A general hello and help request

[Baldy's Boss]

And now,in the Rartown game.I plugged the AI-inherited Mardston Woods station into the AI-inherited stretch of dual one-way track from Genfingburg Junction,where I plugged in tracks to a new station in Menston (currently single-platform but may need another).
The first train out of Mardston reversed course on the one-way track rather than proceeding further toward Menston.I have it and the train behind it stopped while a third train loads and it looks like I'll need at least one more on this route.
But why wouldn't it proceed?....is it a need for more signals,other switches,or both?

[Alberth]

How is the train supposed to go to the NW ?

[PikkaBird]

How is the train supposed to go to the NW ?

Or, indeed, anywhere.. this appears to be a no-exit junction.

[Baldy's Boss]

How is the train supposed to go to the NW ?

The AI built that junction before I bought it out.So I need to remove a signal?...or change it?

[Dave]

How is the train supposed to go to the NW ?

The AI built that junction before I bought it out.So I need to remove a signal?...or change it?

You need to send this image to the person that developed the AI, as that's not how a junction should be built.

[Baldy's Boss]

How is the train supposed to go to the NW ?

The AI built that junction before I bought it out.So I need to remove a signal?...or change it?

You need to send this image to the person that developed the AI, as that's not how a junction should be built.

I just posted in his topic about the AI,and sent him a PM.

[Alberth]

How is the train supposed to go to the NW ?

The AI built that junction before I bought it out.So I need to remove a signal?...or change it?

Yes.


The fact that you ask this question means to me you don't know enough about signalling, you may want to spend a little time reading about them. http://wiki.openttd.org/Signals is one option, at the bottom are a few other very nice tutorials.

The one-way path signal is the most useful one, at times you then also need the two-way path signal.
The block signal, combo signal and pre-signal is not so useful any more.

[Baldy's Boss]

How is the train supposed to go to the NW ?

The AI built that junction before I bought it out.So I need to remove a signal?...or change it?

Yes.


The fact that you ask this question means to me you don't know enough about signalling, you may want to spend a little time reading about them. http://wiki.openttd.org/Signals is one option, at the bottom are a few other very nice tutorials.

The one-way path signal is the most useful one, at times you then also need the two-way path signal.
The block signal, combo signal and pre-signal is not so useful any more.

As noted in my intro,I come to OpenTTD from original TT and not TT Deluxe...I'm used to the block signals.(See also my problem with the Buborough game,two trains stopped at signals which should be able to go straight ahead).
I can deal with the one-way signals on the AI-built stretch,I just need my trains to be able to exit and enter that stretch from both ends!

[Michiel]

Hiya, author of ChooChoo here!

How is the train supposed to go to the NW ?

It's not

ChooChoo builds its four way junctions first, then connects them (to stations or other junctions). If an exit is successfully connected, it removes the exit signals so trains can start using it. This prevents trains from wandering off to depots along unfinished routes (and getting stuck). The AI will never send trains down unconnected paths. However, if you buy out the AI and connect things manually, you may run into an unfinished junction.

If you want to see how it works, just start a game with ChooChoo in it, and watch for its "ChooChoo is doing bla" signs (bring up the sign list from the world map button). Hit fast forward and it should expand rapidly if it's making any money.

To Baldy's Boss: as others have mentioned, you can just remove the outgoing one way signals once you connect the junction to something else. ChooChoo drives on the right, because I'm Dutch, so if you'll want to remove the "11 o'clock" signal.

[Baldy's Boss]

Hiya, author of ChooChoo here!

How is the train supposed to go to the NW ?

It's not

ChooChoo builds its four way junctions first, then connects them (to stations or other junctions). If an exit is successfully connected, it removes the exit signals so trains can start using it. This prevents trains from wandering off to depots along unfinished routes (and getting stuck). The AI will never send trains down unconnected paths. However, if you buy out the AI and connect things manually, you may run into an unfinished junction.

If you want to see how it works, just start a game with ChooChoo in it, and watch for its "ChooChoo is doing bla" signs (bring up the sign list from the world map button). Hit fast forward and it should expand rapidly if it's making any money.

