Hey Biffa, with the setup you made starting at 22:28, trains that wanna go from the glass box to NP-Atoll now have to go around the whole island, that's why at 27:37 you saw the yellow line not stop at your village. Just to let you know
Yeah same at 33:00 the cargo trains can’t go further out /to the city or to /from the other cargo lines they have to go all the way around the city (he made them only turn right)
I recommend naming the cargo terminals. I name them by the industry they service or by the district they're in. Then you can click on a train and it will say going from forest to ore or forest to district x
My Tip: Never let Intercity trains into your city. Intercity trains often have only very few passengers, but take up as much space as if they carried 240. It's a huge waste of train track capacity. Put an Intercity Exchange Station about 3 - 4 train lengths from the map edge everywhere that train tracks enter the map. These Intercity Exchange Stations are the only stations with 'allow intercity traffic' turned on - be sure to turn it off at all other stations! Then have dedicated train lines - not tracks - going from these exchange stations to central stations where tourists are going -- city centers, tourist attractions, etc. Setup only as many trains as you need to handel the number of tourists. Since these train lines only stop at the Intercity Exchange Stations and in major tourist areas, they are fairly quick, so if passengers wait a tiny bit in the Intercity Exchange Stations, it is not so bad. This can drastically reduce rail traffic on your passenger lines.
Mayor Biffa: We will build a second railway line going nowhere on this empty island Newtealanders: But it’s useless and we don’t have enough budget for it! Mayor Biffa: What about 30% taxes for everyone? Newtealanders: Ok…
Let's see, what would I want in one of those? Through tracks going straight ahead, and stopping tracks on the outside of that. Maybe even have two stopping tracks per side? And add in cargo storage (like with that barge port!) that would be animated stacks of containers (like the warehouse that is stacks of containers that changes depending on how much is in the warehouse). hm. Possible deign hack: no through tracks included, but designed to be set right next to such tracks? and designed to have two tracks going the same direction through it? Basically just regular cargo station but with both tracks going the same way!
I like this idea. There should be a through line and a one way loop that takes the cargo that needs to stop there, and a full on truck traffic solution with bypassed one way in, one way out. Maybe even have a bit of a buffer for goods so that the goods in-out goes smoothly.
Classic Biffa: "I need to fix the cargo trains, doubling the tracks where I have cargo stations" Immediately starts duplicating the region he only have passenger stations =D
I think it would super help, when doing something like this, to get a second rail-line asset and have one for passenger and the other for cargo, just to easily differentiate them. You can select the lane-wise speed option to set those rail speeds independently. However, you could also ban cargo trains from the passenger parts and they will bypass.
I've learned to start off with building actual train junctions in my cities with one way tracks to where there is no crossover traffic, left turns always go over or under. Unrealistic, but it works.
It’s not even that unrealistic. When you have two train lines splitting to different directions, it makes perfectly sense to make an over or underpass, so that none of the tracks crosses the track in the opposite direction on the same height
Flying junctions are pretty common to solve delays at busy railway junctions in the UK. The Wikipedia article is pretty good with examples around the world.
Unrealistic for most parts the United States --- even in the dense train networks in Boston there are only two grade separated railway junctions: one at South Bay and the other at Readville.
Not terribly unrealistic, it's called a flying junction and it's definitely a thing. They're not as common in mixed rail because they're obviously more expensive to build, but they're pretty standard for high speed rail, and also for self-contained systems (like subways). For example, on the San Francisco area's BART system, all junctions are flying junctions so lines in opposite directions never intersect.
When splitting train lines in my own cities, i like to use the new 'High speed rail viaduct' for all the passenger traffic (forced elevated pieces even on the ground) so its easier to tell them apart.
I love when Biffa gets sarcastic, like at 24:55 when talking about the mod to see where stuff is going he says “We can see where it’s going can’t see where it’s come from.” “Very Handy🙄” You can literally hear the eye roll. 😂
38:52 "I love a good fly-over" ... well, in a real fly-over the bridge would come down as one-way track, only for trains to the left of the screen. Another one-way track would branch off between the two parallel train lines, slowly ascend an then join the bridge. That way no trains would have to wait for trains of the opposite direction. What you build is basically just a normal flat junction, the bridge is only mirroring it to the other side of the tracks (not where the branch line is coming from) - it helps you to avoid the parallel train line like it would help you to avoid any other obstacle, which is good to keep cargo and passenger separate. But it does not give you the advantages of fly-overs. Just follow the sketch in the English wikipedia article "flying junction" - which is by the way no other design than the half highway connection visible at 33:55 where the on-/off-ramps are merging/diverging on the correct side ... just imagine the parallel tracks to be some random obstable you are building around. 20:40 "We don't have room for big flyover junctions" - yes, fly-overs need a lot of space because they avoid conflicts of trains by putting conflicting trains on different levels. The change in elevation is what cause the hunger for space. But you already have these changes in elevation: you are using many bridges and tunnels. If you branch off (one-way) tracks from these underground or bridge sections the tracks to/from the spur line could stay underground / in bridge mode for a tiny bit longer and thereby avoid the conflicting other trains.
@@ApemanMonkey Well... real flyovers are complicated, especially when in tight spaces. Getting things to line up correctly is a nightmare, and you need sufficient space so that your rail lines aren't too steep.
@@williamhuang8309 One could go up and the other go down at the same time to reduce the amount of space needed, then on the other side they both raise/lower to the same level
More separation: - Make loops or turnabouts, not dead-ends that have to cross back over themselves - Use bridges and tunnels to avoid as many at-grade track crossings as possible - Use one way to force congestion relief - Move the inter-city stations to outskirts transfer stations, like one or two tiles max from the edge, then turn them around of have an outer inter-city loop that never enters the city proper.
34:09 I know this video is from ages ago but I just thought I'd point out that you can change the speed limit for each of the different tracks by ticking the box that says 'show lane-wise speed limits' or holding control!
for the unused bypass... can´t you use the vehicle restriction instead of using the speed limit? put just cargo trains in the middle or restrict them by taking the outside lanes
I did this when series started. I really like the map but before adding any buildings I added second line splitting cargo/passenger and same time line mathematics for road network. It's challenging but is so much easier to build around it. I kept single track on the small islands though. Just for esthetics.
The TMPE has a vehicle limiting tool, it also works for rail roads. You can limit where a cargo or passenger train can go so for example cargo trains do not drive through the passenger stations randomly.
