Intersections

Getting trains to their destinations with minimum delay is key to maximizing your profits. An efficient track system should be comparitively inexpensive while still allowing your trains to quickly proceed to whichever station they need to find.

The first thing you'll need to do is set a standard for your game early on. This standard concerns the directions the trains travel on the dual-track system you'll be using throughout your empire. Being that I live in the United States, where we drive on the RIGHT side of the road, I've similiarly engineered my transportation system to do the same. All trains proceed on the right-hand track of any track pair. You'll need to decide this early on, and there's almost no reason to choose one over the other, just your preference. BUT, once you choose, be sure to stick with it, or as your empire grows and you have routes you'd like to connect, you'll face a very expensive task of changing half your tracks to match the other half.

As soon as you start making money, perhaps 5-15 years into the game (on the most difficult setting), start building these dual-track routes where all trains leaving use the right-hand track and those arriving use the left-hand track (or vice-versa).

If you are STILL using the so-called 'passing loops' like the idiotic computer players, which allow them to run two trains on a single track, stop now. It'll end up costing you more in lost profits than you'd ever spend on making parallel tracks. It's a good investment.

Once you have trains going to and fro on parallel, dual-track routes, eventually you'll run into a situation that gets more complicated. For instance, from point A, some of your trains need to go to point B, but SOME need to go to point C, AND some need to come from point D and arrive at point A. To keep these trains moving, try implementing the following cloverleaf intersection:

(This solution depends on the signalling features introduced in Transport Tycoon DELUXE. The original version of Transport Tycoon does not have the advanced signalling required to make this work.)

Trains moving from any point to any point have very little chance of hitting a red signal. Compare this to a straight crossing intersection of two very busy routes and you'll be amazed at how effective this design can be.

Below is a slightly different situation where there are three stations instead of four which need to be connected. This represents some 'real-world' problems you might face:

In this example, you can see that a forest blocked me from bringing one loop around to the right, and instead I had to send it over to the left. Functionally, it's identical, but I'd rather have it symetrical.

Trains from the SE take grain and livestock to the factory further to the NW (through the tunnels). Trains also bring iron ore from the SE to the smelter to the SW. Trains from the smelter then proceed from SW to NW where they drop of steel at the factory. Goods from the factory travel by train from NW to SE. As many as 12 separate trains are using these routes; there are virtually no delays caused by this intersection.

Below is an example of a station which accepts coal from as many as 9 trains using the parallel track system. Take note of the signals which make this feasable.