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This is probably the part that pissis me off the most in Locomotion, the lack of AI of trains and the way signaling works...
I have been building all evening to make a nice looking train-yard wich holds 13 tracks and 3 tracks inside a station. The first 3 tracks on the left side of the yard lead to the first track on the right in the station (1 train in station 3 in the yard. The second part (5 tracks in the middle of the yard) lead to the middle station section (1 train in the station 5 in the yard). The third part (5 tracks on the right side of the yard) yard lead to the most left track of the station (1 train in the station 5 in the yard) Why ? Because I want to make it look realistic. Now 16 trains can handle this station (without other traffic being hold up), it has to be because it's Soldier Summit and you need to load trains constantly if you don't want to drop the coal-ratings on the station below 0.

But what the hell am I doing wrong here... Why does every train want to take the particilar most right track when 11 of them are free ??? , this is p***ing me off. Is it just the game, or the real idiot like AI...Do I really have to chew every peace of food for them ? Didn't the engineers went to school or is it just me ? I already tried to give each train an order to go to a specific part of the yard and then into the station but the problem remains...

I have a few downloads from Zimmlock, where he works like this on a same basic...and it works for him. I place a signal at the beginning of the split up and then 1 for every free track. I don't place signals on the beginning of the station (only at the end) so trains stay in the yard and only go inside the station when a track is completly free...(just before I closed down the game a few moments ago, a train went through a red signal and bumped into another loading train...That's where I went crazy and had enough for today)
On this one it worked, but on the one that I wrote about it didn't...

Please does anybody know how or what to do in situations like this ? I already looked at almost every signal tutorial (and I have been playing Locomotion for years, so it has nothing to do with lack of experience) I can found but non of these problems are being answered...If no solution can be found...I would almost say I quit playing Locomotion (Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the game but this kind of troubles really brings my frustration levels in a state of emergency)...You work for hours and hours, spend a complete evening to a useless thing like a yard just trying to make things as realistic as possible and what do you get...Trains that lack every intelligence known to mankind, trains that look like bumpercars and trains that wait for hours (9 trains are waiting behind the one that want's to go to the track on the right) while 11 tracks are free ??? I know this forum is viewed by kids as well otherwise I probebly would have used another less nice use of language...

too many routes, add more signals to the splits, the trains get confused

Hi,

the junction is to big. I know that Locomotion can handle something between 5 - 7 junctions.

On your second screen you have mostly 3 junctions, so that it works.

rdrdrdrd wrote:too many routes, add more signals to the splits, the trains get confused

I already tried to make it with more signals (1 before every junction) but that doesn't work either...It almost looks as if the trains takes the route wich is the closest towards the station, so I think no matter how much junctions I build it will always take the shortest route...guess I have to build the d*mn thing all over again...

But thnksss, you too Speedy !

Put 2-way signals in front of your station. Works for me most of the time.

Illegal_Alien wrote:Put 2-way signals in front of your station. Works for me most of the time.

TY IA...Do I also have to place these two-way signals in every lane of the yard or just at the station ?

Just use it at parts when your trains need to be seperated. Because this way the 2way signals makes the 1 way signal a pre-signal, if all the tracks are full, and all signals red, then the train will wait at the one-way signal instead of a stationtrack. (Comes also handy in low level crossings, where you dont want to have a train block it.

I think I got it working...but what a hell of a job. Like I said in my first post, you have to chew on everything before it works. I used 13 tracks for the Coal-Yard and 13 for the Oil-Yard. The 5 tracks on the right have an extra station on the end wich is only 1 tile long (Red Circle Yard-Station 1). The next 5 tracks also have a station (Yellow Circle Yard-Station 2), and the last 3 tracks have a station too (Green Circle Yard station 3). Everyone of the 13 trains have there own track and I force them to go to there (Train 1 goes to lane 1 etc.) then stop at the yard station and from there to the coal-load station wich is all one and the same station (Build with the LSP).
Even with the 13 trains that go to Provo (4 trains go the other direction as you can see in the upper corner to the power-station near the town), I don't make it...Ratings drop to 35%, so I guess I need more trains. The one thing that I'm afraid of...now that every train has its own lane I don't dare to build more trains because it might stalls if a train is waiting on a certain lane and another has to go to that same lane...for that I try that trick with 2-way signals instead of leading each train to it's own lane.

But I can say (very carefully) that this is the only way that works for me...

Thnxs for all the tips guys !!!

Ha ha ha wrong signaling and track lay out thats all.....................................

Well it works they way I descriped in my last post...

How would you do it Zimmlock ? I mean if you would have build it via the same way as I did...

Yet I have another problem...Not as big as the yard wich is solved now, but something else.

As most of you know I frequently make use of the long station patch...In the next situation the trains do exactly the same as in the previous one. I show here two screenshots...
The first shows the first part of the station and the second one the end of the station. If you look carefully you can see the (invisible) station tiles on the tracks marked with small brown dots at the end of the station...it's just few on every track but 8 per track. 10 tracks next to each other, with between every two tracks the Bauplatz (so that doesn't make part of the stationname, it's just eye-catching). The sides are part of the station and have the same name, each tracks has the same number of station-tiles.

I still have the problem that trains wait until a the track is free even when I have 7 other tracks free, still so much to p*** me off !!

Does anybody have a nice solution or should I just make smaller stations ? The tracks on the right and left are reserved for the 4 woodchips-trains (I had to order those trains to choose that particilar track but because the other trains won't go there anyway that's fine for now). The six tracks in the middle are for all the other trains...