Certainly made things flow again well done. Hopefully fixed for good. Shows how planning for double lines and if affordable actually laying the tracks from the get go when building a city would make life easier and more profitable
I use a mod called Optimised Outside Connections that can disable the “dummy traffic” - the trains that just transit through bringing goods from one city to another without interacting with my city. And I’ve not had any train jams since. It also makes sure your planes and boats are full before coming in, instead of having 300 boats with 1% cargo load.
What an awesome episode! My mind is still spinning, but it definitely helped me scratch my jigsaw puzzle itch I’ve been experiencing. I think if it was me, about halfway through this day I’d just blow all the tracks away, start reconnecting passenger stations then finish up with cargo ones. Come to think of it, noidea what that would do to the routes or finances though… Suppose I would have found that out only after blowing all the rails away
Yay, the patient is still alive after all arteries were ripped out and new ones inserted. Good work, Dr. Biffa. Little tip: As someone who has made many designs with intersecting parallel lines, I would recommend drawing a few lines with different colours on paper beforehand - one for passengers and one for cargo. You could use your map from the beginning and reduce the contrast so that you can draw your lines over it. The places where they overlap you should exaggerate a little so that you see the overlap. Believe me, it's worth the effort because it will save you a lot of headaches.
I took your advice Biffa and I watched again your video from two years ago. Oh boy it was fun seeing the old mistakes. :) I completely forgot about those. For example, when you did the 6 lane switch in the industry district, you forced everyone who came in to go back out because they couldn't switch lanes after they made a right. :) We all live and learn. I for one learned a great deal from you through the years. Thanks!
@25:50 Hey Biffa, I think you can restrict passenger or cargo trains only per line using the TMPE vehicle restriction tool to the right of the speed tool
One of the many useful tips I learnt from you years ago was not to mix external and internal lines for the trains, because collapse will inevitably happen. I like to use those big train stations with 6 railroads, connecting 3 to the internal network and 3 to the external lines. It works really well, especially when tourists start to come like crazy to the city once you build lots of entertainment buildings.
I'm playing this same map. I let my city run overnight one night and the train network got completely clogged, and the city totally died. Lost like half the population, and millions of dollars. I left the bones of the train network in place, but I ripped out every single interchange and replaced it with something with no crossovers (LOTS of trumpet interchanges!). Probably a couple of hours just fixing trains, then another couple hours of letting the game run to flush out all the backlog of trains and cargo orders and let the population (and the treasury) bounce back.
@Biffa: Here’s an idea that I used in my city that’s could be a bit bonkers: Light Rail using Passenger Rail. You create a separate local-trains-only rail network that uses light rail train vehicles, like the P3010 train cars, and light rail station assets, like the Irwindale Station asset. The end result is your city, effectively, gets hyperlocal passenger rail service in addition to everything else.
i've not only separated lines betwen cargo and passenger, but also a line dedicated to "external passenger traffic". substantially my passenger internal lines are not contected to the external line... and the external goes from outbound to 2 o 3 station only in the city. but i'm over 500k population (it was ovber 700k... than something happened... dunno what).
you can solve all train blockage simply by building the junctions correctly - use the one-way tracks and bridges/tunnels to prevent opposite directions from crossing each other. The moment you remove all track crossings you can pack your tracks completely full and all the trains will still move
That parallel road thing looks awesome. Maybe I need to get back into playing the game. There's a set of Quad Tracks on the workshop, maybe that's of use? Also, ban cargo on the non-bypass tracks, you can ban traffic for individual lanes on a road and this translates to rail lines too. I wish you could build railways like you can in transport fever.
Good job sorting out most of the train issues. I think the biggest issue is that the lines were there in the beginning and that you had already built up around the lines. What works for me is parallel tracks next to each other, but then move them above two to three tracks apart and then about two trains away from each have a bridging connection between the two lines. This allows trains to swap which lines they are on. Then find a clearing and put in a loop back on the track. This means you don't need to put all of those triangle junctions to allow trains to go in either direction. This is also why I prefer the metro, like the Tarantula Station, where the lines spread out to single destinations. The Glass Box is trying to put a lot of lines on the same set of tracks, which is causing the trains there to have to wait for each other.
The problem that you had with the trains is the same that you could have with cars: intersections. If you make trumpet or three leg interchanges also for trains, you are keeping separated the direction of travel and you are sure to not clog the train traffic. If you want realism I think that it isn't used in reality but it costs less than double the rails and you still can't have the logistic management that you have with real trains, so I think it's a good compromise
The vanilla game only has wooden sleepers on gravel. The HSR viaduct asset that comes with the Bridges & Piers pack when on a bridge has concrete sleepers on gravel, but that's only when it's elevated. When on the ground, it's the same as the vanilla track. You can download railway packs from the workshop, such as the RAILWAY collection, but those tend to be more finicky to use. The RAILWAY collection contains concrete-on-gravel, wood-on-gravel, and concrete-on-concrete tracks, as well as a variety of bridges you can use.
@@lelandk3136 The alternative rail bed used in 5B1C is likely a workshop asset. The only railway sleepers available in the vanilla game are wood-on-gravel when on the ground, wood-on-gravel and concrete-on-gravel when elevated. But the gravel on the HSR viaduct from the latest creator pack does have a different gravel texture.
Jesus Christ. This episode is tense! I was sitting here, watching your money while you worked on the bridge part and damn. That was close. Thank god the tax thing worked that good. D: But: beautifully done. Chapeaux.
You probably know this but you can use the unlock road tool on some of the factory fences so you can remove them or redraw them closer to the buildings. I like doing this on the ore industry buildings to make the fences make more sense. Also the paths on some of the unbuilt parks but that may need some node controller magic to look better after
I developed 2 train networks in my city. One with no outside connection and one with an outside connection. It has greatly reduced backups in the train network since trains are kept separate
Perhaps a stupid question, but why not trumpet train interchanges, like with roads? There are a couple of pre-build train interchanges that avoid crossing tracks and make sure the train flow even at high density.
I don't think the station where you said "you can't change the speed on the bypass" actually HAS a bypass. It's just 2x two-way tracks that've been split in the middle with islands.
I think the bypasses in the stations are considered lanes so you have to press ctrl to access their speed limits / vehicle restrictions. Secondly, if you want to split two lines it's best to use single-track rails like highway exits. This way trains never have to cross any oncoming traffic and it's easier to design interchange since you only need one fly-over or dive-under per interchange. Lastly, I would strongly encourage to remove the giant cluster of interchanges at the bottom-right of the map. It seems to do more harm than good and if you redo it you only have to reconnect what you want to reconnect. And you could maybe find some connections that are better done via a different route.
