Trains with different speeds on the same line?

[KBoogle]

I've just started using a train set NewGRF for the first time, and it there are so many trains with so many variations that it actually makes sense to use different trains for different tasks.
But that brings me to a problem where I will have trains with different speeds using the same lines, and obviously that would mean my trains will only be as fast as the slowest one on the line. I don't know how this is handled in real life, but I do know that there are "express" trains that somehow manage to bypass other trains on the line? How would I do something like that in-game?
Any tips would be appreciated

[Leanden]

You could try using passing points or have seperate tracks for express lines.

[FooBar]

I don't know how this is handled in real life, but I do know that there are "express" trains that somehow manage to bypass other trains on the line?

In real life that managed by timetables. Trains are planned exactly that express trains can overtake slower trains at stations or indeed passing points. While timetables are possible in OpenTTD, the concept of timetables in general is rather difficult, also in real life. For example, work on the national timetable of the Netherlands for next year started two years ago [0]. In TTD, such a bypass is generally the easier solution. With a bit of tactical signalling you can even give priority to the main line, see example:

St. Dunberg Bay Transport, 5th Feb 1875.png (28.31 KiB) Viewed 5063 times

[0] This is mainly because we want hourly timetables in which each service is repeated exactly 30 minutes after the previous, which are rather difficult to optimize.

[KBoogle]

Ah, I see now, yeah those bypasses make sense. I guess I'll just have to put a lot of them along my line, or maybe even just make a separate express line entirely. But man, that's gonna be costly...
Anyway, thanks for the help

[V453000 :)]

It is impossible to solve this issue. Definitely not perfectly - there are some ideas how to do it, but all of those are some train sorting mechanisms that just divide trains into separate lines. Therefore you can just simply split the lines and have trains on 2 separate lines.
-> Do not use trains of different speeds on one line

Which actually touches the "idea" of wagon speed limits - they do nothing but make you split the lines, which is boring as you get much less traffic -> no problems -> just sitting around and having to solve nothing

[Voyager One]

It is impossible to solve this issue.

This isn't true and the advice not to use different trains on the same line is a kind of, pardon me, a bull**** IMO. You're suggesting a quick and easy solution that is not really a true solution. It may be good for a newbie's playing style but if you're playing a little bit more seriously...

I'm not saying it's easy to manage different trains, it takes a lot of work with signals, parallel tracks, overtaking loops, waypoints, timetables etc. but FooBar and Leanden are right and their suggestions are the beginning. Later, you could/should experiment a little bit and find your own mixture of these things that works best for you.

[V453000 :)]

It is impossible to solve this issue.

This isn't true and the advice not to use different trains on the same line is a kind of, pardon me, a bull**** IMO. You're suggesting a quick and easy solution that is not really a true solution. It may be good for a newbie's playing style but if you're playing a little bit more seriously...

I'm not saying it's easy to manage different trains, it takes a lot of work with signals, parallel tracks, overtaking loops, waypoints, timetables etc. but FooBar and Leanden are right and their suggestions are the beginning. Later, you could/should experiment a little bit and find your own mixture of these things that works best for you.

ANY of the aiding mechanisms does NOT prevent the faster trains from slowing down. Therefore if your line gets fuller, it WILL jam/slow down with various train speeds. What is wrong about saying that it is impossible to solve?
- All your parallel tracks, overtaking loops, waypoints etc. DO split trains to another line, which could have been done much simplier by having trains of the same speed on one network and different on another.
- Playing "more seriously" means more trains on a line. As all of those mechanisms break under stress, those "solutions" get rather nooby

I do not say it is _impossible_ to have trains on the same network - you just dump them there and done. But doing it effectively without slowdowns, and in a larger scale - is not possible. And if you want to discuss whether something is possible in a smaller scale, then the answer would be in 99% cases yes, it is possible, regardless what are you discussing.

[FooBar]

A proper timetable gives full priority to express trains, scheduling slower trains after the express trains with scheduled overtaking possibilities where necessary. That's how it's done in real life and in theory it's completely feasible to do the same in OTTD. This is actually very difficult to conceive, so if you want a challenge try timetabling your complete network.

[Voyager One]

This is a VERY difficult task but it may be just a bit easier if you start timetabling your network from the very beginning.

[V453000 :)]

Yes, but not with a netrwork that has higher amounts of traffic ... and anything actually works with "low-traffic" lines because their throughput is not reached

[Supercheese]

You could use Chill's patchpack with its speed signals (see the thread for more details). But of course limiting your 100MPH express trains to 50MPH on a line with coal trains isn't a great solution...

[PikkaBird]

Bear in mind that V453000 is of the "cram as many maglevs into your network as possible" school of openttd, which is a valid playstyle but not necessarily (in fact, almost certainly not) what the OP has in mind.

[Dave]

Which actually touches the "idea" of wagon speed limits - they do nothing but make you split the lines, which is boring as you get much less traffic -> no problems -> just sitting around and having to solve nothing

The more I read from you, the more moronic you appear.

Wagon speed limits aren't there as an annoyance, they add an extra challenge. They additionally allow the creation of a much more realistic network and fleet. Not that you'd care as everything in your game is Lev4 on 8-lane MagLev cloverleaf junctions.

Am I right?

[Arie-]

If someone was to implement ETCS level 3 in OpenTTD... There has been an attempt a half year ago. It probably isn't that easy because someone would probably had done it already.

[aridus]

If you can't do full double line everywhere, here's some good things to try to help with different speed trains:

1. put depots on sidings, so trains split off from the main before they begin to slow down to the depot speed limit, and therefore don't block the main like going in or out of depot.

2. Double your bridges, tunnels, and hill climbs, with a split before each and a merge after, so trains can both cross the area and pass in the same move. Helps with trains that slow down in these areas.

