Designs that accomodates train breakdowns?

[bensonjin]

Hello All! I am excited to join in this forum! Although I have been playing TTD for years, I have always been keeping it to myself, just like I don't share food.... Ooops...

I love this game, and always found it is challenging, even after all these years! The new OpenTTD is a great improvement to the original game. Kudos to those who contributed to this project!! I really appreciate for your efforts!

My first question ever is: how to design a track system that accommodates train breakdowns. I always find the track I designed don't accommodate train breakdowns well. I usually have two tracks each direction, have them cross with PBS once a while, just so that traffic flows after a train breaks down. But there is always a train stuck behind a broken train! Can anyone share a design to avoid that?

The second question is also related to the breakdown issue. I usually service trains every 60 days, and always purchase trains with highest reliability. That helps. But I sometimes find some trains don't do service as scheduled. I have had some trains that are never serviced, the reliability has gone down to 0%, although there are depots near the stations! To fix that, I added some depots along the route. But that slows down my traffic big time, as the trains going in and out the depots. Any idea to fix that?

I also attached the most efficient station design I have ever designed. Any improvement I can do to increase its throughput? I am trying to do it with limited space...as I found most of the times, the space is the only limited factor for a train station.

Thanks for your advice in advance!

[X.G.fr0sty]

you could try and remove the straight track that goes past the depo; that way the have to enter, but make sure that you have one way signals so they go back on track.

[Fastphil]

I think I also read once that you can put the depot in the train's orders, so that it has to go through it every time. I'm not sure about this though, can anybody confirm?

[oberhümer]

Yes. There are three choices on "Go to": go to, conditional jump to order and go to depot.

[Chris]

cough *no breakdowns* cough

Or just accept anything you ever design will always have a flaw - stuff breaks down, or put the servicing as orders as previously suggested to upkeep the reliabiltiy.