Newbie question. Shared platforms stations

[skinnywattie]

Hi all. Newbie here. I bought the game on the winter sale and am utterly loving it so far.
Its 1981 and I've made £3.08 billion. Nice

However, I've got stuck, literally.

I started making more money by rationalisation of my many passenger services.
Most of my towns are now linked to a single line service. I use diesel multy engines as they are so cheap. I have 5 of them running together on that service.

However, at one new station i want to add to the link, the trains get mutually blocked.
On that station I have three platforms and only this line running on it. How do i get trains to use whatever platforms is free or vacant? Instead, they all seem to be linked to one platform and will only use that, even if i change the platform terminals.

TLDR: How do i get trains to use whatever empty platform is available?

Huge thanks in advance.

[GIJoe597]

I think a screenshot or short video of what your current setup is would help. Otherwise everyone will just be guessing at possible fixes.

[Gregorovitch]

Originally posted by GIJoe597:

I think a screenshot or short video of what your current setup is would help. Otherwise everyone will just be guessing at possible fixes.

In general though if you go to the line manager and select the line in question you have two tools available to sort this out:

1. The game sets up a platform for each station call by default but you can easily change that manually (provided that the alternative platform is actually reachable by the train e.g. the required cross overs must be in place before the station and there must be no signalling that prohibits passage etc)

2. The game now has the alternative platform feature so you can specify as many alternative reachable platforms as you like (subject again to whether they are actually reachable of not).

The question of whether a platform is actually reachable can be complex and difficult for new players to understand (ditto for experienced players who can't see the map), that's why it helps enormously to provide a screenshot of the situation. You'll get faster and more accurate answers to questions that way.

[lozacenz]

By default, trains will only go to the specified terminals. But you can change that.

In the window where you add stations to the line, next to the part where you can select the terminal that the train will use at that stop, there is another button that lets you select alternative terminals to use if the primary is already occupied. Click it, then in the resulting drop down, select all the terminals you want to have as available options for that stop. Note that this choice is stop specific, so you have to do it separately for every stop on every line.

That said, 'mutually blocked' means that two trains are trying to go in opposite directions down the same piece of track at the same time. If you have more than one train on a line, you generally want double track, with signals chopping the track up into blocks (at least one more block than there is train using that section of track). In most cases you should be using one way signals on double track to avoid the 'mutually blocked' issue.

[GIJoe597]

Originally posted by Gregorovitch:

In general though if you go to the line manager and select the line in question you have two tools available to sort this out:

1. The game sets up a platform for each station call by default but you can easily change that manually (provided that the alternative platform is actually reachable by the train e.g. the required cross overs must be in place before the station and there must be no signalling that prohibits passage etc)

2. The game now has the alternative platform feature so you can specify as many alternative reachable platforms as you like (subject again to whether they are actually reachable of not).

The question of whether a platform is actually reachable can be complex and difficult for new players to understand (ditto for experienced players who can't see the map), that's why it helps enormously to provide a screenshot of the situation. You'll get faster and more accurate answers to questions that way.

I was thinking along the lines of how the tracks merge and what signaling he has. But I am more or less new also.

[Tsubame ⭐]

Use the alternate platform feature in the Line Manager.

The feature is optional and must be used on a per line, per station basis.

This applies not only to trains, but all other methods of transportation as well.

Lines at each station/stop/port have a primary, but if that is occupied by another vehicle, then the vehicle will use another platform, as long as that was chosen to be made as an alternate platform.

Do note there must be a valid path to the platform in order for the alternate platform be valid, some setups such as no switches in a double track may preclude other platforms from being reachable from stations before and/or after the desired one - these will be shown with yellow or red chevrons.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3393616927

[skinnywattie]

Fantastic! The alternative line manager seems to be exactly what i was looking for.

Thank you everyone.