OMG, that was A LOT 😢. Yet, I may suggest the intercity trains only get to one station where tourists interchange to other trains to different areas of the city. A station, like the multi platform one you made as glass box but located out of the main city as to be like a main station, would be perfect. At least that's how the train system where I live is made. Sorry for this long comment and for my bad English 😅. I really love your videos ❤.
I think you missed connecting one node. Near the area where you were testing the parallel tool at the beginning. I think there is one node on top of another but not connected. I'm talking about the rail you generated around 13:39. Unless you did it off-camera of course. Great episode!
The one section over water at the start didn't build supports maybe because collision was on and it chose not to like supports in Planet Coaster (possible non-city management game to ease burnout). There seems to be a hierarchy over what gets to be put down.
Pillars are placed as buildings, and the game will not place a pillar if it is blocked by something else. The "toggle road collision" option disables that check.
There is no rail connection for passenger trains from Glass Box to No Problem Atoll. I am sure a million and one people have already said this already but there you go.
Hey @Biffa Plays Indie Games , little suggestion for You or any moder out there watching. Why do not add an option to not enter the junction if train can't leave it. There is such an option for road junctions in TMPE, so why there is no such thing for trains is incomprehensible for me. If there is such mod pls enlighten me
There are several elevated cargo stations and several sunken cargo stations on the workshop. Instead of building a vanilla cargo station, ramping up to a bridge over the road, then ramp back down.
The biggest thing I found is to use a multi platform station and keep your internal and external routes separate and the station as a transfer area Also use the union tool connects the nodes for you :)
Train- casually drives through fence Biffa- "this is fine" Also in all seriousness, this map is very pretty but the default networks set up by the creator are incredibly bad and quite hard to understand. I've got a habit now of opening any map I intend to play in the editor and "fixing" all the networks and junctions before I start a game, it just makes things make alot more sense while you're trying to actually build a functioning city
The rail networks included in custom maps are often abhorrent and don't make sense. I think map creators should simply leave it as a simple rail network without complex flat junctions everywhere.
the train ride on the new routes in New Tealand is like a roller coaster ride .. up and down up and down ... and I wonder that there are no roundabouts on the route
Biffa @ 20:40: "[...] and we don't have room for like big flyover junctions and all that sort of stuff [...]" Also Biffa @ 22:28: Built in a flyover trying to separate passenger an cargo trains but the actual merging point of the branches is still at the same height. Again Biffa @ 39:20: Ended up constructing a mountain range of overpass and tunnel. Actually no hate, just despair 😂😂😂
i keep to a simple plan when it comes to the train networks - keep them separate! any line coming in off the map goes to the cargo terminals and one spur goes to a separate passenger terminus in the city. All other lines you build within the map you keep as a self contained network and NEVER connect it to any outside lines. Ive done this on every map and my rail traffic works fine, no backing up at all.
You can, but pillars won't be placed unless the road collision setting in Fine Road Tools/Anarchy is off. If you have Network Skins and also custom pillar assets, you are able to stack rails. You can do this by turning off the road collision setting, then selecting the track asset, creating a parallel using NMT that's over the current track, selecting the custom pillar in Network Skins, and then upgrading the track that NMT placed.
Biffa putting in a lot of effort into doubling train lines, upgrading to raised, ground, tunnel, and bridge, then adding pillars when necessary....... Meanwhile, I just go to the workshop and download the quad train track asset from rcost and use the upgrade tool to upgrade the places I need to and don't have to do any of that extra stuff. Then with the magic of TM:PE I ban freight on the inner pair, and ban passenger trains on the outer pair to segregate my trains. Edit: Also junctions are a breeze since it works the exact same way as connecting normal tracks. No need to do any funky offsets and squeezing things in.
40:55 the train goes through a power pole. 41:04 the train starts going through a fence. And you could have just taken cargo trains off the outside of the station like you do with cars on a truck only road. But otherwise good job Biffa. :)
I guess another alternative is to go the cargo network almost 100% underground. Mirroring the above ground lines. Not as visually striking but less higgery pokery moving stuff about.
34:00 I don't think it's 3 pieces of rails, Biffa (single, double, single), it's 2 double side by side like you have been doing, with a massive gap inserted between (Picture 2x, Two-lane road with a median side by side, where the platforms are on the median). Try using the "Show Lane-wise speed limits" to isolate the inner lanes?
I think you could also overlook your budget and cut down some expenses. I mean, in the last episode your elementary school capacity was 3 times bigger than necessary, you produce more than twice electricity than needed and who knows what else. It might save you a lot of money
And what about a 4 lane track to upgrade everything, and split it with tmpe banning cargo from 2 lanes and passengers from the other 2? Useful for bridges and for bypasses
From my own experience in the game the problem with train lines start when there's to many intersections to close to eche other in such situations the best way to manage this is to make one way connections. Two days ago i spent 4h to make a perfect intersection that splits rail traffick into 4 ways. On the lines there is a lot of cargo traffic and 4 or 5 separate passenger lines are crossing and there is 0 issues.
I started a city on this map because of this series, because the map looked cool and I wanted to try putting my own spin on it. However, I recently threw in the towel and abandoned it. While the map looks amazing, it's also a complete mess! I'm pretty sure whoever made it never bothered to actually play-test it. Once you start moving people in, you quickly realize how WOEFULLY inadequate the existing highway system is. There's also roads that lead to nowhere and half built highways all over the place. It felt like I was playing someone else's half finished project! Like he hadn't quite finished the picture, and now I had to figure out what he was thinking so I could finish it off. The pre-existing cloverleaf intersections look really neat and are very intricately designed, but if you try putting even the slightest amount of traffic through them they'll clog up immediately meaning you'll have to spend more time than you'd like ripping them up to put a 'proper' cloverleaf in. It's at that point you'll realize the reason *why* the map looks cool. It's because there are 500 assets surrounding *everything,* most of which are categorized as 'structures' so you can't just plough straight through them, and have to spend EVEN MORE time moving or deleting rocks, trees and bushes before you can do anything. It's maddeningly infuriating! Found a nice area for a park? Well, you can't even place down a path where you want to without deleting tons of decorations first. Found a nice spot for a new town? Have fun ripping up a thousand assets to splice a new intersection in to the highway before you can even start. I didn't even get started on setting up a rail network, because just by looking at it, I knew I'd have to do what Biffa needed to do in this video. Rip it all up and re-do it all myself! It's an utter mess and made no logical sense to me. However, the thought of how much effort that would involve made me throw in the towel and cut my losses. It ain't worth it lol. AND DON'T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON THE FAKE DAM THAT PROVIDES NO POWER AND FLOODS EVERYTHING IF YOU DARE TRY REPLACING IT FOR A REAL ONE!!!
with the networktool you can use the same forbidden sign on the tracks as you use for roads. it's the car sign with the red diagonal strpe on it. this way you can ban cargo trains on the bypass stations to take the left and right side and force them down the middle.