To Baldy's Boss: as others have mentioned, you can just remove the outgoing one way signals once you connect the junction to something else. ChooChoo drives on the right, because I'm Dutch, so if you'll want to remove the "11 o'clock" signal.

OK,the Mardston-Menston passenger & mail service is now in operation with half a dozen trains,always full from the Mardston end.Mardston has plummeted down the world's population rankings...those people must really want to leave town,and the piles of mail they generate be searches for other places to live.My HQ city of Rartown,which had lost a third of its population earlier,is back on top of the rankings.I have yet to plug other cities into the ChooChoo junctions but at this rate it may be too crowded.Meanwhile another ChooChoo competitor is active.

I note that the green area near Rartown Valley station inside my "beltway" is apparently never going to get developed,as no road can reach it.The town has sprawled out and built a soccer field outside the beltway.(Are there different sizes of stadium as a town grows?...there should be a tendency of geographically confined towns to grow more vertically.And it would be nice if name elements such as "Great","Little","on-Sea","Bridge","Fort" etc. actually represented an identifiable feature of the towns).

[Eddi]

"Fun fact": a town with only one serviced station actually grows slower than a town with no station at all.

[Baldy's Boss]

"Fun fact": a town with only one serviced station actually grows slower than a town with no station at all.

Since Mardston got two serviced stations (bus and intermodal) it has shrunk.Rartown also shrank with its two beltway stations on opposite seides.

[Eddi]

the general advise is 5 stations, anyway, as this gives the largest effect.

[Baldy's Boss]

I still have had no advice on the Buborough game's signal problem.Why are those trains stopped when the signal blocks directly ahead are clear?

I have brought the Plonnville game forward to late 1954 and am doing very well at the moment.I bought the remainder of that Fast Transport at the start of 1949 and a TrainsAI that had become my closest competitor hauling coal and wood near the end of 1953.I have also bought half of the new closest competitor,a Speedy Transport that hauls coal and grain.On acquisitions I immediately locate and demolish or connect their stranded stations and get any trapped trains moving.There are also places that tracks can be shortened (reducing maintenance overhead).A recent notice that a station had stopped accepting wood led me to learn that an acquired station had been part of completely built track from a forest to a sawmill that never got any trains,so the sawmill closed.Fortunately,the tracks ran right by another sawmill,so I built a station there while ripping up the rest...and out trains on the route.

However,I see rough times ahead...the game started in 1928 and though I replaced all Collett Panniers years ago,the A4s are getting into red ages without the 8P being available yet.My 37 million cash pile is going to have to go into fleet renewal before long.
As ever,a network knotted together from what was built as several competing networks gets awkward.I welcome advice on what parts of the infrastructure can be combined without ill effect,and what trains are most worth effort.

Edited to add a later save:
Now it's 1958 game time.Are the orders of trains 88 and 201,and signals at the station,adequate to prevent a collision if they should be delivering at the same time?
I'm wanting them both to use the same track/platform to deliver iron ore from mines in opposite directions,to which they immediately return afterward.This should increase the frequency of Train 44's steel deliveries to the factory.
Otherwise,all seems to be going well.I bought out the last significant competitor in 1955 (though my oldest competitor,who I have a couple of trains solely to inconvenience,is still floundering with a few newbies.
200 trains last year and almost none of them lost money.

[Blades 336]

I still have had no advice on the Buborough game's signal problem.Why are those trains stopped when the signal blocks directly ahead are clear?

My first post here as well, Baldy, though I've been playing nearly as long as you. Not sure I ever had TT original, but played TT Deluxe when it was new and have continued off and on for all the many years since then.

Hopefully this is useful, even at a month old. I ran into your topic while looking for something else.


I looked at the Buborough game and have to echo what some others have said - you will enjoy the game much more after taking the time to "read the manual". Your misunderstanding of signals and blocks is the cause of your frustration in this particular instance.

Your assumption that "...the signal blocks directly ahead are clear" is incorrect. A signal block consists of ALL connected track between signals, and by connecting both sides of your dual track, you've created one signal block where you need two (on the two separate lines).

