This is very useful for lines with many intermediate stops.
However, sometimes I need to make an intermediate order explicit. There can be several reasons for this. I might want to make the train non-stop on only part of the route, or I might want a train to take a longer route than the shortest one available. However, it would be practical to still only have to specify the timetable for the end stations. Currently, if I have a train that has explicit orders A > B > C > B and I want to give it a timetable, I have the following options:
- I can set the A to B timetable to the actual time it takes to go from A to B (plus a few days in case the train breaks down or something), and then do the same thing for B to C, for C to B and for B to A. The problem with this is that since B is an intermediate station, it's often not designed to be an end station, so a train that arrives to B early will block trains behind it. This is especially a problem if more than one line use the same tracks.
- I can set the A to B timetable to be 1 day, then tell the train to stay in B for 1 day, then set the B to C timetable to the actual time it takes to go from A to C. This works fine, but then any train between B and C will be marked as late, so it's hard to tell if that's normal or if it's actually late.