On the third screen there is the exact same situation, same length, 10 tracks wide and build in the same way. I also use the long station pack, it's just another game on the same map. On that situation it works...
So what the hell is wrong with this game ??? Is it the lack of normal train AI, or is it just ME ???

I don't need a lot of help normaly but now I do...

Please help...


Thnxsss guys ! Thnxsss a lot !

Its you, its a crappy design.

lets not be mean here, but that layout could use some work, try making it so there is never a place trains have to decide between more than 4 routes at a single signal

OKAY some help is needed here, first to my opinion a 10 track station in this way is a little to much specialy because you use the large station mod and no cars stick out of the station, then i recommend to buid seperate load and unload stations, i can advice to do a test, build a 3 track unload station and see how many trains you can deploy there un till you ll get a traffic jamm, you ll be suprised, as soon as you have a jamm, just add 1 more station track, now you have a 4 track station this station can handle all the trains, there is just one condition needed to let it work good, the trains have to be able to leave the station without problem, to achieve this i mostly build a exit track, that can contain a entire train, before i merge all tracks. (only if the station has the same lenght as the trains)
Your 10 track station ll allways be verry empty, but i know you want to have it this way, if you feed the station from one track i recommend you split this track up first like in the screenshot, only thing is that to have the trains a little equaly devided over the two sides you have to route them as i did with my train1 to avoid trains that have to wait to long to exit and turn around you allso have to place a route marker at the exit (3) so the train enters the exit track where its locked up between oneway signals and gives the platform free.
To not confuse the AI, the best way to construct the junction to the stationtracks, indecated with the arrow, is to let all splits start at the same tile and to keep the junction symetric, if you have a 4 track station its better to enter it diagonal, but keep the twoway signals on one row, it is crusial to place these twoway signals at the beginning of a multytrack station it is this that tells the AI that there is more then one track available.
Hope to have lighten up your problem a little.
Best Regards Zimmlock

Looking at your first screenhot I believe your intention was to create a waiting yard. I liked the layout and quickly build a similar yard, which works without problems.

Thnxsss guys for all you're kind help with my station-problems. All these combined messages will certenly help me out. I will try that and when it works I will show you some screenshots !

Thnxsss so much !!

...even you IA for you're nice and kind response, as I'm used to that

Perhaps you can show some examples of how you build you're stations...Since you think my designs are crappy I can't wait to see how much realism you build in you're designs...

robo wrote:Looking at your first screenhot I believe your intention was to create a waiting yard. I liked the layout and quickly build a similar yard, which works without problems.

how does that work without pre signals

rdrdrdrd wrote:

robo wrote:Looking at your first screenhot I believe your intention was to create a waiting yard. I liked the layout and quickly build a similar yard, which works without problems.

how does that work without pre signals

Instead of all trains loading at the same time at the coal mine, which would take a lot of time and overcharge your network, if they depart at the same time after loading, they wait empty at Price North (in the screenshot I made 3 stations for the waiting yard, but it works with one short station, too) and then load one by one at a limited loading station at the coal mine, first partially and then by full load.
Why should I need presignals?
The waiting yard on the screenshot maybe oversized, but if the mine production drops down you theoretically need a "parking area" for every coal train in your network.

This was covered somewhere else as an off topic in the past. I think in one of BB's canadian scenario threads. When a Youtube video was made.

There is an upper track limit of 7-9 tracks (I forgot the exact amount) in a multi-track split with pathing.

As robo said, Trying to load a lot of trains at the same time with the same item is very very unefficiant in Locomotion. For some stupid reason, the game tries to load ballance "all trains" so they all leave at once. Even if 7 are almost full and an empty one pulls in, it tries to catch the empty one up with the full ones.

This results in a Lot of traffic with long trains all leaving the station at once. Thus increasing the chance of trains clogging the main lines and even getting lost.

Most of us "long train users" create a "staging yard" or "Storage yard" before the loading station. This way you get a few trains to come in and load up and back on the main line real quick. the over stock trains are waiting for a platform out of the way.

The goal is to get the train into the station and back out as fast as possible. The timer on the goods rotting starts the second the first item is loaded on the train. If there are 16 trains sitting for 2 years with items on them, they will rot.

Of course, for stations that are ONLY unloading platforms, the staging yard works against you, not for you.

Well I made use of the tips I got from all of you and think it works via this way, check my screenshots and you'll be the judge. Trains now take the right route and I didn't even order them to take a certain side. Of course I don't have too many trains at this moment (only 16 or so)...I hope that the problem doesn't come back when there are more than 40 trains or so have to load/unload. So in the first screenshot you'll see what the situation is at the moment:
In the second screenshot you'll see a larger overview of the area. I don't have the room to build a large yard here, because there's a forest in front of the station, but I'll hope this works. Also you'll see a second station. This will mainly be for loading goods (in the near future) and the track in the middle is for trains that don't need to stop here but need to go through without being trouble for the loading trains (so mostly for coal and iron ore trains who return empty):
In the final screenshot I have build a station also via Zimmlock's example, but this station is an end station with two signals at the beginning of the station and bufferstops at the end. Oil get's delivered here to the chemical plant, and chemicals and plastic is being produced. In the future I must deliver plastic pallets from here to the autoparts factory on the other side of the map so that means more traffic. At first only 6 trains came here and I already had problems when I used the 'normal' split up wich I always did and traffic jams occured when 9 tracks where free...(before all of you're good advise) Now that I reorganized it in Zimlock's way it goes fine...I hope it will still be when more traffic comes here but I get to that when it's needed. By the way, these are two stations each with 5 tracks (one station for each chemical plant, not seen in the picture).
For now it works so thnxxxs to all of you kindly !!