Here's what I did to fix the Burborough to Penbourne line, starting with the October 1937 save.
1. Used the bypass signal button on Train 6 to allow it to continue to Burb. (I could have simply deleted the crossing track to separate the lines into separate signal blocks, but thought I'd point out this feature. USE WITH CAUTION!)
2. Once train 6 cleared the signal block, train 1 continued without further input.
3. Deleted all of the crossing track between your dual track lines and rebuilt it in a very specific place - in front of the stations. This allows trains to use both tracks in a station at the same time, and also to cross back to the directional track without bridges, tunnels, or holding up other trains for very long.
4. Added signals to enforce one-way traffic flow on each line. Although either way is fine, I used the counter-clockwise direction already established by the trains on the lines.

You can view the results in the save file.

The signals at the stations need to be two-way, else your train can't get out. Enforce the track direction with the signal leaving the crossing block onto the directional track. Note I didn't change all of the existing two way signals on the line to one-way - nice but not necessary.

I should note that there several other ways to set this up that would improve things - I kept it simple. You don't need passing lanes since all trains on the line have the same top speed. There are also ways to allow trains to switch temporarily to the 'wrong' side of the tracks (perhaps to pass a broken-down train). I'll let you discover those on your own during your research, and implement if desired.

Here's a couple good places to start your reading:
http://wiki.openttd.org/Building_signals
http://www.transporttycoon.net/rail1
http://uwe.s2000.at/ttdx/signal/index.php?lang=en

Armed with that knowledge, you should easily be able to answer your question on the other save:

Now it's 1958 game time.Are the orders of trains 88 and 201,and signals at the station,adequate to prevent a collision if they should be delivering at the same time?

Or you can do what I did to test your layout: skip the loading orders to get both trains moving toward the station in question, stop the first one until the other approaches, then turn it loose and see whether you get trains unloading in turn or a horrific train crash!

Enjoy!

[Baldy's Boss]

I still have had no advice on the Buborough game's signal problem.Why are those trains stopped when the signal blocks directly ahead are clear?

My first post here as well, Baldy, though I've been playing nearly as long as you. Not sure I ever had TT original, but played TT Deluxe when it was new and have continued off and on for all the many years since then.

Hopefully this is useful, even at a month old. I ran into your topic while looking for something else.


I looked at the Buborough game and have to echo what some others have said - you will enjoy the game much more after taking the time to "read the manual". Your misunderstanding of signals and blocks is the cause of your frustration in this particular instance.

Your assumption that "...the signal blocks directly ahead are clear" is incorrect. A signal block consists of ALL connected track between signals, and by connecting both sides of your dual track, you've created one signal block where you need two (on the two separate lines).

Here's what I did to fix the Burborough to Penbourne line, starting with the October 1937 save.
1. Used the bypass signal button on Train 6 to allow it to continue to Burb. (I could have simply deleted the crossing track to separate the lines into separate signal blocks, but thought I'd point out this feature. USE WITH CAUTION!)
2. Once train 6 cleared the signal block, train 1 continued without further input.
3. Deleted all of the crossing track between your dual track lines and rebuilt it in a very specific place - in front of the stations. This allows trains to use both tracks in a station at the same time, and also to cross back to the directional track without bridges, tunnels, or holding up other trains for very long.
4. Added signals to enforce one-way traffic flow on each line. Although either way is fine, I used the counter-clockwise direction already established by the trains on the lines.

You can view the results in the save file.

The signals at the stations need to be two-way, else your train can't get out. Enforce the track direction with the signal leaving the crossing block onto the directional track. Note I didn't change all of the existing two way signals on the line to one-way - nice but not necessary.

I should note that there several other ways to set this up that would improve things - I kept it simple. You don't need passing lanes since all trains on the line have the same top speed. There are also ways to allow trains to switch temporarily to the 'wrong' side of the tracks (perhaps to pass a broken-down train). I'll let you discover those on your own during your research, and implement if desired.

Now it's 1958 game time.Are the orders of trains 88 and 201,and signals at the station,adequate to prevent a collision if they should be delivering at the same time?

