Hi everyone,
I've played the game periodically over many years and I'm back on it again!
I'm struggling a little with a couple of signal setups for my underground stations and a split in the track. I understand that running double tracks would be easiest, but given the cost of monthly maintenance on underground lines, I'm trying to keep it to a minimum.
The track is shared for most of its length by a passenger and freight train. The freight train runs most of the length of the track from a pickup point at one end, to the supply depot at the other.
The passenger train runs from a shared station with the supply depot at one end, underneath a few towns where it stops multiple times to a town at the far end.
I've managed to put in some double track passing sections above ground which work, but I'm having issues with getting the underground to work. It looks like this:
/-pppppp--\
------/----------------\--------
or
/----------\
------/pppppppp\--------
p - platform.
The platform needs to be accessible in both directions on the track. However I can't work out how to put signals in that force the freight train to pass around the station if the passenger train has stopped in the station. If the platform is empty, I don't care whether the freight train runs through it, as long as it doesn't block the passenger train from coming into the station if it's coming the other way.
My second issue is a siding from a coal mine, where it then joins the main track with the passenger train, runs through a third intersection which has a line down to other industries. I'm not sure how to signal the split between the coal mine and the main line at that point. I've highlighted in red the areas I need help with.
OWS- one way signal
<<< or >>>> - single direction track
Other industries ------------|
|---------------- siding
|------>>>>>>>>>OWS\----------- tunnel
Coal ------------->------------------OWS<<<<<<<</
/
Station --------/
Thanks in advance!
The first one is easy. Trains avoid detours, so the freight train will always run on the straight track. Put your stations on the sidings. This cannot be solved with signals, since signals reserve the track after them. Choose signal even until the final destination. So itnroduce a detour for the passenger train like thes idings which will make the freight train passing on the straight main track. (Becasue the siding has an extra curve.)
The second, I am not sure. If there are two trains, and both running both way, then there must be no signal on the line running in both directions. Otherwise it is impossible to avoid a deadlock with traisn coming from either side. But I may have misunderstood the sketch.
Operating multiple trains on a track without signals is not safely feasible.
This is what a route merging looks like to me, at a minimum.
Screenshot 2026-02-01 102620.png