a Problem With Signal Control Locations

[Dray Prescot]

I have already started to see a big and inevitable problem with Signal Control Warehouses and Stations: I have seen cases where I will have 4 Trains sitting at a 4 track Signal Control Warehouse/Station and ALL 4 of them want to leave that Station in the SAME Direction while the tracks in that direction have additional trains waiting on them and the next Station down those tracks is also very busy. If that 2nd 4 Track Signal Control Station has 4 Trains waiting to go back to the first Station, then my Rail Road has a real problem. The only way to get out of it is to delete some trains at one or both Stations (or try adding some more signals at closer spacing to the tracks between the two Stations). Another way to help is add a 2nd Station(or Warehouse) to both Cities (Warehouses)(locations). You could also add more tracks between the two locations, but then the limiting factor is how fast trains can go through Stations while interacting with them.

The same thing can happen even easier at 2 Track Signal Control Warehouses/Stations.

And all you can do is watch out for it, and manually correct it somehow. The only "solution" is to reduce the number of trains trying to use that section of tracks between the two locations, but that is only a makeshift solution, it will/can happen, just less often.

So staying with the NON Signal Control versions may have some point, particularly for Express Mail + Passenger trains, and their tracks.

The same problem could even happen with Non Signal Control Stations, if there are enough trains trying to go between them.

It is all part of the problem ot managing more and More and MORE trains trying to use increasingly larger population cities, and Signal Control can sometimes hurt instead of help. But I will still try to use them, just be more careful about it.

[rff1]

So set two tracks at each end of the multiple crossings for trains approaching the station, and the other two for trains leaving. Any queuing of inbound trains will then not prevent trains from leaving.

[Entropy Avatar]

If I understand correctly, isn't this a problem with all stations? There are only so many places for trains to park in and between two stations, so there is a limit to how many trains you can have moving between those stations without gridlock?

[Dray Prescot]

@Entropy That why I referred to it as being inevitable, it IS going to occurr going to occurr (even with NON Signal Control) , all we can do is make it happen LESS often, and watch out for it, so it can be fixed manually by the player(me).

@rff1 I do have 2 tracks going out and 2 tracks coming in at both ends of the 4 track Signal Control Warehouse at the Grain resource between Mexico City and Veracruz (and at both Cities) in the Mexican Scenario. The 4 trains are ALL trying to get to Veracruz to the South East with 4 tracks linking the entire way to the 4 Track Signal Control Station at Veracruz with Signals and Supply Tower located regularly along the tracks between the 2 Stations. With a LOT MORE trains waiting at the signals between the two Stations. Veracruz did have some trains going out, but that only happened to its East, the trains at Veracruz trying to go North West to the Grain Resource Station were ALSO waiting for other trains to move along the Tracks between them and at the Grain Resource. There were also trains backed up trying to get into Veracruz from it's East.

If I waited long enough there would or should be an occasional movement of trains between the 2 Cities, but MOST of the time nothing was moving between them, and MOST of the time there are not many Trains loading/unloading at the Sations+Warehouse.

The problem happens after I start trying to ship a LOT of Arms, Grain, and Beer (mostly) (and Coffee and Wood from other locations) out to develope Campeche, Merida, and Belize City to satisfy 2 tasks (20 Arms to earch City plus grow them to either 45k or 60k populations).

Meanwhile I have a LOT of other train traffic betwwen Mexico City, the Grain Resource Warehouse, plus Oaxica shipping Grain, Beer, Meat, Coffee, Wood, Sugar, Cloth, Clothing, Milk between them. Within that group of 3 Cities plus Grain Warehouse, most of those items are only being produced at ONE of the 3 Cities +1 Grain Warehouse = 4 Locations and have to be transported to the other Cities.

