I can't add certain stations to my train sometimes.

[Loncaros]

I've had this problem with both 1.0 and 1.1


Sometimes I can play an entire game without it appearing but now it surfaced again and I just wasted so much money on a connection that now is useless.

Here's a picture of the issue
http://i26.tinypic.com/6gltex.png
If the train starts from Rostock Depot, it cannot travel to Nuremberg. Any train starting from Nuremberg can only travel to Berlin, Leipzig, Hamburg and Dresden.

what causes this?

[keotaman]

Track layout at the stations. Can sometimes involve other track sections, but since it is the end stations on your routes, I would suspect that is the site of the trouble. Find your station, pause game, Ctrl-F for camera, then move in close and Look at the track... maybe your connection to station track is past the station, rather than before? See Dep01_a.jpg. If you come from above, you can stop at depot & deadend OR not stop at depot and continue down. If you come from below, you may Only go by the depot to above, not stop at the depot. The highlighted track (white) is attached at the top end of the station (depot) track, so its train cannot stop there. It should have been connected at the bottom of the station track.

[Loncaros]

I nuked everything and rebuilt it, I keep getting the same error with Nuremberg. What I don't get is if the Depot isnt connected to the main railway properly, why could I start a line Nuremberg -> Leipzig?

http://i29.tinypic.com/35i2nax.png

[keotaman]

I nuked everything and rebuilt it, I keep getting the same error with Nuremberg. What I don't get is if the Depot isnt connected to the main railway properly, why could I start a line Nuremberg -> Leipzig?

http://i29.tinypic.com/35i2nax.png

That station looks fine. Your first pic, the routing screen, showed that Rostok could connect to the 4 cities (and the annex), but not to Nuremberg; obviously there is no through track between those two depots but Rostok is okay. Likewise, Nuremberg connects to other cities, so it is okay. That means there is no switching connection to allow direct trains between Nuremberg/Rostok. Examine each depot area to see where the route fails. The Routing Screen can be used as a tool to validate connections between cities/depots, but does not show enough detail to find the fault. Trying to setup a route from various cities to Nuremberg should point to the problem area.
Next time, save the game & send the whole thing to me & I'll take a look to see if I can find the problem.
keotaman (at) yahoo (dot) com

BTW, use SMRR patched with 1.10 patch only, that's the current one & only one you need.

[Jancsika]

The only questionable practice I can see that little piece of looped track just below Leipzig and an other one north of Berlin. For example: if you are sending a train from Rostock to Nuremberg and there is a train at Nuremberg it will reverse the train, then when the track will clear it will reverse it back. Sometimes if you have too many trains it will just keep doing it and the train never will reach Nuremberg.
Also Nuremberg has only demand for steel. If there is no demand there is no train.
I could not see, but I hope you are aware that a station has to be upgraded to Terminal to be able to utilize 4 tracks.
Jancsika

[keotaman]

Wow, Jancsika! Guess I'm just too old, but I don't get it.
First, those "looped sections" are just route division points; I've used 'em a lot with no trouble. Your example of a train from Rostok to Nuremberg with a train already at Nuremberg does not fit with what I observe in my game ... The Rostok train will just wait until there is a clear track into Nuremberg, no reversing. Granted, I work on the hardest routing, but it should be the same for the easy routing also.
As for "If there is no demand there is no train", again not what I observe in the game. You can setup a train for any route, whether or not there is supply, demand or any money to be made. Not smart, but you Can do it.
And last, stations can handle 4 tracks, just like terminals. It's a bug, but a useful one at times. Only depots are limited to 3 valid platform tracks.

Don't get me wrong, I like reading what others do or don't do. It just confuses me a bit when it doesn't match what I see.
Keo

[Jancsika]

The loop question was discused here in the past.
I just did a search:

Search found 43 matches: loop

..and many of the answers are dealing with similar problem.
Also you can run a dozen track through a station, but only 3 will be operative, terminals 4.
The rest will not load or discharge goods.
Jancsika

[keotaman]

The loop question was discused here in the past.
I just did a search:

Search found 43 matches: loop

I still don't get it about "loop tracks" -- what difference does it make if there are 2, 3 or 15 different ways to go from one station to another? Or are loop tracks different than "alternative routes"?

Also you can run a dozen track through a station, but only 3 will be operative, terminals 4.
The rest will not load or discharge goods.
Jancsika

Again, I repeat, stations can have 4 active/operative tracks, just like terminals. Try it. It shouldn't work, but it does.

But we are getting a bit away from the routing/track problem that Loncaros is trying to solve.

[Loncaros]

I don't have that savegame anymore, was just an autosave but I stumbled into the same problem again.

So assuming I want my train to go from A to B, I need to lay some short tracks like the red ones here for it to work

http://i27.tinypic.com/10hu55e.png

? The fact that the train goes through a 3-track terminal won't help I guess?