I setup bypass tracks and used TMPE to set the traffic-type for the lines. The reason why the trains do this is due to the Cities: Skylines traffic engine. The way it's currently setup, just like auto traffic, the trains are dispatched per request rather than as a railway would normally be handled. In the real world, there's no way a whole train would be sent to a customer for each and every single load. The through traffic is handled by longer distance goods trains while a local switcher is used to visit the customers and gather the goods, or deliver goods as required. Once the empty and loaded wagons are picked up, these are returned back to the larger marshalling yard where they are then made up into longer consists for movement elsewhere. What we face now is a ton of nearly empty trains, as well as lots of full trains clogging up the lines and wreaking havoc. This same issue plagues the passenger trains. In real life, the schedule would be set so that the traffic is run in sessions at various times of the day rather than dispatching trains for a single passenger. I think this issue causes the big loss of revenue from public transit as well because a single bus, capable of carrying 80 passengers for example, is carrying only a single customer perhaps for only one stop. This bus then has to travel the rest of the route and return. What we need is the ability for rail traffic, and other forms of public transportation, to run vehicles only when the traffic warrants it. The option could be to run only when full for freight and passenger trains, or on a sliding scale for local transit such as metros, trams, and buses.
34:00 - "bypass station that people don't want to use" isn't a bypass station. It's a dual island station, trains can stop on all four lines through the station.
Hi! The reason the road tools were set on ground mode is Picker's "fault", because when you pick a segment it selects the road type and forces it to be on the same mode of the one you picked
Caught up today and saw some fixes from "Build a Transit Hub & Super Park Pier to End ALL Piers in Cities Skylines!": 1. There are on-ramps beneath the interchange that didn't get the dedicated lane treatment. 2. The train station has paths in the back that you can consider having people use instead of adding explicit crossings? 3. I think you said you had no 4 lane roads with trees, but you were on 2U 3L+ instead of 4U. Pretty sure there's a tree road at 4U. In the following "Using Custom Building Themes To Beautify in Cities Skylines!", I also had: 1. A couple of lanes on that 'high priority' road need the one job only applied.
At about 34 minutes, you're complaining about trains not using the bypass lanes of a station, and that you can't do the speed-limit. The answer is simple - that particular station has four platforms and no bypass lanes, not two-plus-two.
FYI: You can easily fix built road segments to become either ground, elevated or tunnel segments by using the upgrade road button in combination with having the right mode selected in the fine road tool.
Am only 5 minutes in, but I'm still convinced that the actual *problem* causing this is nodes too close together; that they should NEVER be so close that a single train can touch two of them. It's essentially the same issue you get with the places where trains spawn and disappear at the edge of the map, and the same fixes. Move some nodes, zot all you can that are interior to a junction especially. Build single-track train interchanges with flyovers so trains never have to cross over "opposing lane" track. Adding parallel train tracks is the rail version of six-lane roundabouts.
Not got to 5 mins in yet, but I think all of the pain for your trains has been coming from junctions being too close together in the bottom right of your map as the main line comes from outside to that cluster of cargo stations. Flyover junctions would have helped, but using the map image tool is perhaps something to be done more often as you build to get a better sense of what's needed where :)
Biffa you really need the overpasses to connect the relevant networks together without interfeering with the others. And you really should consider to mastering the art of ONE track junctions with overpasses and underpasses to avoid conflicting traffic on the other way tracks.
Hey Biffa, with the setup you made starting at 22:28, trains that wanna go from the glass box to NP-Atoll now have to go around the whole island, that's why at 27:37 you saw the yellow line not stop at your village. Just to let you know
Exactly that was the Problem. They had to make the biiiiiiiig loop insteed of the shortest root that they had to do befor.
Yeah same at 33:00 the cargo trains can’t go further out /to the city or to /from the other cargo lines they have to go all the way around the city (he made them only turn right)
@@oussamabouzerzour6155 How about suggest to biffa that he should build another branch from the passenger line to connect to NPA from glass box
I recommend naming the cargo terminals. I name them by the industry they service or by the district they're in. Then you can click on a train and it will say going from forest to ore or forest to district x
Nice idea, I will implement this in my city.
Also helps with the "where are these trucks coming from" question. Warehouses and silos are another potential naming target.
👆this
Very handy. And he should rename his passenger stations as well.
That's something that I plan on doing for my next city so I can get a very rough idea of where the bulk of the cargo train traffic is going to/from
My Tip: Never let Intercity trains into your city. Intercity trains often have only very few passengers, but take up as much space as if they carried 240. It's a huge waste of train track capacity.
Put an Intercity Exchange Station about 3 - 4 train lengths from the map edge everywhere that train tracks enter the map. These Intercity Exchange Stations are the only stations with 'allow intercity traffic' turned on - be sure to turn it off at all other stations!
Then have dedicated train lines - not tracks - going from these exchange stations to central stations where tourists are going -- city centers, tourist attractions, etc. Setup only as many trains as you need to handel the number of tourists. Since these train lines only stop at the Intercity Exchange Stations and in major tourist areas, they are fairly quick, so if passengers wait a tiny bit in the Intercity Exchange Stations, it is not so bad.
This can drastically reduce rail traffic on your passenger lines.
He did it bois, he actually did a transport network transplant
Slow clap deserved
Train surgery
He will now be known as Dr. Biffa
Mayor Biffa: We will build a second railway line going nowhere on this empty island
Newtealanders: But it’s useless and we don’t have enough budget for it!
Mayor Biffa: What about 30% taxes for everyone?
Newtealanders: Ok…
They love it 😁
What the game needs is a large multi-platform cargo station so you could build a decent cargo hub.
Let's see, what would I want in one of those?
Through tracks going straight ahead, and stopping tracks on the outside of that. Maybe even have two stopping tracks per side? And add in cargo storage (like with that barge port!) that would be animated stacks of containers (like the warehouse that is stacks of containers that changes depending on how much is in the warehouse).
hm. Possible deign hack: no through tracks included, but designed to be set right next to such tracks? and designed to have two tracks going the same direction through it? Basically just regular cargo station but with both tracks going the same way!
