How to use very long passenger trains, building station complex

This is a guide about how to use very long trains (namely Shinkansens), and how to build train stations for them.

0. Introduction

This guide explains how to use very long passenger trains and building passenger train stations to accommodate them, without clogging the network.

Special thanks for Silver5word for proposing this idea.

On-going update: I am updating the guide piece-by-piece after the release of Himeyama Station by Ronyx.

Other languages

• French Version (translated by mjn)

1. Prerequisites: Assets, Mods, Collections

In order to make it work, you will need to play outside safe-vanilla environment. You will need a series of mods as obligatory, and custom assets.

1.1 Obligatory Mods

Following mods are absolutely required to follow the guide.

• Ability to Read, obviously.
  
• Anarchy Mod, in order to work extensively around the road and rail network. Some station assets may require to be plopped while Anarchy is enabled.
  
• Move It, in order to move/copy stations or else.
  
• Fine Road Tool, to adjust the increment of the height and select elevated/bridge paths on tracks.

1.2 Recommended Mods

Following mods are not required but recommended to ease the workflow.

• Find It, in order to find train stations and tracks easily, along with supplementary buildings to the station complex easily during the gameplay.
  
• Cinematic Camera, in order to zoom more effectively, that might come in handy.
  
• Advanced Vehicle Options, in order to activate, disable any trains and/or edit their passenger, speed values in-game.

1.3 Recommended Collections and Assets

Following collections are used during the tutorial, and which are highly recommended to check.

• Konfox's Modular Station Project, collection that contains modular train station buildings, both ground and elevated, also including shinkansen stop tracks.
  
• Himeyama Shinkansen Station, a magnificient Shinkansen station created by Ronyx69, with longest trains in mind.
  
• Shinkansen Fleet, collection that contains Shinkansen trains and prop packs.
  
• REVO's Emporium, master collection that contains a variety of high speed, regional and Inter-Regio trains. Some of the trains in both collections are real-life sized sets. Those that are marked as 'XL' requires custom station builds.
  
• Railyard, master collection that contains assets related to the creation of a railyard. This includes turntables, warehouse buildings and other relevant assets.

* Section updated on: 27.06.2019

2. Building the base layout: Station

The station complex in question is made with listed asset in previous section.

1. Start with plopping the entrance module
2. Start adding additional stop modules, as you like/need.
3. Finish the station by addding the end module.
4. Once it's done, you can either developing one end of the station by laying down train tracks or continue to work on the station. I will call this first half of the station 'sector' for the sake of the clarity of the guide.



As one end is over, you have an option to follow. You can either copy/paste current modules to create same station layout, or vary your build with different modules that might serve for different train type or just aesthetic look. I chose to copy paste existing modules as the station will serve exclusively to Shinkansens.



5. Select marquee tool on Move It, select the whole layout of the station modules, stations you just plopped.
6. Copy and paste it next to the previous sector.
7. Use Move it to align the new sector to the old one, keep at least 1 to 2 units of gap between two sectors.
8. Connect modules of both sectors with standard tracks. Enable Anarchy if you need it.
9. Use Move It, select the sector and align it with the old sector. You can decrease the gap between two sectors now, although dont go overboard with it. Keep still 1unit-ish gap.

3. Adding loop point for reverse operations and terminus stations

Since these trains are extremely long, they will glitch out. This is why we will add a loop point, where trains will turn around switch to the other direction of the track. You can hide loop point in different settings. The point is to keep the point in a place where it will break the immersion and sting the eye.

You can hide it under buildings, underground or inside mountains, I chose to create a large maintenance hangar where trains perform the loop inside, hidden by buildings.

1. Extend your track(s) towards to the area where loop will be performed. I suggest to keep the loop on a single track to make hiding it easier.
2. Once your usual tracks are completed, switch to one direction tracks.
3. Create the loop
4a. You can finish the loop or


4b. Add a station to keep unbunching easier



Proceed the next section.

4. Assigning train stops and tips

The proper way to do it is to let train spawn/stop on the foremost station in the direction of travel. In other words, if your train will go to west, use west station to add track.

4.1. Using for local network

You can also combine multiple stations for multiple tasks.
If you have shorter trains on two different lines, you can use west and east stations to use as stops.
If you have long and short trains that need to stop on one track going to west, you can use west station for long train stop and east for short train stop.

If you have a station on the loop point it's even better to reverse directions.

4.2 Using for outside network, inbound trains

If your station complex is connected to tracks that lead to outside connections, your modules might end of spawning trains and accept inbound trains. In order to prevent any visual glitches or trains spawning on wrong ends, it's recommended to set "use for local connection" option on modules you don't want to be used for outside connections.

Examples of rolling stock with different lenghts and how they operate on double station configuration:

16 car, full sized config:

9 car, reduced config:

5 car, short config:


Proceed to next section.

5. Finishing up

Once you're convinced that station is operational, you can start to play with the surroundings.

I used Ronyx' "Warehouse" buildings to create the maintenance unit and my Warehouse door back to hide the loop point. Also variety of assets to give a different look to the station front wing. You can detail how you want, as I only did a primitive detailing for the sake of this tutorial.


Assets used on detailing:

• Warehouse depot by Ronyx
  
• Data mining agency by Senfkorn
  
• Warehouse Door pack by REV0
  
• Harold Washington Library by BoldyBuilding

[Ratyboy]

ok and?

[LC_352]

Hi REV0, is there are any way to extend the underground metro station platform?

[Spinoro]

Hi REV0, any updates on the game breaking station tracks longer than 24 units? Right now whenever I lay down a station track (from Railway 2 for example) that is longer than a certain limit (I believe it's even less than 24 units but I didn't measure it yet), the pathfinding algorithm stops being able to place a stop on the track, even though train lines can go through the station tracks no problem, and are not broken by it. Were you experiencing the same thing? Have you figured out the cause?

[REV0]

Guide still works in theory, but do not extend station tracks with move it trick. It appears there's some issues either with base game or a mod breaking station tracks longer than 24units, we're investigating it

[eons Luna]

Does this still work in the latest game version? And do I really have to use the loop track trick to make the trains turn around?

[clk863217665ymy]

OK

[Microfish]

Thank you!!

Would you please also update the following links:
Move it, Fine Road Tool, Find it, & Advanced Vehicle Options
? They all return an error message.

[REV0]

https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=1844440354

[Microfish]

the anarchy mod link is gone, any advice or links to an updated version?

[samequarter262]

how would i fill up the gap in the konfox stations though? since I don't know of any extensions by konfox. if you were in my place would you fill it up with the module extensions made by titan or do something else?