What if I screw up the track laying, there is no undo button and sometimes I just can't target the proper one I want to delete and it won't let me delete the tracks around it either to set everything up from scratch. What do I do there?

http://i27.tinypic.com/15xvhpi.png
How do I untie the gordian knot, I'm pretty sure this one is preventing me from connecting Prague - Nuremberg - Munich

[Jancsika]

So assuming I want my train to go from A to B, I need to lay some short tracks like the red ones here for it to work

Yes those little switches are an absolute necessity. You have to set up your stations at both and of the city for the trains to be able to go choose at least two tracks. I suggest that you start to play it in train table mode until you get the hang of it.
Jancsika

[Loncaros]

well money usually is not a problem. I assume the only difference on train table difficulty is infinite money to buy stuff?

This one is my most recent game. I think I started at Salisbury, I threw up tracks up to Portsmouth and London right away and quadded the Terminal as to prevent the gordian trackknot later on. I think I went through the entire game without a single waiting warning and all my trains are profitable. In 1884 I had connected every single town I wanted to connect (some hole with a cannery in the middle of England got left out, sorry not going to ship fish all the way across the country just so this little hamlet can grow)

Any thoughts?

[Burlington_Northern_3140]

If you want thoughts on routing, I have been playing multiplayer for a bit and have been after money. You are playing single player and most likely are after some realism. but In my thoughts you should use one track per train. I don't see a need for fancy crossovers. I never need loops or big wyes.
I try to keep minimal speed delays by creating short and sometimes sharp curves leading into straight tracks. A long 40mph curve might have done the job but now I have a second of slow running at mayby 10 mph and then a 200mph straightaway. Take the track to Unterhultzner as an example of this.
I try to give every train a chance to pick up and move a good. I try not to let them sit for long, so the nearest train will pick the product up and ship it before any other pirates can leach it. (like bob_the_lunatic does in his elegant and often devious way) Take the two trains based out of Wagner carrying both passengers mail and food together as an example of that.
The two cattle trains are just there cuz I wanted to get some money faster. They are now probably just a maintenance headache waitting to be replaced. You will notice I deleted my starting tracks in Wagner to get a better and more efficient route aswell. If you are looking for a complicated and confusing network of crisscrossed tracks Then I'm not the one to listen to though.

[Loncaros]

I've actually watched my trains during long curves and they're going max speed -1mph. I'm playing on the Mogul now. Train behaviour is not affected by that difficulty setting, right?

[darthdroid]

I've actually watched my trains during long curves and they're going max speed -1mph. I'm playing on the Mogul now. Train behaviour is not affected by that difficulty setting, right?

Hi Loncaros,

2 things here: first in reference to the quote above, I don't know how curves affect speed. BUT clearly they do affect profits as it takes the train longer to arrive at each destination so everything BN3140 said is true and he is a very good player who knows a lot. Curves are bad. If you want realism, great, but if you're trying to maximize profits then curves are bad and refer to what BN said.

In regard to your original question: The game is tricky and so are tracks and stations. I used to have similar problems a lot. I almost never have them anymore and it is always fixable. Jancsika talks about what the city accepts, etc.... this is all quite irrelevant. The issue here is routing; what the city accepts or what the train may do because of switch points should not matter. If the track is properly connected to stations at both ends the circle should be blue (on routing map) not black, period. The only way that it would be affected by the point Jancsika made was that when you select okay after setting up such a route it would indeed give you a warning, something like "City A does not accept cows, are you sure you want to ship cows to city A?". But you'd still have the option to do so as it is again a routing issue, nothing more.

That being said, the problem can only be in THREE places:
1/ Station A
2/ Station B
3/ Track problem in between.

So you need to first verify that the track is connected between the stations and if it is, that leaves option 1 or 2 only. Next you need to fix this. One simple way to test where the problem is: Let's rule out one of the stations. So go to station A. Let's say you have 2 tracks going south and 2 going north (4 tracks at station).
let's say one of the south ones leads to your city B where the problem is. Route a piece of track a bit south of the station from the OTHER track heading south (the one that is already working doing whatever, but it works, it's not the track you have probs with) and route it into your track that heads south to city B. Try to lay the track. If it works, the junction point you were trying to use at station A here is clearly the problem. If it doesn't work here either, this rules out station A as the problem and if you ruled out the track between A and B already, then option 2, station B remains. You can perform a similar test at station B., etc.

Now to fix the thing, you have to delete and create as it sounds you are attempting to do. Sometimes the game adds problem pieces at the station, particularly when you do a double track, that can be problematic. Sometimes you need to click on the particular junction point and see how many pieces of track the game thinks there are in the one piece you laid. Just having a smooth piece of track there is not proof enough that it is "okay" or "laid correctly" and there is no guarantee that this is user error, the game has problems. But in most cases it is indeed due to improper laying.

Here's another common mistake: The double track is not laid in front of station and can even still turn smooth as though it is a 2nd junction but then when you try to route it, it won't work. So make sure you have a double track in the middle of the station (like where the door of the station is) and work from that.

Those are my thoughts, hopefully you find the problem.