Trains come to grinding halt

[WannaSeeSomethingStupid?]

This is something I first noticed in the third USA campaign mission with a 2-10-4 (or something similar) steam locomotive, which would occasionally come to a sudden grinding halt for no reason or provocation. It was the only train running on a line that had no switches, signals, or any other disruptions. I thought it was a "special feature" of that one locomotive, but when I entered a free-mode game, the same thing started happening on my GE E60 passenger trains. The sudden stops are unpredictable, but even worse, they make the most ear-piercing screeching noise; worse than when they actually stop at their respective stations. Is this meant to be an indication of a problem with the trains?

[Cougarific]

Have they outlived their maintenance contracts? All vehicles have an Age, when they get past that age they can break down. Send it back to a depot and replace or upgrade the engine.

Better yet, use the Replacement tab to set up an automatic replacement schedule. The vehicle will automatically return to the depot for replacement or upgrade when it hits a specified age.

[WannaSeeSomethingStupid?]

Apparently that wasn't the issue. After reading your comment, I followed one of the trains in question (eight years old, line set to auto-replace at 25% age) and it did the exact same thing half-way between two stations.

[Cougarific]

Just spitballing here - are the stations very far apart on a desert (US) map? Is it possible they're running out of water? I know there are water wells dotted across the landscape but am unclear on their use or purpose.

[WannaSeeSomethingStupid?]

That's odd; I know I'm running E60s on my passenger lines, but I never suspected that water could play a roll; or that water wells even existed on a free-play map. And even if they did, I would have suspected that they would be replenished at the stations. I'll take a look at this.

[WannaSeeSomethingStupid?]

Well so far I haven't been able to spot any water wells; I think that may have just been a feature of the first USA campaign mission. But you did point out one thing; the free-play map I currently have is indeed a USA map, but that doesn't explain why this also occurred on the third USA campaign mission. Regardless, thanks for helping to come up with possible causes to this strange occurrence.

[Nicky]

The trains hit the breaks for some reason. Is there a curve up ahead or a signal ?

[WannaSeeSomethingStupid?]

Hitting the brakes is one thing, but coming to a complete stop; for nothing? That's what's going on here. Doesn't matter if there's no signal or turn up ahead; the chances of it happening are unpredictable and random, but it's frustrating as hell when your camera is following the damn thing and all of the sudden comes a *SCREEEEE* and the train stops dead after killing your eardrums.

[Tony 101101]

Still no explanation for this phenomenon a year since the OP posted...

[canophone]

Originally posted by Tony 101101:

Still no explanation for this phenomenon a year since the OP posted...

OK.. yes I can say I've seen this happen, even in the latest patch, with no lower speed limit! But would have to experiment for causes! Could guess it's something related to a small segment of tracks though among the longer track line (because I've seen bulldozing generate such small leftover pieces in some cases)!

[White]

Hi, everyone.
This problem do occur for me too. My observations are that it happens only for long/very long haul, and for me, only with cargo train. The problem is usaly solved when there is several train on the line.
I will folow this thread in case somebody have a solution.

[ChunkHunter]

use the track speed overlay - you'll probably see that there's a section of track with a really low speed limit - demolish this and rebuild it...

[Tony 101101]

Originally posted by ChunkHunter:

use the track speed overlay - you'll probably see that there's a section of track with a really low speed limit - demolish this and rebuild it...

This cannot be the answer since I have experienced the problem at the beginning of the game when all the track has been laid with the same speed. In addition the track speed overlay does NOT indicate an issue.

I have solved the issue by closely observing where the problem occurs and then demolishing and relaying the track exactly as it was before.

This is a bug NOT an error on the gamers part...

[WannaSeeSomethingStupid?]

Caused by curves: no
Caused by signals: no
Caused by train's age: no
Caused by track speed: no

Completely random with zero factors: yes

That's literally what this boils down to. At least nowadays, it's not as common as it once was.

[chrisasnyder]

There are actually 2 variations of this behavior. One can be seen by turning on the track speed overlay, and sometimes for some reason there will be a very small sliver of track that has a much lower speed. This causes trains to jerk to a halt, or sometimes they just slow down. Deleting the track sections and replacing the slow part fixes it.

The other behavior is the more random sudden stop on good track sections. I think that when this happens is right at the 1st of the month calculations. (When I've seen it and thought to look at the date, it's been first of the month) What I suspect is happening is when the map changes with the first of the month updates, all routes in the game get re-calculated. There is a brief moment during the route calculation where the trains route is suddenly invalid causing the train to stop, but then the calculation completes, route valid, and trains starts going again. Just a speculation, but seems reasonable from what I've observed.

This is of course a bug, but it's probably a race condition between the animation of trains and calculations of routes. Unfortunatly these types of bugs are difficult and time consuming to find, since it isn't a game breaking problem, has a pretty low priority on the fix list for the devs.