I like this idea. There should be a through line and a one way loop that takes the cargo that needs to stop there, and a full on truck traffic solution with bypassed one way in, one way out.
Maybe even have a bit of a buffer for goods so that the goods in-out goes smoothly.
Cargo station with bypass. Just why is there not one of these?
Classic Biffa: "I need to fix the cargo trains, doubling the tracks where I have cargo stations"
Immediately starts duplicating the region he only have passenger stations =D
Yeah but he may have cargo stations at the end when he build out there.
I think it would super help, when doing something like this, to get a second rail-line asset and have one for passenger and the other for cargo, just to easily differentiate them.
You can select the lane-wise speed option to set those rail speeds independently. However, you could also ban cargo trains from the passenger parts and they will bypass.
I've learned to start off with building actual train junctions in my cities with one way tracks to where there is no crossover traffic, left turns always go over or under. Unrealistic, but it works.
It’s not even that unrealistic. When you have two train lines splitting to different directions, it makes perfectly sense to make an over or underpass, so that none of the tracks crosses the track in the opposite direction on the same height
Flying junctions are pretty common to solve delays at busy railway junctions in the UK. The Wikipedia article is pretty good with examples around the world.
They tend to be common in Germany as well and it is the best way to connect different lines in late game - I learned that from Transport Fever.
Unrealistic for most parts the United States --- even in the dense train networks in Boston there are only two grade separated railway junctions: one at South Bay and the other at Readville.
Not terribly unrealistic, it's called a flying junction and it's definitely a thing. They're not as common in mixed rail because they're obviously more expensive to build, but they're pretty standard for high speed rail, and also for self-contained systems (like subways). For example, on the San Francisco area's BART system, all junctions are flying junctions so lines in opposite directions never intersect.
I snorted beer out through my nose when you build an entire mega-dam when making the railroad bridge XD That was great!
When splitting train lines in my own cities, i like to use the new 'High speed rail viaduct' for all the passenger traffic (forced elevated pieces even on the ground) so its easier to tell them apart.
I love when Biffa gets sarcastic, like at 24:55 when talking about the mod to see where stuff is going he says “We can see where it’s going can’t see where it’s come from.” “Very Handy🙄” You can literally hear the eye roll. 😂
34:18 You can use the lane-wise speed limits function built-in to the TMPE for this kind of situation.
Just what I was going to say. By pressing ctrl you can set the speed for individual lanes.
Yeah, but that's not a bypass station like he thinks it is. It is just a 4 platform station.
That is true, but he can manipulate the trains to use the center rails as a bypass and have no stops on them. I'm certain he will figure this out.
Or, if the cargo trains insist on using the outer rails, he could move the passenger stops to the inner platforms instead?
@@JessicaRainbow I don't think that's possible.
38:52 "I love a good fly-over" ... well, in a real fly-over the bridge would come down as one-way track, only for trains to the left of the screen. Another one-way track would branch off between the two parallel train lines, slowly ascend an then join the bridge. That way no trains would have to wait for trains of the opposite direction.
What you build is basically just a normal flat junction, the bridge is only mirroring it to the other side of the tracks (not where the branch line is coming from) - it helps you to avoid the parallel train line like it would help you to avoid any other obstacle, which is good to keep cargo and passenger separate. But it does not give you the advantages of fly-overs.
Just follow the sketch in the English wikipedia article "flying junction" - which is by the way no other design than the half highway connection visible at 33:55 where the on-/off-ramps are merging/diverging on the correct side ... just imagine the parallel tracks to be some random obstable you are building around.
20:40 "We don't have room for big flyover junctions" - yes, fly-overs need a lot of space because they avoid conflicts of trains by putting conflicting trains on different levels. The change in elevation is what cause the hunger for space. But you already have these changes in elevation: you are using many bridges and tunnels. If you branch off (one-way) tracks from these underground or bridge sections the tracks to/from the spur line could stay underground / in bridge mode for a tiny bit longer and thereby avoid the conflicting other trains.
I love Biffa, but he has been told so many times to just use fly-overs/dive-unders and how to apply them, but he doesn't seem to (want to) get it.
@@ApemanMonkey Well... real flyovers are complicated, especially when in tight spaces. Getting things to line up correctly is a nightmare, and you need sufficient space so that your rail lines aren't too steep.
@@williamhuang8309 One could go up and the other go down at the same time to reduce the amount of space needed, then on the other side they both raise/lower to the same level
More separation:
- Make loops or turnabouts, not dead-ends that have to cross back over themselves
- Use bridges and tunnels to avoid as many at-grade track crossings as possible
- Use one way to force congestion relief
- Move the inter-city stations to outskirts transfer stations, like one or two tiles max from the edge, then turn them around of have an outer inter-city loop that never enters the city proper.
34:09 I know this video is from ages ago but I just thought I'd point out that you can change the speed limit for each of the different tracks by ticking the box that says 'show lane-wise speed limits' or holding control!
for the unused bypass... can´t you use the vehicle restriction instead of using the speed limit? put just cargo trains in the middle or restrict them by taking the outside lanes
This too
11:10 when you "fixed" those tracks from crossing over, you ended up deadending/disconnecting your existing train network and left it running.
Another look at the CSL Map at the end and a before/after comparison could've been nice. Great fix as always.
I did this when series started. I really like the map but before adding any buildings I added second line splitting cargo/passenger and same time line mathematics for road network.
It's challenging but is so much easier to build around it.
I kept single track on the small islands though. Just for esthetics.
I'm surprised there's no mod that creates a train track of a different hue - would probably greatly simplify understanding this whole thing
And this is why I stacked my rails when I separated them. You can spur out to either side.
The TMPE has a vehicle limiting tool, it also works for rail roads. You can limit where a cargo or passenger train can go so for example cargo trains do not drive through the passenger stations randomly.
Bloody hell, my brain hurts just watching that! Yours must be trying to escape to freedom! Epic work, mate.
Certainly made things flow again well done. Hopefully fixed for good. Shows how planning for double lines and if affordable actually laying the tracks from the get go when building a city would make life easier and more profitable
I use a mod called Optimised Outside Connections that can disable the “dummy traffic” - the trains that just transit through bringing goods from one city to another without interacting with my city.
