Railtype label for dedicated high speed?

[andythenorth]

I'm creating a railtype which is a dedicated very high speed line.

Standard gauge rail.
No speed limit.
Electrified with catenary.
Axle load is not relevant.
Accessible only to certain trains.

IRL it's an LGV / High Speed 1 type

What is an appropriate railtype label?

Currently it's set to LOLZ, with the vehicles falling back to HSTR, SAAE if LOLZ is not defined. (I took HSTR and SAAE from the wiki).

[Eddi]

imho, all standard gauge trains should be set to "RAIL"/"ELRL", no matter how many fancy railtypes you got. unless you want to design around axle weight. or weird stuff like in-cab signalling or whatever.

[andythenorth]

...or weird stuff like in-cab signalling or whatever.

IRL it's the latter, but in-game the intent is to keep ~87mph freight trains separate from ~186mph TGV-type trains, whilst also allowing the TGVs to run on the normal ELRL network.

Did I miss the railtype label schema that is based around gameplay effects? Or should I start a 3rd standard?

[Erato]

The label in the standardised scheme would be SCAE, usually.
When designing a trackset you can set the properties to allow SCAE trains to run on normal electrified rails, but not unelectrified rails, the same way you'd allow unelectrified trains on electrified rails.

[Eddi]

let's back up here a bit.

first, the standardized scheme is designed so train sets and track sets aren't a 1:1 match, but you can combine sets from different authors. inventing new labels puts you back onto the "this only works for MY OWN sets" category. so finding a match in the standardized railtype scheme would be preferred

second, the distinction between a freight network and a highspeed network is IMHO purely organisational. there's nothing physically preventing you from putting in-cab signalling into freight locomotives (and some countries do this). forcing this separation by providing separate track types usually breaks down at the point where you place parallel diagonal tracks on the same tile, which again forces you to add weird hybrid railtypes. i'd personally prefer separation by waypoints.

[odisseus]

The separation between freight tracks and high speed tracks is very significant in some types of gameplay. Typically it arises when the high speed tracks are much more expensive to build and/or maintain.

For example, the Dutch track set has two different types of catenary (1500 V and 25 kV). High performance engines from the Dutch train set require the 25 kV catenary or have reduced power when used with the other type. Furthermore, there is a difference between freight 25 kV tracks (affordable but limited speed), and high-speed 25 kV (very expensive).

[Eddi]

so, to answer the original question here's my interpretation of the standardized railtype scheme:

• Sxxx: all tracks discussed here are standard gauge, so this letter is fixed
• xAxx/xBxx: if the speed limit is the only distinction between track types, with no physical restriction to trains, this letter should be varied, higher letter meaning higher speed
• xxAx/xxBx: this letter mostly covers the "compatible" flag. if the track should be restricted for freight trains, this letter should be varied. if you assume freight trains are usually heavier, the restricted high-speed type should have a lower letter.
• xxxE: this letter mostly covers the "powered" flag. if you really want to model in-cab signalling on a per-engine basis, this letter could be varied. but this will get messy with other sets.

on this basis, i present these options:

1. no restriction, outside standard scheme
   • ELRL - slow freight track
   • HSTR - fast express track
   • no train will be defined for this express track type
2. no restriction, using standard scheme
   • SAAE - slow freight track
   • SBAE - fast express track
   • alternate labels defined for the weight classes as the standardized scheme requires.
3. restriction, using standard scheme
   • SADE - slow freight track (alternate label: SAEE)
   • SAAE - fast express track (alternate label: SABE, SACE)
   • you can vary the exact point where you draw the line by flipping the alternative labels to the other track type

[andythenorth]

so, to answer the original question here's my interpretation of the standardized railtype scheme:

Thanks

The argument about not using railtypes for routing is persuasive, I've abandoned that idea.

I did try the 'high speed' railtype as a simple variant of ELRL that adjusts curve speed multiplier and forbids level crossings, compatible with ELRL.

However I discovered compatible railtypes are currently broken in a way that might be fine and expected, but gives me a twitch: https://github.com/OpenTTD/OpenTTD/issues/9850

As I'm not ready to make JGR-only grfs, I've abandoned the idea of using compatible railtypes

This was a useful exercise for the design of future Iron Horse rosters.

For the UK roster, railtypes are minimal (RAIL, ELRL, narrow gauge, metro), whereas for North America and European Horse rosters I have been considering ideas like split electrification types, routes with high clearance for double-stack containers etc.

None of those ideas are currently viable, and may not be wise anyway. So that's helpful information before designing too much around them.

Thanks to all who helped.