Help controlling trains with circuit or logistic network

[rightfn]

I have a problem to solve regarding my trains, and I think I see a solution, I wanted to know if there were others.

I have a main base and 3 expansion bases, connected by rails. The expansion bases are my only source of iron, uranium, and stone. I have one train which I automated to visit , say, the iron base, load up, return to main base and unload. Then repeat for stone base. Then repeat for uranium base.

The issue is, I consume these resources at different rates. What I really need is for the train to, say, only go to the stone base if I'm running low on stone. I examined the train stop to see how I might control this with circuit or logistic networks. I think I am pretty clear on how I can enable/disable the stop, the issue comes in connecting the train stop at a VERY far away base to either the logistic or circuit network.

Right now it looks like the only options are a long chain of roboports, or use the red/green circuit wire and make sure there is such a wire running from the main base to each expansion base. I wanted to check if these were the only ways to get the remote train stop to 'know' whether it should enable or disable itself based on the contents of the main base inventory.

This may seem like a silly question, but there does appear to be some ability to remote-control trains (manually), so I wanted to see if I was missing anything in this regard. I already have large electric poles connecting all the bases, so manually running a red/green wire is not much of a burden.

Thanks for your time and I appreciate the help :)

[Gamer]

Train weiting in expansion base to get signal "low buffer in main base", thats it whitout mods. + read signals on parking place for trains in expansions bases = no need train parking/buffer in main base.

[Hedning]

What I assume most people do is have 3 different trains. Trains standing still doesn't cost anything. There is no way to wirelessly and automatically control trains over long distances. Your only other options are to either wire with the red/green like you were planning to, or wire by connecting roboports (not recommended).

If you blueprint a wire between two poles then placing that blueprint will automatically also place the wire.

There is a third option, but it is a bit tricky. You can have decoy stations nearby for the train to visit when you don't want them to go to the real station since trains naturally choose the closest station first (with some modifiers).

[rightfn]

I got it to work by running a long red/green wire on the circuit network between the home base (main) logistic network, and the expansion base's train stop. Now the trains only go to the remote stop when the condition is met (low resource in the main base).

I'm curious to see if I can use train signals to shut down a section of track leading to an expansion base unless I want trains to use it. Last time I tried just removing part of the track and it caused the train to not run at all when it had no path to the remote train station. I'm wondering if the train would just wait until the signal allows it to pass, which is not what I want for this purpose.

[Dough254]

i can join you

[CMH]

How about just wiring up so the station knows how much resource is in the base, and turn on the station only if it runs to an arbitrary value (requires use of logistic chests). No need to run long wires, or connect sub-bases via any method.

Trains will just sit in sub-bases until being called (when the station turns on).

Or if U want them to sit in main base, just set condition to leave station only at the arbitrary value.

[B1tchFight]

Why not use just 1 train per material? As long as you don't need the stations otherwise they will park on the unloading location until empty and going back to fill up in the outpost. That's the way I do it. ^^ Don't have any problems running a lot of trains as long as each has his own unload station.

[Kawamatsu]

I use power latches for my ore trains. When copper is over 140k in my boxes my trains dont move. They stay in their loading place for ore until the ore drops under 14k 10% . Then they start dropping off the ore in my unloading station place until it reached more then 140k ore again. Works also for other stuff like stone coal or liquids. Add me if i can help you with that