What I have (can do) to do to Relieve (NOT Fix it) the situation is to build a 2nd Station at Mexico City and Veracruz plus a 2nd Warehouse at the Grain Resource with all the additional tracks needed, plus find ways to reduce the number of trains trying use that corridor between Mexico City and Veracruz. The basic problem is have too many trains trying to use the Cities, BUT the ability to have 4 Trains waiting in a Station/Warehouse, ALL Wanting to go in the SAME direction and Waiting for other trains to move means that NOTHING is being LOADED at the Grain Warehouse (al) MOST of the time. At Veracruz and Mexico City Trains can at least part of the time go away from locked up situation, but more Trains are coming IN as well as Leaving from those directions

BUT the Cities are going to continue to GROW, a later Task is to have over 1,000,000 population in Cities connected to my Railroad, and generate LOTS more train traffic. That means that I will have MANY (at least 10 to 12 ) Cities with populations of about 90k to 100k EACH, possibly with a Few smaller Cities.

The Signal Control Stations and Warehouses can usually help load and unload more trains, and thereore faster, but it is still Possible to get into locked up situations, and when that happens you can get into situations where ALL the trains as a location are just Waiting and Waiting to go in the same direction with the tracks in that direction filled with even more trains that are Waiting.

At that point, the emergency manual fix is to delete some of the trains waiting, particularly some of the trains waiting in the Stations/Warehouse, but also some of the empty trains in between. Putting in additional signals along the tracks will also help, but then you will just have MORE trains waiting in between the Cities and Warehouse, as your Cities keep growing.
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/956353122130614688/8061442429E3A99D1ABE8C633BBF0AC548311DAE/

[Dray Prescot]

It might not look tied up (but there are 4 Trains at the Warehouse ALL Waiting to go to Veracruz), and there is not that much space betwwen the Warehouse and Veracruz along the tracks, for additional trains to wait. There are at least 6 or 8 trains waiting on 2 tracks trying to get into Veracruz from the Warehouse, and some more trains going in the other direction on the other 2 tracks.

The problem is that as more Cities are added and continue to grow there will be more trains active, so you will have to watch out for near lock up situations in order to fix them. You can make fixes to help, but problems will still occurr.

[Entropy Avatar]

It's hard to tell from the screenshot, but it seems like you have more of a bottleneck unloading in Veracruz than in loading at the grain warehouse(s). I guess you have to do warehouse-to-warehouse transfer on the outskirts of the city, just to get more rail lines going in the direction you need.

[Dray Prescot]

I know what to do to fix it. I am just pointing out that not ALL the time will Signal Controls help. In fact looking at the screenshot, I think that Veracruz is a regular Large (NOT Signal Control) Station. Some additional signals will help some, maybe even upgrading Veracruz to Signal Control will help, plus of course additional 2nd Stations (I already have a 2nd Warehouse at the Grain Resource)

I have already gone back and restarted the Mexican Scenario (several times) from the beginning to make things work out better, now that I know what the problems and future tasks will be. In particular, reduce train traffic trying to use one station at Veracruz (a 2nd Station helps). But the problem can recur with more growth of the Cities even after some fixes.

But I am really Waiting for the upgradable vesions of Signal Control (from 2 track to 4 track) that the GM has already said that they will put into the 1.8 Beta.

Lke you said, my real bottle neck is at Veracruz, but having the trains blocked at the Grain Warehouse hurts trains trying to come from Mexico City.

The really hard task will be getting a total of over 1,000,000 population in Cities connected to my Rail Line. That will require Many (10 to 12) greater than 90k population Cities and a LOT of resources/food being picked up, and a LOT of Industrial Goods to support those Cities. In many cases, I will need 2 to 4 different Sites for EACH raw food or resource to produce enough of them. AND in most cases there ARE only 3 to 4 Sites per resource on the Map in Mexico. I have never tried going into USA territory, so I am not sure it is possible, plus there is an American Rail Line Company up there already.

On some previous tries at the Mexican Scenario, I even tried having some tracks between Mexico City and Verracruz that did not stop at the Grain Warehouse.