3. You can also use two way double track, rather than one track for each direction, you have two bi-directional tracks with passing crosses every so often, and you prioritize it with path signals.

[ChillCore]

You could use Chill's patchpack with its speed signals (see the thread for more details). But of course limiting your 100MPH express trains to 50MPH on a line with coal trains isn't a great solution...

Thank you for advertising.
Let me do some of my own since not everybody wants to play with patches ...

With recent versions of NuTracks it is possible to set the max speed also for each type of rail.
The difference is ofcource that with Nutracks you are limited to the number of tracks per type and you end up with parts of your network having different looking rails, while with the speedsignals you can have all the tracks look the same and have trains slow down as gradually as you wish ...
Unfortunately I do not have a separate patch for this at the moment as the code is based, and depends heavily, on the programmable signals patch for the moment.


Anyway, before both options above were available, I did the following:

I built a seperate network for the passengers and freight to begin with. Only trains delivering goods and food to towns run on the passenger network. For this I use a transfer station to get the food and goods from the freight network on the passenger network.
Also I keep the same engines on all my freight trains and when upgrading I replace all of them at once, but as the empty trains accelerate faster and go faster uphill (freight multiplier * 5 and realistic acceleration), I have single lines downhill and double lines uphill with the possibility to switch lines every so often. Almost empty trains can overtake fully loaded trains now and it has reduced jams bigtime.
From time to time there is still a faster train stuck behind a slower one but not often and not for long ...

Ah, I see now, yeah those bypasses make sense. I guess I'll just have to put a lot of them along my line, or maybe even just make a separate express line entirely. But man, that's gonna be costly...

I might add some bypasses on the flatter terrain later but unill now I do not really have a need for that ... might need to add some when I will have more trains (168 at the moment) ...
A big part of the fun I have while playing is adjusting the network as needs arises -> Some junctions are rebuild/modified 10 times to have better flow.

[planetmaker]

(...)

Not that you'd care as everything in your game is Lev4 on 8-lane MagLev cloverleaf junctions.

You could not be more wrong. On both accounts actually. There are few people who contribute more genuine and original ideas to maps, use of different trains and engines and network designs to our games. The only thing which they have in common is to end up an efficient network in terms of highest cargo throughput - within self-imposed limitations of a given scenario.

[Voyager One]

Unfortunately I can't provide you a savegame I've had a month or two ago (I must have deleted it) but I'll try describing you what I've done.

Map size was 256x256 in temperate climate IIRC, default industries only, 2cc trainset + NuTracks, no timetabling.

Pax/mail trains and goods trains had their own high-speed-track mainlines with almost the best and fastest engines always on them. Freight lines had 160km/h lines, intersecting with pax lines ONLY when necessary for terrain configuration - still, pax lines' path signals were place a little further from them intersections so a pax train would reserve a longer track distance and it would have a greater chance of passing first. Both pax and freight networks had quad-tracks on most used sections (double tracks on local sections), with overtaking lines now and there. I used A LOT of waypoints to route specific trains to specific paths grouping faster trains on some paths, slower trains on other paths.

This network supported cca 250 trains with very few jams - they mostly occured before main stations 3 cities I had there and it was only because I didn't want to raze half the city and expand these station to something huge.

[SAC]

I'm using a different approach to this "problem", and I'm using both express trains and some more "classic" passenger trains sharing the same line. I have solved this by ensuring that signals are placed in front of each station, and no train can leave a station until the line between two stations are clear from trains. My express trains doesn't stop at all the stations as my "classic" passenger trains, and as a result of this my express trains do have to make a stop at a station where they usually doesn't stop in order to wait for a line to get clear. This is pretty much what happens in real life too, and a longer stop at a station isn't unrealistic either as many trains - at least where I live - can have both longer and shorter stops at some stations.

While my railroad lines is one track in each direction, my stations usually allow for at least two trains in each direction to stop, and my express trains often catches up at station areas, and can bypass the slower trains this way.

[V453000 :)]

Bear in mind that V453000 is of the "cram as many maglevs into your network as possible" school of openttd, which is a valid playstyle but not necessarily (in fact, almost certainly not) what the OP has in mind.

I know, you are right, but as long as you have not many trains crammed on your tracks, you most likely do not have many problems, therefore you likely do not need to solve them. Particularly when trains have different speeds - you might make a train able to overtake another on some certain point (or even anywhere, I did that once) but the problem is that it a) will never be prevented from slowing down which I would like to see, and b) the solutions tend to make more lines ... so one could say that an ultimate solution actually is splitting the trains from the very beginning into separate networks.

Which actually touches the "idea" of wagon speed limits - they do nothing but make you split the lines, which is boring as you get much less traffic -> no problems -> just sitting around and having to solve nothing

The more I read from you, the more moronic you appear.

Wagon speed limits aren't there as an annoyance, they add an extra challenge. They additionally allow the creation of a much more realistic network and fleet. Not that you'd care as everything in your game is Lev4 on 8-lane MagLev cloverleaf junctions.

Am I right?

1. Your "realistic" style of gameplay takes _much_ less challenge than playing for effectiveness (which can look nice at the same time)
2. If you think that over 5 years of developing, improving and making up new stuff of openttdcoop is moronic, then you should probably search psychiatrist.
3. Wagon speed limits are downright stupid. Aside from the fact that they make you care only for power of trains, not speed, they still just cause needless jams that can, again, be solved only by splitting traffic - temporarily or completely depends on amount of traffic.
4. Do not give examples from "effective" playing style, since all of cloverleaf, maglev and 8 lanes suck
5. I sure am the biggest moron around, mainly because I know how the game works and what is effective

planetmaker: don't bother, we are morons