Transport Tycoon Forums

All my trains have this behaviour, they enter a station, unload or load and then leave the station in the wrong way, but they take a free track to go back in the right way
Could it be possible for multiheaded trains, I have always one engine each side, to just leave the station the way it entered it ?
It would make my stations a lot smoother

you would have to turn on turning at station in the difficulty menu
but yes idea of reversing train is good one .. I don't remember if it is in TO DO already (but was suggested once in the past)

that would be very nice feature


edited: yes it is on TO DO list

- allow trains to go backwards: fake it by reversing the order, and copying
all engine data from the real engine to the new first wagon; make sure to
always reverse it when entering a depot. Will require multihead on to work.
perhaps show "correct" (unreversed) order in train window to avoid confusion

but in this set up the trains should go forward even with "faked" reversing.

spiff to properly make the trains go the round way make your station either a terminal or a roro.

No, I can't and I won't, trains come from all over the place, ro-ro can be fun but I was fed up with them, this is the layout I want to use right now
Trains going round delays other trains too much

I've found that the only way to fix this is to put a checkpoint right outside the station, generally one on each side, and tell the train to go to the checkpoint in the right direction, after going to the station. Then usually it will turn around if necessary, and not if not, and work correctly.

That would take a lot of time (and checkpoint stations), doesn't seem worth it

krtaylor wrote:I've found that the only way to fix this is to put a checkpoint right outside the station, generally one on each side, and tell the train to go to the checkpoint in the right direction, after going to the station. Then usually it will turn around if necessary, and not if not, and work correctly.

no, if the signal on the correct side is red the train tries to find an alternative route and goes the way around the other side (even if the signal on the other side are also red - only after the wait time it tries to find again another route). thats the problem with two way signals (and you need two way signals in such a station). i didn't find a solution for that. on busy stations, where some trains should turn and go back this can cause heavy trafic jams.

There are several ways you can deal with this. One is to increase the wait time at a red signal, which you can easily do via the Configurator.

Another is to do a split-directional station with trap signals. This is kind of hard to describe and I've only seen one other person do it, but since I discovered it, it has become my standard high-traffic through-station format. It takes up a bit of space, but not much more than a large station would anyway. If you're interested, I'll post a screenshot of one here for you.

If a station is really excessively busy, it's best to do it as a ro-ro setup, particularly for factory dropoffs. You can have one-way signals at both ends this way, and trains cannot go the wrong way. (Actually you have to have two sets of signals at the inbound end, so as not to screw up the pre-signals.)

Could you post a screenshot, I would like to try it

yes, pls. post a screeny with your trap signals.

OK, here are two kinds of high-throughput stations. I'll make two posts so they don't get confused.

This one is used on a through-line where some trains go through the station from one end to the other (with or without stopping) from both directions, and others arrive from one direction and want to return the way they came. Of course you can do this in the traditional way with a single switching interchange block at each end of the station, and bidirectional signals at each end of each track, but this quickly seizes up as traffic increases.

You'll note that this keeps the two directions separate, so trains can be moving in and out of the station in both directions at the same time, because there isn't a single interchange block at each end. The one-way signals on the outbound end keep trains from wanting to loop-the-loop; and there's a crossover connection at the back end of each direction to allow a train that wants to go back the way it came, to cross over to the correct direction. You can see there's a train doing exactly this in the screenshot. Observe that there is more than one signal on the crossover line; this means that the first signal on that line is always green to a train wanting to use it,, thus preventing trains from getting confused by a blocked line.

Here's a very different sort of station. It's an industrial ro-ro which I use at an intermediary industry, like a factory or (as here) a steel mill. The ore trains and steel trains use the same double-tracked main line, but there's a checkpoint to separate out the steel trains into their own queue.

The ore trains enter from the rear of the station. Because it's a long station, I had to zoom out one notch, but if you look closely, you can see that there are two sets of signals for the ore trains at the entry-end of the station. This is because, for the pre-signals to work properly, the pre-signal exits have to be bi-directional; but this is a uni-directional station and you don't want trains to be able to go the wrong way. So, there's a single pre-signal at the entrance, then on each station track, there's a bidirectional combo signal (to make the presignal work right), followed by a one-way pre-signal exit (to keep the trains from being able to come back out of the station the wrong way). At the exit of the station, there are one-way signals for the same reason, and exiting empty trains are forced through a depot on their way out.

I've found this to be the most efficient method of dealing with this sort of situation. In one of my other games, the traffic exceeded the capacity of even this layout, and I eventually would up with a seven-track mainline: four in, three out, with interchanges to allow the trains to cross over to get where they needed to go. Quite complicated but it worked pretty well. I'd post that one if you're interested.

the layout for the trough station is brilliant! i will try it soon.

If you make the exits longer seperate the trains aren't likely going wrong because of a red signal, ohh, and I already use this setup of presignals with oneway exit signal since ages

The probleme here with the exit, I don't have much room

I know about the dedicated exits, that also works, but it takes up so much space! If you are using normal-size stations it's not that big of a deal, but the US set is tuned more towards long, heavy trains, and so I like to have really long stations where I can. I don't start the game that way, but as soon as I see primary industries producing enormous quantities, I upgrade their station and the destination station to support really long trains. The AC-6s are good for that.

@krtaylor: your trough station layout works very well!

Yes, I see, you did a very nice and neat job of it. There's only one small change I would recommend, and that's to make the reverse-crossovers slightly longer (you've got plenty of room), and use the extra space to allow for two signals on the crossover, one right after the other. That would prevent trains from getting confused in the routing by a red signal at the entrance to the crossover. Otherwise, I'm glad you like it!

um... krtaylor, that does not work if you use "reverse at end of line only"...

BobXP wrote:um... krtaylor, that does not work if you use "reverse at end of line only"...

As shown, that's true, but there's a modification you can use to fix that: instead of having the crossover on the near side, so the trains reverse in the station, come out the way they came in, and cross over to the down track, you can put the crossover on the far side, so the trains go out of the station the opposite end from which they came in (i.e. without reversing), and then flip a quick U and go back through the station the opposite way.

Or you could just use the "...and at stations" option, that works very nicely thanks much.

Or you could just use the "...and at stations" option, that works very nicely thanks much.

That screws up how RoRo stations operate...