Your favorite junction/station layouts? Pros and cons!

[hertogjan]

Would you still call that a single junction? It is so large that I would rather call that one a network, consisting of many junctions.

[G.A.S]

To be honest: yes, it is one junction (follow the individual routes to confirm this).

The junction was designed following the challenge set in this thread. It handled an insane amount of traffic quite conveniently, but the savegame is incompatible with the new version of OpenTTD (it was created using MiniIN, so I was able to use copy and paste to extract the junction to the new version).

[hertogjan]

To be honest: yes, it is one junction (follow the individual routes to confirm this).

What do you take as the definition of a junction then? How would following the routes determine whether it is a junction or not?

[G.A.S]

Junction (traffic):
(1) where several traffic routes cross.
(2) A junction, when discussed in the context of transport, is a location where traffic can change between different routes

By following the individual routes you will be able to confirm that there is only one way of getting from any entrance to any exit (Except the entrance; no U-turns allowed).

[hertogjan]

But a junction does not always have to be constructed in a way that every entrance has exactly one route (no more, no less) to every exit. Often it is not necessary that every exit can be reached from every entrance. But an "incomplete" junction is still a junction. Sometimes, incomplete junctions may be better than complete junctions, since unnecessary links in junction consume space that could be used for something else.

[G.A.S]

True: But see this in the context of the challenge that was set by sultana at http://www.tt-forums.net/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=25655.

Hopefully I have applied some concepts in the design that could be used in future junction design. If this is the case, it probably fulfilled its role.

Note that the junction was designed with a predetermined size in mind; but could be compressed due to the amount of straight rails and open space if needed. I just did not need to do so.

[G.A.S]

I have sent the junction on a diet. Quite smaller now (64x64 vs 126x126), but it has sharper turns.

It could be compressed even smaller if you don't mind sharp turns (but I am not going to do it).

[Edit] I have managed to get the size down to 52x52 without 90 degree turns, but have not yet tested it.

[CommanderZ]

Radiant Junction Mk.2
- crossing of 8 double tracks
- no 2*45 turns
- far higher capacity than Radiant Mk.1 (my last junction posted here) - splits were moved before joins.
- the traffic is smooth until the outgoing tracks are overloaded
- 85*85 plots

Führer's Travel Corp., 6th Nov 2263.png

(312.3 KiB) Downloaded 139 times

Radiant Junction Mk.3
- crossing of 8 quad-tracks
- no 2*45 turns
- basic load balancing
- 101*101 plots

It is not yet finished (I'm working on it for more than two weeks). The junction itself is finished, but I need to upgrade remaining incoming and outgoing lines to quad-tracks and also some presingal errors made during copy and pasting need to be fixed. I can't wait to see it in action.

mk3 minimap

Führer's Travel Corp., 29th Aug 2282#1.png (8.03 KiB) Viewed 4948 times

Führer's Travel Corp., 29th Aug 2282.png

(158.73 KiB) Downloaded 146 times

[Flamelord]

Who needs station layouts when you have throughput?

[Grolsch]

Who needs station layouts when you have throughput?

Serving 122 trains? How about a station serving 461

[Flamelord]

Mmm, nice. But that falls under "fancy-shmancy station layout" rather than clean, pure throughput. Still an accomplishment!

[XeryusTC]

It's not a fancy layout, it is one of the simplest station entries ever, developed by #openttdcoop The theory behind it is a bit more advanced though.

[planetmaker]

Mmm, nice. But that falls under "fancy-shmancy station layout" rather than clean, pure throughput. Still an accomplishment!

Rest assured that the throughput of a pre-signal bypass station as shown in that image is superior to most, propably all station layouts posted above.
Here's an image of the combined factory & refinery station, serving about 750 trains. 550 of those go to the drop part, shown in the upper part of the image (3 entry tracks which serve 18 tracks of station). The drop part uses this method while the less frequented pickup part may use less efficient designs. It's a bit less obvious as only minimal terraform was done.

larger version of this image of the factory of psg#91. Get the samegame from our public server archives.

For the lazy, here's the article about how this kind of station works.

[Flamelord]

And again, it's not brute force giving you throughput, it's flying junctions doing it.

It's still impressive, but it doesn't have the same effect for me.

[planetmaker]

And again, it's not brute force giving you throughput, it's flying junctions doing it.

It's still impressive, but it doesn't have the same effect for me.

If you're saying you could have achieved the same in your game with half the tracks and station platforms without loss of performance, e.g. grossly oversized building, then I agree with you.

Coming back to junctions: fluent junctions are an essential to keep our stations fed.

[Flamelord]

There isn't room for anything there. You try to move the station back, you run into the nearest farm. It's surrounded by cities, except in the direction it's expanded, and I had to plow through a city there. I've already moved it up in elevation to increase efficiency. If there was room for something more elegant, I'd be using it.

Most of the stations I've seen have enormous amounts of room to work with, so you can have whatever elegant solution you like.

So, I'm saying that the way I accomplished what I did is the only way, given the situation.

Question: What makes a junction fluent or non-fluent? "Runs smoothly" is not an answer, because it's not directly quantifiable.

[planetmaker]

There isn't room for anything there.

Doubtless solutions have to depend on the circumstances.

Question: What makes a junction fluent or non-fluent? "Runs smoothly" is not an answer, because it's not directly quantifiable.

Oh, definitely, that's the only answer. And it's well quantifiable, looking at the speed of trains, whether they stop, slow down or continue to run at max. speed. You can measure the the throughput of trains per unit time and compare. The only free variables are the train length and the max speed of trains used.
As with stations you may have to compromise with existing terrain.

If you don't take the average time a train needs to traverse a fixed distance which incorporates a crossing as a measure for a crossings efficiency, all you can do is babble - but not argue about junctions' qualities. You may want to do this measurement for different loads on the incoming and outgoing tracks of a junction

[arpa_ks]

Is this a competition to show who manages to create the biggest station?
I've never found such a flat terrain to build large stations, and I try not to terraform, as it seems to me more realistic.

[CommanderZ]

As I said, I had to turn one very large sea into ground to be able to place it. Such large seas ocassionally appear on maps with very high water level.

[Grolsch]

Mmm, nice. But that falls under "fancy-shmancy station layout" rather than clean, pure throughput. Still an accomplishment!

Fancy? This is optimal throughput! Trains don't have to wait for trains before them moving in the junction in front of the station. Four inputlanes to one big station. Why is that fancy?