Avoiding train/vehicle crashes

[feliciafan89]

This may be obvious to some, but you can eliminate any chance of crashes if you follow these guidelines:

1) Raise the land in an area and use the over/under technique. (Railroad or road is tunneled, other route goes over the hills.)
2) Keep in mind that bridges can be built on land, too. Use this to your advantage in building a bridge over another route, rather than crossing the two and risking a crash.
3) NEVER allow more than one train to share the same track. Unlike in Railroad Tycoon II, trains WILL collide and crash if they head towards each other.

These ideas may be a bit expensive, but crashes will usually bite you in the wallet harder.

[m3henry]

1/2: it's best to give railways priority over roads when it comes to changing elevation
3 :if every train had it's own track, you would fill up the landscape with track quickly. try using signals to make passing places and main lines.

[feliciafan89]

1/2: it's best to give railways priority over roads when it comes to changing elevation
3 :if every train had it's own track, you would fill up the landscape with track quickly. try using signals to make passing places and main lines.

1/2: Well, that goes without saying, doesn't it? Trains are faster than any road vehicle, so they won't be slowed as much going uphill.
3: I put in signals and STILL ended up with crashes. (My bus drivers must be drunk!) If I end up crowding, then so be it. I can just build bridges by raising the land on both sides of another railroad track. There's no "doppleganger" effect with trains; trains WILL collide if they are on the same track, and signals don't help much with forks in the railroads, either. I think I might be overlooking something, do you know what it is?

[moki]

3) is unnecessary, if you know how to use signals properly... the only times I had trains crashing in my regular network were when I used PBS and when I tried to modify a junction with trains on it (but PBS is simply worth a crash or two and changing a working junction in (o)TTD(p) is like operating a working heart (without narcosis ^^))
If you have a crash, you don't understand or don't know how to avoid, just post a screenshot and we are probably able to help.

1/2) are absolutely true... I would add, that the line with higher priority (usually rail) should be as straight as possible, while other lines use bridges or go over hills.
Trains may be faster than road vehicles, but they also carry a lot more freight. If a truck is slowed down and needs one day longer to reach its destination, I lose 5$... if a train with 20 wagons needs one day longer, I lose at least 20 times as much.
Trains also have higher priority for me, because I play with relatively high weight multiplier (openTTD patch option), which greatly enhances the effect of hills on the speed of trains.

[feliciafan89]

I don't know how to use signals properly, and I can only tack 8 cars on to the end of my trains.

[moki]

I don't know how to use signals properly, and I can only tack 8 cars on to the end of my trains.

Here's a pretty good guide to about everything you need to know. Of course there are much more complicated and effective solutions if you understand the basics first.

Are you playing basic TTD (the original one) or are you using TTD Patch or openTTD? In the original game, a train can not be longer than 5 tiles (10 wagons, including the engine). For more information on these two, please look around in the according sections of the forums and ask if you're still confused.

[feliciafan89]

I use TTDX for DOS... bring on the n00b insults! j/k

[m3henry]

Uwe's Guide will give you everything you need to know from TTDX to TTDpatch on signaling
and you need ttdpatch PBS to use signals to activate the level crossings to help reduce vehicle crashes (normal signals don't do anything about road vehicles)

[feliciafan89]

Just yesterday, I got OpenTTD up and running, but I'll list my program's hiccups in the corresponding form.

[sarcasticon]

Early in the game it may be too expensive so it's better to have a mix of single and double tracks shared by 2 trains. Later on I prefer to have separate tracks for each train, just to increase overall efficiency. Takes some complex layouts, in particular nearby towns it can be extremely tough and need a lot of tunneling on different levels, but imo it's often worth it.

One more point related to signs: best stop all trains sharing a track when you're modifying it. Sometimes they may end up ignoring the signals after you've replaced part of the track.

[feliciafan89]

That's... what I was referring to. They ignore the signals, especially if it's just before crossing over a concrete road.

[moki]

Roads have nothing to do with signals, a road vehicle won't turn a rail signal red. Road vehicles will only stop, if there's a train on the road crossing and they won't stop if there's a train approachinging the crossing (even if it is only a single tile away). Trains will never stop for road vehicles, at least not with any current version. Because of that, a road vehicle may enter a crossing, when there's no train, but as trains are quite fast, one may arrive at the crossing, before the road vehicle leaves it (and you know, what happens next)
Hope I didn't misunderstand, what you were talking about... if trains ignore a regular red signal (caused by another train in the next signal block) it is a bug that I never encountered.

[sarcasticon]

A case where road crossings matter for trains & signals: if you had a railway crossing the road, and you replaced the railway by a monorail but left the original crossing in place. The monorail will pass that piece of railway track just fine, but if you then replace that last part with monorail, it will cause the monorail to ignore signs.
But as far as I know that's the only instance where such thing can happen.

[feliciafan89]

The road vehicles don't stop for trains? No wonder they keep crashing!

[m3henry]

a level crossing in TTD works like this:
1: No train on or 1/2 a tile away from the crossing; road vehicles will cross the track
2: Train on or 1/2 a tile away from the crossing; road vehicles can not enter the crossing but can continue across if they are already past the entry point.
3: ttdpatch (nightly OTTD) only; A reserved PBS path over crossing; same effect as #2.