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I read a lot about the best way to build a terminus station. Pages full of theories on openttdcoop, the forums and the wiki. But I did not find any proof of one design being better than others. I like to judge design by seeing it in actions, not to mention that I want to see those trains moving!

So I created a small test scenario. This is the setup: 2 stations, 6 platform each. And 12 trains trying to get a spot on the platform. For the ultimate station design 10-12 trains are in the stations, 0-2 are on the tracks.
My stations are deliberely designed bad, lots of evil X-s, to show the effect: trains waiting on the tracks, and not able to enter the station.

The question: improve the station (no RORO, that would be too easy), and show us it works. Stop the talking, but show your design works.

For this small distance, I wouldn't consider building a proper terminus entry/exit. Just make sure that you have enough space for trains.

How to improve stations to solve non-station problem?
Only by adding more and more platforms to get all the trains into them at the time (to free routes between stations).
But without improving route's capacity it is unusable.

mfb
Best solution =)))

Yeah, this setup doesn't do any good to find the best terminus layout, it's too small. You need to scale it up and make a more realistic scenario of trains entering/leaving.

Even then though, the best design always has to do with the specific circumstances, there's no "one best way" to do everything.

EDIT: Take the example below. Improving one of these terminus stations would really mean something

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I wouldn't call this optimal, but it works:

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Of course I can improve capacity by adding more platforms, but that was not the goal. I want to test the throughput of the station, given a number of platforms.

Mfb's setup actually is not very efficient, it does stop trains waiting to enter the station.

But Level Crossings station is great. It may be improved a bit by tweaking it a bit, but the performance is impressive. I tried to overflow it by putting a large station on the other side, but with 2 feeding tracks, it keeps handling trains without stalling too much. Not sure how to measure thruput though. Manually counting the number of outgoing trains per time unit tends to get a bit boring, maybe an AI might do that job.

In the attachment the station of Level Crossing (at Plontingfield West). In this setup 17 trains are able to pass without major jams. Feeding it with enough trains is difficult. Of course is will change when real loading times are present, but then extending the nof platforms will keep it going. My compliments!

Someone able to improve this?

A fairly powerful way how to build a terminus from public server game 230...

The core idea is on not making any X tracks so that as little colisions are allowed as possible.

By splitting the entrance into few separate lines, 3 per line in this case, the entrance line will never slow down because the throughput of the station is sufficient.

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I let both games run for 1 month and counted the trains passing the lines in one direction.
My station had 27 trains, Level Crossings 21.
I don't see how you come to your conclusion.


@Andrew350: While they can be improved, where is a jam?

Hehe, oops, that's the wrong one. After a good look I can't find the right game either, I must have saved over when I was testing a junction...sorry about that

However my original point is still valid. I'd like to see fully functioning stations, with a real dynamic setup, rather than a closed loop. These designs are very good by the way, I just like to see them put to use, and see how they perform under more realistic conditions. That's the most important thing IMO.

But that's enough from me, carry on

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Approximately the same method, but I added a couple of trains to the scenario, because you (and Level Crossing) used more track to connect the stations, so more trains can be used, since some of them will be travelling. Then I found a higher nof trains in Level Crossings setup than in yours. But I may have caught it on a bad moment, one month may be too short for a reliable measure.

Maybe it would be nice to have a battle of the terminuses: create a scenario with your, Level Crossings and V453000's setup in a loop, and see where the jams occur. I propose a 4 track connection between the stations: 2 (1 in 1out) would not suffice to feed enough trains to bring the stations in trouble, and 6 between all stations would be a setup not many players would use in a real game.

@ Andrew350: you're absolutely right that it is not a realistic setup, but it is meant as a test for the station thruput. So for real testing, you need to exclude as many variables as possible, so no real loading of passengers, that would be influenced by the catchment of nearby town, and the number of previous trains etc. But I think this setup with a loop is very good in testing the actual thruput/efficiency of the station. It will judge efficient station designs as being better, and show good building principles. But when used in a real game, the same prinicples would apply, only some scaling, like reducing the nof platforms to compensate for the loading time would be needed.

This is the setup I use...probably copied from somewhere, I've been using it so long that I don't remember anymore. It's quite compact, probably not ideal, but it works.

@GeekToo: If you fill the whole stuff with trains, throughput is decreasing. I think you want the best trains/time ratio. In that case, leave enough space for trains to travel between the stations.

Oh, and you could add a waiting time via timetables, in order to get a more realistic loading time equivalent. You'll note that for 6 platforms, the platforms become the limiting part very soon, with all proposed setups, unless you have some newGRFs which (un)load really fast.

I did not flood the tracks, just enough trains to stress the stations a bit.
Anyway, here is the new test set up.
Mfb's setup on the right, a combination of V453000, Sarin, Level Crossing on the left. Watch it, and you will see more trains are waiting trying to enter the right side.

Mfb, it can be improved easy: e.g. the bottom line. When a train is entering, and one exiting, the leaving train can not make room before the second tile, causing the entering train to wait unneccesary. A split to the right immediately before the station would already improve.

For everyone: the line marked with "sign" is supposed to be the main line between the 2 stations. (2L, 2 R). You are allowed to move these line up or down, but the max number of lines on the "sign" lines is 4. A deliberate choice, 2 lines are not sufficient to stress the stations in this setup, 6 lines is a number that most players dont use to connect 2 stations.

The terminus on the left is performing slightly better atm, though the difference is small. So the challenge is to improve the one on the right so the one on the left has the most trains waiting to enter. If you achieve that, post the savegame, and the challenge will reverse. Others then are challenged to try to beat your station.