And I’ve not had any train jams since. It also makes sure your planes and boats are full before coming in, instead of having 300 boats with 1% cargo load.
if i'm not mistaken he did exactly that. Or explained one could do that.
And you can call your train system the Spaghet-tea Lines.
What an awesome episode! My mind is still spinning, but it definitely helped me scratch my jigsaw puzzle itch I’ve been experiencing. I think if it was me, about halfway through this day I’d just blow all the tracks away, start reconnecting passenger stations then finish up with cargo ones. Come to think of it, noidea what that would do to the routes or finances though… Suppose I would have found that out only after blowing all the rails away
Yay, the patient is still alive after all arteries were ripped out and new ones inserted. Good work, Dr. Biffa.
Little tip: As someone who has made many designs with intersecting parallel lines, I would recommend drawing a few lines with different colours on paper beforehand - one for passengers and one for cargo. You could use your map from the beginning and reduce the contrast so that you can draw your lines over it. The places where they overlap you should exaggerate a little so that you see the overlap. Believe me, it's worth the effort because it will save you a lot of headaches.
Just started watching and can already tell this is going to be immensely satisfying to watch :D
I took your advice Biffa and I watched again your video from two years ago. Oh boy it was fun seeing the old mistakes. :) I completely forgot about those. For example, when you did the 6 lane switch in the industry district, you forced everyone who came in to go back out because they couldn't switch lanes after they made a right. :) We all live and learn. I for one learned a great deal from you through the years. Thanks!
09:15 - The mod you have under elevation steps is set to ground. Maybe that's why it won't bridge and why the last one did bridge.
@25:50 Hey Biffa, I think you can restrict passenger or cargo trains only per line using the TMPE vehicle restriction tool to the right of the speed tool
29:26 optionally, possibly use bad peanut's rails over roads to create a vertical stack of rails (cargo rail stacked on passenger rail)
I actually have a separate style of track that I use for my passenger lines, so that I can tell at a glance which track is for which type of service.
One of the many useful tips I learnt from you years ago was not to mix external and internal lines for the trains, because collapse will inevitably happen. I like to use those big train stations with 6 railroads, connecting 3 to the internal network and 3 to the external lines. It works really well, especially when tourists start to come like crazy to the city once you build lots of entertainment buildings.
This is why I use the RAILWAY collection- you get nice and clean railway lines that look great too.
I'm playing this same map. I let my city run overnight one night and the train network got completely clogged, and the city totally died. Lost like half the population, and millions of dollars. I left the bones of the train network in place, but I ripped out every single interchange and replaced it with something with no crossovers (LOTS of trumpet interchanges!). Probably a couple of hours just fixing trains, then another couple hours of letting the game run to flush out all the backlog of trains and cargo orders and let the population (and the treasury) bounce back.
@Biffa: Here’s an idea that I used in my city that’s could be a bit bonkers: Light Rail using Passenger Rail.
You create a separate local-trains-only rail network that uses light rail train vehicles, like the P3010 train cars, and light rail station assets, like the Irwindale Station asset.
The end result is your city, effectively, gets hyperlocal passenger rail service in addition to everything else.
what you also could have done is upgrade everything to a 4 lane and with trafic manager ban passenger trains on 2 of the tracks.
i've not only separated lines betwen cargo and passenger, but also a line dedicated to "external passenger traffic".
substantially my passenger internal lines are not contected to the external line... and the external goes from outbound to 2 o 3 station only in the city.
but i'm over 500k population (it was ovber 700k... than something happened... dunno what).
40:55 Pillar in the middle of the track
41:04 Fence in the middle of the track
Honestly a "plain" map without things already built would be better for the next series
you can solve all train blockage simply by building the junctions correctly - use the one-way tracks and bridges/tunnels to prevent opposite directions from crossing each other. The moment you remove all track crossings you can pack your tracks completely full and all the trains will still move
Great demostration of the Multitool and it's capabilities. It is not easy to retrofit a second line in through a city. I raise a teacup to you!
That parallel road thing looks awesome. Maybe I need to get back into playing the game.
There's a set of Quad Tracks on the workshop, maybe that's of use? Also, ban cargo on the non-bypass tracks, you can ban traffic for individual lanes on a road and this translates to rail lines too.
I wish you could build railways like you can in transport fever.
8:28 Usse Union nodes mode- click on the button for that mode and then click the two nodes. They will join together to become one node.
Good job sorting out most of the train issues. I think the biggest issue is that the lines were there in the beginning and that you had already built up around the lines.
What works for me is parallel tracks next to each other, but then move them above two to three tracks apart and then about two trains away from each have a bridging connection between the two lines. This allows trains to swap which lines they are on.
Then find a clearing and put in a loop back on the track. This means you don't need to put all of those triangle junctions to allow trains to go in either direction.
This is also why I prefer the metro, like the Tarantula Station, where the lines spread out to single destinations. The Glass Box is trying to put a lot of lines on the same set of tracks, which is causing the trains there to have to wait for each other.
The problem that you had with the trains is the same that you could have with cars: intersections. If you make trumpet or three leg interchanges also for trains, you are keeping separated the direction of travel and you are sure to not clog the train traffic. If you want realism I think that it isn't used in reality but it costs less than double the rails and you still can't have the logistic management that you have with real trains, so I think it's a good compromise
Biffa, have you considered using railbeds of different colors to separate cargo and passenger traffic? It might make it easier to tell them apart.
The vanilla game only has wooden sleepers on gravel. The HSR viaduct asset that comes with the Bridges & Piers pack when on a bridge has concrete sleepers on gravel, but that's only when it's elevated. When on the ground, it's the same as the vanilla track. You can download railway packs from the workshop, such as the RAILWAY collection, but those tend to be more finicky to use. The RAILWAY collection contains concrete-on-gravel, wood-on-gravel, and concrete-on-concrete tracks, as well as a variety of bridges you can use.
@@williamhuang8309 I remember someome was using an alternative rail bed asset in the second season of 5B1C, but I'd have to go back and look.
@@lelandk3136 The alternative rail bed used in 5B1C is likely a workshop asset. The only railway sleepers available in the vanilla game are wood-on-gravel when on the ground, wood-on-gravel and concrete-on-gravel when elevated. But the gravel on the HSR viaduct from the latest creator pack does have a different gravel texture.
Its good you started on a place you didnt need cargo tracks xD
Jesus Christ. This episode is tense! I was sitting here, watching your money while you worked on the bridge part and damn. That was close. Thank god the tax thing worked that good. D:
But: beautifully done. Chapeaux.
