Signaling question for OpenTTD

[kemochewy]

Signaling question for OpenTTD

Here is the schematic for the rail section I am having trouble with:
https://i.imgur.com/urDKd4W.jpg

I initially had this as a single track station and the one-way section at "3" worked fine feeding a single station.
The city grew all around my station and now I have 2000+ passengers and mail waiting, so I tried to expand the station to allow more trains to service the station at one time in order.
That expansion led to the drawing I referenced above.

At "1" I have combo signals and this allows all 3 lanes of the station to fill with incoming trains. The fourth train in needs to stop and wait at "4" but it does not and this gums up the whole works. I get out of the mess by sending one or more of the trains to the depot along that section.

I am not sure what needs to be used at "2", "4" or "5" or somewhere between these in order to make this work. The point marked "A" just represents various crossing obstacles along the track like city streets, etc.

Can I get anyone to give me an idea of how to fix this so that train 4 waits at point "4" until the block clears for a free lane in the station. Sadly, I have no idea how to make it work.

Thanks,
KC

[planetmaker]

If I understand your question right, something like this (a savegame usually comes in handy when discussing a savegame):

[kemochewy]

ok, so I see path signals but no combo (entry, exit) signals. I was far off the mark then. I will try it and see if I can set it up to work.

Thank you very much for the tip. I will try it and be back shortly.

Thank you,
KC

[kemochewy]

Thank you for the tip, planetmaker. That worked exactly as I hoped.

Thank you,
KC

[peter1138]

Why put that one-way signal there, Planetmaker?

[planetmaker]

Why put that one-way signal there, Planetmaker?

It's not strictly necessary. I like to make pretty clear which track serves which direction and to stop congestion even in cases of partial reconstruction - and one-way signals make sure they do and trains go the right directions. Also: old ways die hard.

It would similarily possible to use a one-way path signal there or even normal path signals with the same orientation as shown.

[peter1138]

I would just not put a signal there, as it's not a safe waiting point. Keep it simple.

[eekee]

I sometimes put a one-way signal a bit further up on the 'leaving' line, but if the traffic is light enough for a single line, there's no harm putting it there.

I always put one-way signals on both two-way tracks to make sure trains choose the right path. If they choose the wrong one, which has happened to me a few times, it can cause big delays. I once saw a path reservation which seemed to be half way across the (256x256) map!