Or you can do what I did to test your layout: skip the loading orders to get both trains moving toward the station in question, stop the first one until the other approaches, then turn it loose and see whether you get trains unloading in turn or a horrific train crash!

Enjoy!

That one worked out some time ago...the game has reached 2031(see save) and that station builds up more steel than the steel train can pick up,but it's never hit an ore train.

Thank you very much for fixing Buborough...all those trains are working (when they don't break down) though the passenger buildup at both ends,despite unspectacular ratings,continues.

Buborough was the largest town on the map when the game started,hence its choice as my HQ.
It got surpassed by Sondingville,which I have now also tried to give passenger service but which is building up large passenger backlogs on the platform as well.The Train 7 loco is powerful,makes most of the trip at top speed,but it's a recent design in its rising-reliability phase and still breaks down more than I like.
Sondingville in turn got passed as largest by New Drontown.There (1938 save) I have established a rail loop connecting it to its larger nearby towns.I have yet to provision that loop with trains but have ruined my reputation in New Drontown for better or worse.I take it that one-way path signals will let me send multiple trains onto the loop without their colliding.Given the stations,distances,and populations,would enabling Cargodist be a good idea?

[Eddi]

do not enable cargodist in a running game, your network will probably collapse.

cargodist requires careful attention to the transport capacities you need to provide, your network needs to adapt while it grows.

[Baldy's Boss]

Actually about property maintance, it seems to just depend on number of stations and their size is irrelevant. So in theory you should just remove as many stations as possible to get this down and profits up. I will try it actually...

EDIT: You have 282 stations! No wonder it's like £10m a month. Some crazy designing going on: At one point you have a coal mine with two stations, going to two stations at the same power station. This is just madness!

Saw what you were looking at in the Betston game (no one seems to be interested in further help with doomed Gondborough or nascent Buborough?)
That's the Ladtown coal mine and Tradhattan power plant...would be a big bother to redevelop those ends.Meanwhile my competitor had two stranded stations side by side at the Tendworth mine (I built depots blocking the tracks so those stations would stay stranded).
Does that qualify as a bug in the AI (because it built a station right next to where it already had one) or a bug in the program (because two adjacent identical stations were not treated as one)?

In playing the Betston game out a bit further (it looks like it will crash at an earlier game time than Gondborough) I spotted a significant economic opportunity in goods from sawmills...my first attempt was stymied by the Wuntborough local authority,but the goods train to Plenbridge is doing well and I replaced some wood supply trains ahead of schedule to help.
Along the way,however,there was an AI crash that asked me to report the bug with a screenshot.

I have at length managed to salvage Betston's finances to the point that I was able to redo the Ladtown-Tradhattan coal service...closing one of the stations and expanding the other at both the loading and delivery ends,with extended double runs in and out linking the place where the duplicated lines crossed each other.The five steam and seven diesel engine trains have been replaced by nine electrics.

Edit to add:
Now however Betston has plunged right back into distress.The weight of obsolete steam engines and increased infra costs of electrification are causing major trouble.Can the cure take hold?

[Fastphil]

I've begun tinkering with your savegame, and I just wanted to verify something. From the provided starting point, the available cash is about 6 million pounds. After playing 2-4 years and eliminating unprofitable road vehicles, I'm at minus 69 million. Was the company hemorraging money like this prior to your providing the save file? I've gotten to work on the trains, but there's a lot to do and no money to do it with. I may tap into other people's revised save files to see what progress they've made in helping your scenario. I love fine-tuning other people's networks, but I don't even know how to start with this one.

Phil

[Baldy's Boss]

I've begun tinkering with your savegame, and I just wanted to verify something. From the provided starting point, the available cash is about 6 million pounds. After playing 2-4 years and eliminating unprofitable road vehicles, I'm at minus 69 million. Was the company hemorraging money like this prior to your providing the save file? I've gotten to work on the trains, but there's a lot to do and no money to do it with. I may tap into other people's revised save files to see what progress they've made in helping your scenario. I love fine-tuning other people's networks, but I don't even know how to start with this one.

Phil

Did you start from the 1987 file?...the company has had separate phases of ongoing financial decline.