Staff and ticket / single line staff working

[Mariculous]

Thanks for fixing.

About what you call "staff and ticked" working method, I guess you missunderstood my intention.
What I refered to is One-Train Working, which does not have tickets, that means any train passing the section will carry the staff over.
No support for multiple vehicles entering from the same side. Vehicles simply cannot enter from the same direction until another one has carried the token in the oppsite direction.

This system is absolutely easy to handle and cannot deadlock as long as served symmetrically, which in the real-world was often not the case.
That means as long as trains moving in one direction will return in the opposite direction later on, it's all right, no matter how many pasing loops there are or how many trains are using these. For sure, as long as there are not more trains on track than the number of sections.

In simutrans this means it will work quite well for scheduled or indirectly scheduled (the sync nature of the system will automatically result in some kind of scheduling) service.
This will especially be useful for simple lines in early years where token block was not yet invented but could still be used in later years on long branch lines lines.

I may quote Wikipedia:

...In UK terminology, this method of working on simple branch lines was originally referred to as One Engine in Steam (OES), and later One-Train Working (OTW).[1] However the system was used on long through lines as well...

So it seems the One-Train Working I was refereing to is just another name for One Engine in Steam, what you refered to.

[jamespetts]

The trouble is that this implementation of single line staff working (the predecessor to staff and ticket working) has the same problems as staff and ticket working: either it is functionally identical to token block, or it is unusably fragile and far too easy to deadlock.

[Mariculous]

Well once setup, it's not more prone to deadlock than any other signalling system.
Any train entering will allow another train to leave or vice versa, any train leaving will allow another one to enter.

Compared to tcb with directional reservations it will be even less prone to deadlock, as single line staff as it will always ensure symmetrical movements. A situation where more and more trains move in the same direction until there is no space to leave the single tracked section on the other side, simply can't appear in single line staff.

The point might be in setting it up, which means somehow placing two trains at every second passing loop.
This will not happen automatically, when simply starting more than two trains from a single depot.
This would either require multiple depots or manually resetting the reservation a few times
Simulating that man on a horse it not an option as that could indeed quickly lead this system to get out of balance.

[jamespetts]

I have split this topic from the original bug report topic as requested.