How to force trains use the right way?

[AVATON]

If I have two or more parallel railways, all trains seek to pick the one that's shortest. It leads to problems with signals: trains don't want to use a free way, they always go to the one occupied way (because its the shortest) and create traffic jams that's are very hard to resolve.

It seems that signals can't help here because they just can block train movement, but they can't force them to change their way.

What can I do in this situation?

[bajecznie nawdychany]

You can set signals as checkpoints, thus forced them to follow particular track.

[BobthenotsoGreat]

As above, use waypoints from signals. This means you can force a train into a dead end with a waypoint at the end and it will flip once reaching it. Or you can have trains use one side of a station everytime allowing a pass through line if you need.

[longshots444]

While were on the subject when I force two trains - from different tracks - back to the depot they both start on the same track. What am I doing wrong please.

[ae5]

In general, the trans are pretty stupid in the game. Players write basically every day about stupidity of the trains, and devs pay a little attention on it. Sometimes the devs come with ridiculous fixes, but to offer bypasses instead of fixing mistakes is a victorious tactics but the doomed-to-loose strategy. There are some mistakes that I was writing about already years ago, and they are still not fixed.
I regularly observe the same mistake as you mentioned. In your particular case you may try to use the systems of waypoints and push manually the trains on certain tracks.
BTW, devs even did not implement a so simple idea of identifying the waypoints.

[barry.zandstra]

Trains use dynamic pathfinding rather than sticking to a fixed route. This can create interesting results when the mainline is already occupied, and the long way round has a green light. Like others already suggested, you can use waypoints to force trains along a certain route. However, in many cases, placing, removing or modifying a signal can also stop a train from taking a pointless detour along a siding. Also, when rail construction takes place on active tracks, it's actually quite nice when your trains find a detour to reduce delays.

[ZILonaut]

Every signal can be used as a waypoint.

[thoos]

I had to sell a train fully loaded with steel because it was stuck. This system is broken!

[Silent_Shadow]

Originally posted by ae5:

In general, the trans are pretty stupid in the game.

The trains in this game have a far more complicated signalling system than in other games, and it has more features, such as waiting at yellow lights, ignoring red/blue signals in some cases, and the like. There are plenty of cool things you can do with it that other games would balk at.

I suspect that most players just do not understand the path finding and signal logic, which is a problem when building a train network is a lot like programming.

[esbenmf]

99/100 it is a user end problem, either wrong signals or trying to cram too much track into a very small area.

[MrKrabs]

I have a quiet complicated network with a bunch of trains.
Works almost everything fine through the years.
One thing I never got rid of.

One station with more than one track.
Double track on each side with X-junction on each side.
One line is supposed to turn.
Another one is supposed to pass through.
Sometimes two Trains facing each other.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2952100382

It happens very seldom.