[Entropy Avatar]

Originally posted by Dray Prescot:

I know what to do to fix it. I am just pointing out that not ALL the time will Signal Controls help.

Yeah I think if I wanted to move the maximum possible amount of stuff between two stations, I don't think you can beat dedicated lanes that flow in a single direction. Say four lanes going south from station A to station B, then looping out the other end of B back in to A (if you can afford the space). In that situation, you avoid the overhead of crossing the switch blocks and avoid the nightmare if a train breaks down while crossing a bunch of switch blocks diagonally.

[Dray Prescot]

I have had cases where an incoming train from a side direction would get stopped trying to come into a Station, and while it was waiting it was blocking a track it was crossing and therefore blocking other trains from leaving that Station, which keeps it from getting into the Station. So in essence it was blocking itself.

I have learned to watch out for such things and even reverse the usual direction of trains on tracks to help avoid it. You have to be very careful in laying out your tracks near very busy Stations to avoid tieups.

The old Stations without Signal Control can work well in the right places when there is not a lot of side traffic merging into and out of your main tracks.

Signal Controls work better when there are multiple tracks connecting to multiple locations in the same direction (side of) from one City. They also work better when there are mutiple tracks coming and going in both directions to multiple locations and trains need to pass through the City and do business there before continuing on to other Cities. If you want maximum cargos being loaded and unloaded, minimize train turn arounds

[rff1]

@ Dray Prescot: clearly the problem with trains waiting to leave the Warehouse is that the lines are full of trains waiting to enter Vera Cruz. So the problem station is not the Warehouse but Vera Cruz - and I understand why there are a lot of trains on the route.
As for trains blocking themselves, that should be fixed by investigating signal positions. Stop the incoming train before it reaches the crossing track. I have had a similar problem when two double tracks merge and immediately diverge again; a train approaching from one direction can get blocked by one from the other direction which is itself blocked by the first train, and the double junction cannot be signalled to prevent this. The cure for that is to space the two junctions a train-length apart, which makes room for the necessary signals.

[Dray Prescot]

I think that I have a fairly good idea of what causes the problems and how to solve them. I had seen backups at Veracruz (and Mexico City) many times before. It is just that this time I saw the 4 trains at the Grain Warehouse ALL Waiting to go in the same direction, and realized that it could happen again. So I will have to watch for it in the future, even after I do some fixes.

I have been trying to get a reasonable estimate of how many trains and resource Sites I will need to grow about 10 (to 12) Cities to the total of 1,000,000 populaion goal in the late game Task in the Mexican Scenarion. Looking at Mexico City when it has about 100,000 population, I think that it will take 3 to 4 trainloads per week to support it. So 10 Cities is about 30 to 40 trainloads per week, and then multiply by how many weeks per round trip for a train on a busy track network. And multiply by the 60% figure to get Cities to grow. As a rough guess I could easily need 100 to 150 trains active at the same time to grow to and support that 1,000,000 population. A reasonable planning goal would be at least 100 trains active or 10 trains per City, with about 3 to 4 (a minimum of 2) Resource Sites for EACH of ALL (or most) of the Resources. Plus the 10 Cities (not counting the two Cities for the late game Express Train Task). Most resources only have about 4 or 5 Sites in ALL of Mexico, so I am going to have to cover a lot of Mexico just to get the Resources picked up.

added: The 60% might reduce the 3 to 4 trainloads a week down to 2 to 3 trainloads a week per city.

It is going to take a long time to earn enough money to build all of that (Trains, Stations, Warehouses, tracks and Industies, plus maybe buying some Resource Sites) and grow the Cities as well.

I might be able to get a Museum in a couple (maybe 4) of those Cities, But the Arms manufacturary in Mexico City, and Guard stations in 4 more Cities, and the overseas shipping depot in Veracruz will keep 6 of those Cities from getting a Museum.