You probably know this but you can use the unlock road tool on some of the factory fences so you can remove them or redraw them closer to the buildings. I like doing this on the ore industry buildings to make the fences make more sense. Also the paths on some of the unbuilt parks but that may need some node controller magic to look better after
I developed 2 train networks in my city. One with no outside connection and one with an outside connection. It has greatly reduced backups in the train network since trains are kept separate
Perhaps a stupid question, but why not trumpet train interchanges, like with roads? There are a couple of pre-build train interchanges that avoid crossing tracks and make sure the train flow even at high density.
Petition to change the name of the airport from Met-teapolitan to Tea-throw airport....plz?😁👍
I don't think the station where you said "you can't change the speed on the bypass" actually HAS a bypass. It's just 2x two-way tracks that've been split in the middle with islands.
Technically it's a dual-island station, so it has 4 platforms but no bypass.
please can you build a area with only europeing buildings(high rise)
Oh my gidiant
40:55 That is like a rollercoaster isn't it :-D
I think the bypasses in the stations are considered lanes so you have to press ctrl to access their speed limits / vehicle restrictions. Secondly, if you want to split two lines it's best to use single-track rails like highway exits. This way trains never have to cross any oncoming traffic and it's easier to design interchange since you only need one fly-over or dive-under per interchange. Lastly, I would strongly encourage to remove the giant cluster of interchanges at the bottom-right of the map. It seems to do more harm than good and if you redo it you only have to reconnect what you want to reconnect. And you could maybe find some connections that are better done via a different route.
OMG, that was A LOT 😢. Yet, I may suggest the intercity trains only get to one station where tourists interchange to other trains to different areas of the city. A station, like the multi platform one you made as glass box but located out of the main city as to be like a main station, would be perfect.
At least that's how the train system where I live is made.
Sorry for this long comment and for my bad English 😅. I really love your videos ❤.
I think you missed connecting one node. Near the area where you were testing the parallel tool at the beginning. I think there is one node on top of another but not connected. I'm talking about the rail you generated around 13:39. Unless you did it off-camera of course.
Great episode!
The one section over water at the start didn't build supports maybe because collision was on and it chose not to like supports in Planet Coaster (possible non-city management game to ease burnout). There seems to be a hierarchy over what gets to be put down.
Pillars are placed as buildings, and the game will not place a pillar if it is blocked by something else. The "toggle road collision" option disables that check.
There is no rail connection for passenger trains from Glass Box to No Problem Atoll. I am sure a million and one people have already said this already but there you go.
👍
Hey @Biffa Plays Indie Games , little suggestion for You or any moder out there watching. Why do not add an option to not enter the junction if train can't leave it. There is such an option for road junctions in TMPE, so why there is no such thing for trains is incomprehensible for me. If there is such mod pls enlighten me
There are several elevated cargo stations and several sunken cargo stations on the workshop. Instead of building a vanilla cargo station, ramping up to a bridge over the road, then ramp back down.
The biggest thing I found is to use a multi platform station and keep your internal and external routes separate and the station as a transfer area
Also use the union tool connects the nodes for you :)
Train- casually drives through fence
Biffa- "this is fine"
Also in all seriousness, this map is very pretty but the default networks set up by the creator are incredibly bad and quite hard to understand. I've got a habit now of opening any map I intend to play in the editor and "fixing" all the networks and junctions before I start a game, it just makes things make alot more sense while you're trying to actually build a functioning city
The rail networks included in custom maps are often abhorrent and don't make sense. I think map creators should simply leave it as a simple rail network without complex flat junctions everywhere.
the train ride on the new routes in New Tealand is like a roller coaster ride .. up and down up and down ... and I wonder that there are no roundabouts on the route
Phil from CPP: Lumpies and bumpies
Biffa @ 20:40: "[...] and we don't have room for like big flyover junctions and all that sort of stuff [...]"
Also Biffa @ 22:28: Built in a flyover trying to separate passenger an cargo trains but the actual merging point of the branches is still at the same height.
Again Biffa @ 39:20: Ended up constructing a mountain range of overpass and tunnel.
Actually no hate, just despair 😂😂😂
i keep to a simple plan when it comes to the train networks - keep them separate! any line coming in off the map goes to the cargo terminals and one spur goes to a separate passenger terminus in the city. All other lines you build within the map you keep as a self contained network and NEVER connect it to any outside lines. Ive done this on every map and my rail traffic works fine, no backing up at all.
they need a stack rail mod to put rails on top of each other. :)
You can, but pillars won't be placed unless the road collision setting in Fine Road Tools/Anarchy is off. If you have Network Skins and also custom pillar assets, you are able to stack rails. You can do this by turning off the road collision setting, then selecting the track asset, creating a parallel using NMT that's over the current track, selecting the custom pillar in Network Skins, and then upgrading the track that NMT placed.
Biffa putting in a lot of effort into doubling train lines, upgrading to raised, ground, tunnel, and bridge, then adding pillars when necessary....... Meanwhile, I just go to the workshop and download the quad train track asset from rcost and use the upgrade tool to upgrade the places I need to and don't have to do any of that extra stuff. Then with the magic of TM:PE I ban freight on the inner pair, and ban passenger trains on the outer pair to segregate my trains.
Edit: Also junctions are a breeze since it works the exact same way as connecting normal tracks. No need to do any funky offsets and squeezing things in.
I completely forgot about this game and this channel! Great to be back, biffa
40:55 the train goes through a power pole.
41:04 the train starts going through a fence.
And you could have just taken cargo trains off the outside of the station like you do with cars on a truck only road.
But otherwise good job Biffa. :)
Great video!
Perhaps if you put the farming cargo station nearer your main cargo line, you could rip the rails and develop that area?
I guess another alternative is to go the cargo network almost 100% underground. Mirroring the above ground lines. Not as visually striking but less higgery pokery moving stuff about.
34:00 I don't think it's 3 pieces of rails, Biffa (single, double, single), it's 2 double side by side like you have been doing, with a massive gap inserted between (Picture 2x, Two-lane road with a median side by side, where the platforms are on the median).
Try using the "Show Lane-wise speed limits" to isolate the inner lanes?
I think you could also overlook your budget and cut down some expenses. I mean, in the last episode your elementary school capacity was 3 times bigger than necessary, you produce more than twice electricity than needed and who knows what else. It might save you a lot of money
Good idea 👍
And what about a 4 lane track to upgrade everything, and split it with tmpe banning cargo from 2 lanes and passengers from the other 2? Useful for bridges and for bypasses
And we'll, I never really liked the glass box station, a go thru station would have been a lot more handy
If you hover over sliders you can mouse wheel them higher or lower. This works for budget options as well as public transport vehicle counts.
