Transport Tycoon Forums

As my games getting bigger and bigger I come across one problem: There are too many trains wanting to unload at a certain station. That brings in timetables. I used the Automatic timetables and Autoseparation until now. But that doesn't make it better at large stations. So I began to experiment with "real" timetables, manually set up. Therefore I used a little line having 3 stations and no junctions. I changed the timetable time to minutes and later even to ticks. Set 60ticks/min and created a timetable that lasts 3600 ticks (60mins) and separated the 3 trains driving on the line by 20mins (starting times: 00:00, 00:20 and 00:40).
I expected them to be perfectly separated, but instead what happened was, that the timetables moved wildly and the trains weren't even 10mins apart. I thought the times the trains pass the station would be the exact same minute every hour, but that changed.

So what happened? Did I miss something? Or did I just not get the whole timetable thing?

are you sure that autoseparation is properly disabled? that used to be tricky to do, and will mess up all your manual timetables.

Eddi wrote:are you sure that autoseparation is properly disabled? that used to be tricky to do, and will mess up all your manual timetables.

double checked everything. Looks all alright

I suspect your trains are getting delayed and can't make their delay up.
Allow for some spare time in certain stations along the route.
Normally early trains will wait longer at stations to depart on time.
Also signal spacing must be sufficient to run a train every X minutes at speed Y.

Getting their starting times setup exactly might be a little bit tricky, but should be perfectly possible.
Using 60 tick/min (or per day on a non patched game) is a good trick, and using 3600 as a timetable length is nice. It's important to use a multiple of a certain number as a base of your timetable. 60 is the perfect number, since it is dividable by 2,3,4,5 and 6. And in the same way works well in relation to real time.
It is perfectly possible to get it working even in trunk. I used it long time ago before I even discovered auto separation or patched versions of Ottd.

ALSO never change tick/min once you have any timetables running it well mess them up.

But I don't think many people really managed the art of timetabling their games. Especially since auto separation and automation. The only fully hourly timetabled ones I've seen here was someone re-creating a Spanish scenario and my current game.
Best way is to keep experimenting and trying, once you get the hang of it. It becomes more easy. Setting it up can be tedious and time-consuming.

Edit; One more tip to make it more easy when using a patched version.
Set your timetable to show in minutes. There is also a setting to set the amount of ticks the timetable is rounded to. Set this equal to tick/min. Since there will be some rounding up now when using autofill trains are less likely to get delayed. Also working with 60 minutes instead of 3600 ticks might be more easy.

jor[D]1 wrote:I suspect your trains are getting delayed and can't make their delay up.

That is probably the problem. I think I remember the 3600 ticks were a bit short. I'll try it as soon as I get some time. Thanks for your help

You could use any multiple of 60 minutes (or even 20/30min if that the trains frequency) for the total timetable time.
I wouldn't use odd numbers not fitting the frequency of trains, that will make your life more difficult.

Still no change...
The trains now have way too many time between the stations and I double and triple checked the settings. The trains just have completely random departure times.
They now need 90mins/5400 ticks. I started them 30mins apart. Starting date 00.00, 00.30 and 01.00. After a day the times at the starting points changed to 00.18, 01.10 and 00.45
I just dont understand that.

Maybe you could post some screens or a save game to take a look?
It's a bit hard to guess the cause.

The Trains are the one in the very south