Problem with PBS

[The Irish]

Sorry for double posting, but I just wanted to keep this seperate.

I've started a game on the Templongmap mentioned before and now have created a monstrum of a trainstation. Somehow I keep getting crashes with the PBS and have no idea how to solve it. Here is the deal.

Meppen recieves traffic from three directions

general layout:

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The station has heavy trough traffic on freight and passengers, local passenger services stopping at the station plus the station must be Terminus for passenger trains from both directions.
Attached screenshot will hopefully give you some impression. I also attached the savegame. I would love to see some suggestions on how to improve the situation there.

[satosphere]

One option is to avoid Bidirectional stations as such. I have had quite a few crashes, where two trains reserve a path to the same platform in the station (resulting in a bloody massacre killing 800 people - two long HSE Sunsets)

I converted most of the stations to a modified Ro-Ro station, especially those which handle both passenger and freight.
I have attached a screenshot below. With this setup, trains enter the station in only one direction, and with the merging after the splitting near the Checkpoint, I avoid all jams. Without proper waypoints, trains go in circles.

And I apologize to anybody who feels its OT.
And I apologize I could not get a smaller PNG size. I was not able to, with Irfanview.

[Raichase]

Sorry for double posting, but I just wanted to keep this seperate.

I could split this off if you would like (Your option)? I don't really mind, as long as we don't go too OT .

Hey, perhaps you have too many blocks of junction at your station, and that is causing PBS to make your trains crash? I have had similar problems at another station in my current game.

Also, how are you sure that your terminating trains will use the track to the far right, and not accidentally go to one of the through tracks on the left? Ditto for the through trains accidentally ending up on a terminus track?

[The Irish]

Rai,
Maybe we should split, in order to get some more responses.

Satosphere,

Your station layout is nice, but unfortunately not very realistic. And I think it would jam up as well, as the traffic would be too heavy for this layout.

But thanks for you input, I might consider it in future.

[satosphere]

Yes, it would be better to move to a separate topic - probably the one in general TTDpatch which discusses station layouts (I do not know how to!!!). I want to comment more on this.

[spaceman-spiff]

Split from pictures topic

[krtaylor]

You sound like an ideal candidate for my bidirectional through station, which I use all the time in situations like this. And I've never had a crash with it (though occasionaly it can succumb to a jam). Nobody else but me uses it that I know of, and I'm not sure why, but it works great for me.

You will find an example posted on this page:

http://www.tt-forums.net/viewtopic.php?t=8502&start=0

by me, labeled "through." Try it and I think you will like it. You have some rather complex interchanges at the end of the station, but those can be made to work too as long as you keep the basic design of the station intact, I have an example of that in one of my games. Pay close attention to which signals are one-way, and which are two-way! If necessary, this station style can be expanded with additional tracks as required, as long as you maintain the separation.

[satosphere]

@ Spaceman Spiff :How did you do that?

@ Krtaylor: Could you post a pic with normal lighted signals rather than semaphores. Its easier to understand with lighted signals.

Most of my passenger stations are normal bidirectional station with interchanges at each end, though I allow one extra bypass track which doesnt go through the station, and it allows trains to turn or express trains to bypass the station. This works for light to moderate passenger traffic. And it doesnt require any waypoints.
With heavy traffic, there are massive genocides for which the company manager (namely me) should be fired. This is mainly due to PBS, wherein two trains enter the same platform in a station, and crash. I have had some really horrible examples.
But for most of the time, I do enable PBS for a junction, and for lite traffic, I manually convert signals to normal pre-signals.

[krtaylor]

On thinking about it, I don't know that I have a good station with normal lighted signals, since by 1975 my networks are usually so complex that this style of station is buried under all sorts of other stuff. Maybe I can find something though.

The idea is that each platform allows entry from only one direction, but exit from either direction. So at the "entry" end of each platform is a bidirectional signal, but at the "exit" end is a one-way signal allowing exiting, but not entry. So no bidirectional collisions.

With four tracks, you'll have the two on one side set up to accept inbound trains from one way, and the other two set up to accept trains from the other way. If the trains are through trains, they can just go right on through; if they reverse there, they can turn around, exit, and there's a cutover to get them onto the return track.

[satosphere]

You can just "turn off" semaphores in TTD Patch Config file. And it will show normal lighted signals.

But for you methodology to work - you must have [i]reversing at end of station[/i] instead of [i]reversing at end of line[/i]. Otherwise trains which have to go back will just keep going forward until they hit a place where they can turn off. Am I correct?

[krtaylor]

Yes, that is absolutely correct, for my station to work you have to have reversing at stations one.