Incoming trains blocking outgoing trains

[khagler]

In my current city I started seeing outgoing train traffic backing up outside the city. Using mods to look outside the city area, I found the problem. At the outside connection, there are incoming trains on both tracks. They take turns moving on to the inbound track, with a new train appearing as soon as one bases the crossover point. The outgoing trains can't ever reach the edge of the map because that section of track is always occupied by an incoming train. Does anyone know if there's a way to fix this?

 

[Fox_NS_CAN]

Not sure, but I think if you use MoveIt! to move the node closest to the edge of the map, you can make more room and the train crosses further along instead of getting stuck.

 

[khagler]

The problem isn't that the incoming trains are stuck, it's that they're appearing on both tracks. I had tried moving the node well back from the edge via MoveIt in the hope that doing so would fix whatever was making incoming trains use both tracks, but it did nothing. The problem happens entirely because of the incoming train blocking the outgoing track--it doesn't matter where exactly the crossover point is, because there's always an incoming train on both tracks.

 

[akeela84]

How many train stations do you have connected to the outer world? The more you have connected the more trains will spawn. Try and delete your stations then those trains will disappear as well. Afterwards you will have to make that crossing further away from the edge of the map that will give more room for trains to turn around.

 

[khagler]

I'm aware of the problem you're referring to from my web searches to find a solution. However, the problem I'm having is not caused by outgoing trains piling up as they slowly despawn at the map edge. The problem is that the outgoing trains can never reach the map edge, and therefore never despawn, because the track they need to reach the map edge is constantly occupied by an incoming train. You can see this in the screenshot I attached above. Also, as I mentioned above, I did try moving the crossing away from the map edge in the hope that it would make incoming trains use only the correct track, but that didn't work--it changed nothing.

 

[Chieron]

I wonder, if this could be prevented with one-way rails close to the edge.
The very last segment here seems to be a dummy-train station, which is why both lanes can be used.

 

[khagler]

That's a good point, I hadn't considered that aspect of the dummy station thing. I found that if I deleted two of my three cargo stations, that had enough of an effect on the incoming trains to make them use only one track. Of course, now I have a backlog of incoming trains (not to mention terrible road traffic) because one train station can't handle the cargo traffic of the entire city, but that's a new problem. The upshot, then appears to be that it's an unavoidable design flaw in the game. :-(

 

[MarkJohnson]

That's a good point, I hadn't considered that aspect of the dummy station thing. I found that if I deleted two of my three cargo stations, that had enough of an effect on the incoming trains to make them use only one track. Of course, now I have a backlog of incoming trains (not to mention terrible road traffic) because one train station can't handle the cargo traffic of the entire city, but that's a new problem. The upshot, then appears to be that it's an unavoidable design flaw in the game. :-(

It's not a design flaw. It's a game mechanic.

You can clearly see the insane amount of traffic (passengers) waiting for trains to spawn, as you have way too many train stations in your city, as previously pointed out. it doesn't matter that they cross over, i.e. the train tracks would still be full from spawning new trains constantly.

I'm sure if you looked at your trains, you'd see they are practically empty. This is a sign of too many stations on a track. Each track has a very limited capacity for trains. Just like streets. So, the game starts spawning trains that are not full at first, to give you warning of impending doom. Just like the single lane backups on your streets for vehicles.

But traffic jams happen prematurely as a gaming mechanic, as the game has a very limited number of active agents (moving vehicles) that it can spawn at one time. So it causes weird behavior prematurely, so your city doesn't collapse suddenly without warning.

You just need to look for the warning assigns, and fix them ASAP. They basically all come from zoning imbalance. Things should be built with purpose or they become imbalanced and eventually send your city into ruin, from imbalance send cims to places they don't want to go.

If you post a saved game, when can likely offer some specific advice that may not seem obvious as first sight, from the odd behaviors of the gaming ends of the rules.

 

[khagler]

It's a game mechanic with a flawed design. If the inbound trains had only been spawning on one track, there never would have been a problem. If someone built a two way road and then put up a sign saying that eastbound traffic could use whichever lane they wanted up to a certain point, naturally mayhem would ensue and nobody would think that wasn't a flaw (or at least, I hope not).

I did find that having three cargo stations in my city would produce the spawning on both tracks problem, but that's not the problem itself, but rather a way to make the problem appear. If I were a CO employee writing up the bug report on this, I'd include "build three cargo train stations" in the steps to reproduce.

As a side note, to fix the problem of incoming train backlog that occurred after I deleted two of my three cargo train stations, I put back one of the stations I'd removed and added a cargo harbor near where the other one had been. It took a while, but the traffic problems from having too few train stations have mostly settled down.

Another interesting thing I noticed, which is likely a contributing factor to my original problem: when I was having the problem with spawning on both tracks, all of my train traffic (both cargo and passenger) was going to and from the same outside connection. Today, the traffic was split evenly between both of the outside rail connections. I have no idea what was going on there--I'd restarted the game several times before when analyzing the problem, so it wasn't just a temporary glitch. Whatever that's about, though, it might explain why I'd never seen the problem before in significantly larger cities with twice as many stations.

 

[MarkJohnson]

It is not a flawed design. The outside connection track is an invisible train station. Just because it doesn't work the way you want doesn't make it flawed nor bugged, it is the game rules.

If you want to bypass the rules, there may be a mod to do what you want, instead of what the game wants.

As for you observations, they are all due to balance. Usually caused from immature cities. So yes, it is temporary. There are many, many factors in making the city in balance and keeping the city stable.

Like I said, if you really want to figure it out, post your save game and we can offer different advice on a solution. Or just kep at it, and you'll eventually figure it out for yourself. You're already on the right track. (pun intended).

EDIT:

In case you didn't realize, the cargo stations (rail, air and sea) basically provide outside connections inside your city.

 

[Sheller]

The best way to play is to reach a catastrophic error like this and then restart.

The more you restart and build basic cities, the more opportunities you'll have to figure out what problems you're creating.

What's true however is you can jam pack 9 tiles with 630k stable population and keep 5 or 6 intercity train stations running smoothly with imports and exports.

You usually can't 'fix' a broken city because the mistake will usually be buried way behind you in terms of development.
There's likely a catastrophic problem in your rail network that doesn't appreciate train behavior properly, and it's a lost cause.

Just start over and try again, and don't design it the same way twice if it didn't work.

@akeela84 Disagree all you like, it's still the truth. Same for that other post you marked up.

 

[jcitron]

Not sure, but I think if you use MoveIt! to move the node closest to the edge of the map, you can make more room and the train crosses further along instead of getting stuck.

Yes this works just as you described it. I had to do this on one of my maps. Biffa mentioned it as being a bug. Let's hope this is something that the devs can fix in the game engine so it doesn't occur.