Is that a reasonable estimate of what it will take to finish the Mexican Scenario? (I am assuming that you or someone else reading this message have finished this task).

More Cities could spread the burden around a little more, but there are only about another 5 to 7 Cities available in Mexico (maybe 17 total Cities). Also we are limited by the number of Resource Sites available (and WHERE they are located relative to the Cities) and the highest level of output you can get each if them up to.

[jsb]

I noted in another post the same problem re trains getting stuck -- all going in the same direction. I think there is something wrong with the pathing system. I only noticed it since the last patch.

[Dray Prescot]

What helped create the problem was that one end (Veracruz) of the 4 tracks (a pair of double tracks) was a normal Large 4 Track Station, while the 4 Trains got stuck at a 4 Track Signal Control Warehouse. So all 4 trains were waiting for only 2 tracks at Veracruz to get free of trains, and Veracruz very busy as well, including trains coming from the other side of it. A Signal Control at Veracruz might have helped. (I have restarted the game several times since this happened, and usually build the Signal Contolled Stations at the start of the game at Veracruz, Mexico City, and the Grain Warehouse).

There were additional (as many as could fit between the signals) trains waiting in between the Grain Warehouse and Veracruz.

Eventually the problem might have cleared up on its own, but that might have taked a long time. Manually removing a few trains works a LOT faster. Adding more signals at closer spacing along the tracks could help also.

I have noticed that the automatic spacing of signals using the control key when building them, is farther apart than I would do manually.

[Dray Prescot]

Much more recently, I have seen the same thing happen again at my Signal Control 4 Track Warehouse in the Yucatan (SW of Campeche) in the Mexican Scenario: 4 Trains waiting all wanting to go in the same direction.

I think it may have happened because I changed a 2 Track Station (as well as relocated it's position) to a 4 Track Signal Control Warehouse which meant that I had to bulldoze the Station which meant that some Trains that had a stop there NO longer had a valid route and so they stopped moving. Leading to other even more Trains waiting. i.e. at My Warehouse. At least, this was easy to fix, once I realized I had a problem.

It just means to be very careful about fixing invalid Trains or missing Stations on ALL Train Routes affected whenever I bulldoze a station.

This part of why I (and others) want a simple (press one button/Icon on the Station Icon) upgrade path from 2 Track to 4 Track when Signal Control is involved, which requires the bigger footprint at the 2 Track Signal Control Stations and Warehouse. Which the GMs have already said they will fix/change in the new 1.8 Beta

It will still be a problem whenever I want to change the location of a Station/Warehouse and have to bulldoze the old one , which will still happen occasionaly

added: Actually my problem was a lack of goods to pick up (and I had all 4 trains set to a minimum of 8 carloads before leaving), which kept other trains from arriving to unload cargos for them to pickup. So the problem was NOT going to solve itself without manual intervention by me. I solved the problem by reducing the mininum number of carloads for those trains to leave that Warehouse. Which allowed other trains to arrive and unload their cargoes.

[Dray Prescot]

I had a problem (starting Friday evening)with my Internet service and just got back on today (Wed evening). (My cable splitter and/or cable going to my Router had gone bad on me)

I was at the very end of the Mexican Scenario (or Map/DLC) and my very last task was too buy all of Don Lorenzo's RR, after finishing off the 1,000,000 total population task.

So I tried letting things run on autopilot while I was saving up the cash from my profits in order to buy his RR. While I was letting things run on their own, I noticed another occurance of the 4 Trains waiting in a 4 Track Signal Control Warehouse, all wanting to go in the same direction, while the tracks ahead of them also had LOTS of waiting trains.

It looks like this is something that can happen, particularly at high traffic locations, and there is not much you can do to keep it from happening again. Just keep an eye out for when a LOT of trains are waiting to move on the Map, and then fix it manually when it happens, (usually by deleting a couple of trains, and have their replacements follow different routes from different sources or to different stations, if possible).