Project Help a Newb: Basic Signal Confusion

[Goobertron]

I've only made a few post so far and they've all been fairly basic and dumb. The reason for that is that i've only been playing TTD for a couple of days and despite trying my hardest by reading other forum posts and the wiki i still have a bunch questions. I thought i'd prefix my posts with 'Project Help a Newb' just to keep them clear and separate from another so that they might be useful for other new players. That and i'll be using screenshots in the most of them so it'd get messy if i just created one giant OP with 10 different questions and 30 screenshots and what have you.

Anyway, if i haven't bored you to death already, i shall begin....


In the following screenshot you can see a small section of a network i created. Its my first network that isn't a simple two station, one train setup. Its obviously basic to most of you but I was quite pleased with it

As you can see, train A is waiting for train B to clear before it moves into the station. The coloured arrows indicating the signals will become clear in the second screenshot.

However, train A is not moving and the signal is still red despite the track in front being clear.

Only once train B has passed the signal does train A proceed. Why is this? What are the trains and signals doing/not doing that i cant see?

Thanks


[Edit] Hmmmm.....Sorry about the weird screenshots. I dont know why there is huge black box next to each one.

[PikkaBird]

The original TTD signals only allow one train in a "block", regardless of whether their paths cross. If you want trains to move as soon as they find a clear path, you need path signals.

[Eddi]

may i urge you to use PNG screenshots in the future? JPG is practically useless for anything that has straight lines in it, only ever use it for photos, never for computer generated images

[Goobertron]

The original TTD signals only allow one train in a "block", regardless of whether their paths cross. If you want trains to move as soon as they find a clear path, you need path signals.

I see. But what actually constitutes a "block"? I thought a block just one tile space.

And i'll start producing my screenshots in PNG too

[Eddi]

no, a block are all connected tiles (cf. "flood fill") until you hit a signal. path signals are more fine grained than that, they would show the behaviour you want.

[audigex]

A "block" is the space between sigals, and can be any size. Basically only one train can be between any signals at a time with block signals.

A tile is simply called a tile.