From my own experience in the game the problem with train lines start when there's to many intersections to close to eche other in such situations the best way to manage this is to make one way connections. Two days ago i spent 4h to make a perfect intersection that splits rail traffick into 4 ways. On the lines there is a lot of cargo traffic and 4 or 5 separate passenger lines are crossing and there is 0 issues.
I started a city on this map because of this series, because the map looked cool and I wanted to try putting my own spin on it. However, I recently threw in the towel and abandoned it. While the map looks amazing, it's also a complete mess! I'm pretty sure whoever made it never bothered to actually play-test it.
Once you start moving people in, you quickly realize how WOEFULLY inadequate the existing highway system is. There's also roads that lead to nowhere and half built highways all over the place. It felt like I was playing someone else's half finished project! Like he hadn't quite finished the picture, and now I had to figure out what he was thinking so I could finish it off.
The pre-existing cloverleaf intersections look really neat and are very intricately designed, but if you try putting even the slightest amount of traffic through them they'll clog up immediately meaning you'll have to spend more time than you'd like ripping them up to put a 'proper' cloverleaf in.
It's at that point you'll realize the reason *why* the map looks cool. It's because there are 500 assets surrounding *everything,* most of which are categorized as 'structures' so you can't just plough straight through them, and have to spend EVEN MORE time moving or deleting rocks, trees and bushes before you can do anything. It's maddeningly infuriating!
Found a nice area for a park? Well, you can't even place down a path where you want to without deleting tons of decorations first.
Found a nice spot for a new town? Have fun ripping up a thousand assets to splice a new intersection in to the highway before you can even start.
I didn't even get started on setting up a rail network, because just by looking at it, I knew I'd have to do what Biffa needed to do in this video. Rip it all up and re-do it all myself! It's an utter mess and made no logical sense to me. However, the thought of how much effort that would involve made me throw in the towel and cut my losses. It ain't worth it lol.
AND DON'T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON THE FAKE DAM THAT PROVIDES NO POWER AND FLOODS EVERYTHING IF YOU DARE TRY REPLACING IT FOR A REAL ONE!!!
with the networktool you can use the same forbidden sign on the tracks as you use for roads. it's the car sign with the red diagonal strpe on it. this way you can ban cargo trains on the bypass stations to take the left and right side and force them down the middle.
Forgot about that!
NOW you tell him! 😆
I setup bypass tracks and used TMPE to set the traffic-type for the lines.
The reason why the trains do this is due to the Cities: Skylines traffic engine. The way it's currently setup, just like auto traffic, the trains are dispatched per request rather than as a railway would normally be handled. In the real world, there's no way a whole train would be sent to a customer for each and every single load. The through traffic is handled by longer distance goods trains while a local switcher is used to visit the customers and gather the goods, or deliver goods as required. Once the empty and loaded wagons are picked up, these are returned back to the larger marshalling yard where they are then made up into longer consists for movement elsewhere. What we face now is a ton of nearly empty trains, as well as lots of full trains clogging up the lines and wreaking havoc.
This same issue plagues the passenger trains. In real life, the schedule would be set so that the traffic is run in sessions at various times of the day rather than dispatching trains for a single passenger. I think this issue causes the big loss of revenue from public transit as well because a single bus, capable of carrying 80 passengers for example, is carrying only a single customer perhaps for only one stop. This bus then has to travel the rest of the route and return.
What we need is the ability for rail traffic, and other forms of public transportation, to run vehicles only when the traffic warrants it. The option could be to run only when full for freight and passenger trains, or on a sliding scale for local transit such as metros, trams, and buses.
34:00 - "bypass station that people don't want to use" isn't a bypass station. It's a dual island station, trains can stop on all four lines through the station.
For the bypass problem around 34:20, hold Ctrl and it will allow you to adjust the speeds of an individual lane/rail.
Hi! The reason the road tools were set on ground mode is Picker's "fault", because when you pick a segment it selects the road type and forces it to be on the same mode of the one you picked
Two connectors you missed, Biffa: cargo track from the Port and Glass Box cargo track to the Northern and East End cargo tracks. Otherwise great job!
I love how the cars drive through the Pilars at 32:33 :P
Caught up today and saw some fixes from "Build a Transit Hub & Super Park Pier to End ALL Piers in Cities Skylines!":
1. There are on-ramps beneath the interchange that didn't get the dedicated lane treatment.
2. The train station has paths in the back that you can consider having people use instead of adding explicit crossings?
3. I think you said you had no 4 lane roads with trees, but you were on 2U 3L+ instead of 4U. Pretty sure there's a tree road at 4U.
In the following "Using Custom Building Themes To Beautify in Cities Skylines!", I also had:
1. A couple of lanes on that 'high priority' road need the one job only applied.
At about 34 minutes, you're complaining about trains not using the bypass lanes of a station, and that you can't do the speed-limit. The answer is simple - that particular station has four platforms and no bypass lanes, not two-plus-two.
Biffa you need to use 1 way tracks to graft tracts to another to avoid conflict
Finally a train traffic fixing episode!
FYI: You can easily fix built road segments to become either ground, elevated or tunnel segments by using the upgrade road button in combination with having the right mode selected in the fine road tool.
Am only 5 minutes in, but I'm still convinced that the actual *problem* causing this is nodes too close together; that they should NEVER be so close that a single train can touch two of them. It's essentially the same issue you get with the places where trains spawn and disappear at the edge of the map, and the same fixes. Move some nodes, zot all you can that are interior to a junction especially. Build single-track train interchanges with flyovers so trains never have to cross over "opposing lane" track. Adding parallel train tracks is the rail version of six-lane roundabouts.
Perfect timing of this video. I just wanted to do a train overhaul in my own city
Not got to 5 mins in yet, but I think all of the pain for your trains has been coming from junctions being too close together in the bottom right of your map as the main line comes from outside to that cluster of cargo stations. Flyover junctions would have helped, but using the map image tool is perhaps something to be done more often as you build to get a better sense of what's needed where :)
Biffa you really need the overpasses to connect the relevant networks together without interfeering with the others. And you really should consider to mastering the art of ONE track junctions with overpasses and underpasses to avoid conflicting traffic on the other way tracks.
Bring out the tea for this one you’re going to need it.