Trains constantly spawning at cargo terminal and won't allow any actual existing trains to enter

[danny-san]

So any time a train leaves my cargo terminal, a new train spawns (uh, why in the first place?) and won't permit any outside trains from entering the terminal to drop off their goods. So my cargo terminal exports goods and imports nothing, I am pretty sure.

Fixes?

The way this should work, full stop, is that the importing train deposits goods and then loads up with anything outbound to its destination. But I'd be content with just not having miles of rail clogged by trains that do nothing.

I've read a while ago that making complicated train networks for your city creates bugs, so my cargo terminal does not do that. I have only one single cargo terminal, no passenger terminals, and there's only one rail connected to one end of my cargo terminal. I've tried connecting rail to the other end just to see if it fixes the problem and it does not.

[Icy McFreezeFreeze]

I hear you here. My understanding is that the terminal has an internal 'queue' of cargo to be shipped, and that's blind to whatever trains are incoming.

Depending on your setups, it might work to have a second terminal then use one-way track to force one to be 'incoming' only and the other being 'outgoing' only?

It's possible (and I think a good idea) to ship most of your freight by rail where possible, another tip I've seen is to have your internal freight network completely disconnected from your "international" freight.

Experiment with one way track / separated cargo networks and see how you go!

[danny-san]

I'll try the two one-way terminals and report back.
EDIT: Worked perfectly! Thanks, Icy.

[chimeran_dragon]

The easiest solution is to create a queue line for your cargo station or passenger station.
If you see the image the main line on top will allow trains to keep going while the queue line underneath will allow your trains to wait for the main line to clear so your cargo can export or import and you can use 2 lane tracks. You don't have to create a maze of tracks for your cargo station just have a long enough queue line for your trains to join the main line and will not cause trains to despawn because the main line is waiting for the cargo train to be loaded or unloaded.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2523810567

[Icy McFreezeFreeze]

Glad that helped Danny! I also find having dedicated "inbound" and "outbound" terminals at busy areas helps reduce extra trains that're only 1% full, which otherwise will easily overload any network (especially in the absence of meaningful signalling)

@Chimeran
You're not wrong! Having a fully separated cargo network could be said as the ultimate version of that; but even then they only act as a buffer and if you've an intense amount of rail traffic it's not going to drain everything in time.