of/access to that lake...now their whole town is in the shadow of my trains,and I offer their town no service at all).
The goods line now has twenty trains,we'll see if that serves the factory adequately.

UPDATE:
The goods backlog is way down (still enough that any train that gets in can load completely and go right back out).

[Baldy's Boss]

The backlogs have shifted decidedly back to the farm side.

EDIT:never mind,this seems to have corrected itself (2nd save).

[Baldy's Boss]

I have now added a fourth bridge so that trains can go further before sharing the middle return track.A competitor opened a grain-only station by one of the farms,so I added a grain-only train to the run.

On the goods side,knocking a dozen tiles off the length of the longest tunnel increased throughput,there had been major backups of empty trains returning from Little Grimnor.

[Baldy's Boss]

The supply side has now been converted to maglev (very recently,trains bought in November and December and as of New Year's half of them are still in depots).I didn't get as many trains as were serving the route before (companywide I am down 10 trains from peak strength as smaller numbers of maglevs serve markets with better ratings than before).The old trains ran at 70 mph (livestock) to 90 mph(all-grain) so the new 280 mph engines though less reliable make the trip three or four times as fast (but loading and unloading are similar to before and reduce the ratio).
But why is Train 52 "waiting for free path" at the entrance to Dungrove Rivers North instead of taking a right turn to the empty platform?

Next up is converting the freight lines out from Dodean Valley to Little Grimnor...will take a while to get all the goods delivered while sending all the empty trains to depots for sale and converting the tracks as the last electric leaves them.