|
|||||||
|
|
|
|||||
|
|
|||||||
Transport
Tycoon
Rail Tips - Tip 8
There are often bottlenecks in the system not caused by crossovers and junctions, already dealt with. These bottle necks deal with trains going uphill. Imagine a maglev train running at 643kph. It slows right down to only a few kph when climbing a hill. Therefore you can see that more trains can pass on level track per second than going uphill.
As can be seen above, queues can form as maglev trains following shortly behind are forced to slow down as the train in front slows to climb the hill. On busy networks this can cause serious increases in journey time. The solution is to build severl tracks allowing several trains to climb at once because:
It is usually advisable to leave some distance between the uphill section. This is because the back of the train slows down as soon as the front climbs, which means slowing occurs the trains length behind the uphill section. Now at the top it is good to leave some space to allow trains to accelerate back to speed. Remember to put two-way signals on the beginning of the extra tracks. This is so that trains will choose a route with a green signal. Another bottle neck which can occur is when trains are going over bridges.
Changing Direction.
In the example below, a maglev line branches off of the main line. The branch is for goods trains only:
Now as you can see the steel train has to slow down and wait behind the goods train. This is because the goods train is slowly climbing up the bridge. This not only delays the steel train but also delays trains behind the steel train.
It is only when the goods train has managed to get up on top of the bridge that the steel train can accelerate back to full speed. This is not very good though because the steel train shouldn't have to slow down at all since it is running on level track. Here is the answer:
In the above solution, the goods train is completely off the mainline when it starts to climb and slow down. As a result the other trains are free to zoom past. When doing this remember the distance between the start and the bridge and the signal at the point where it branches off has to be at least the length of the longest train you have. This works well. In case of a large amount of trains branching off the mainline then you can build two bridges:
In the case above, should a train be going up a bridge it doesn't matter because the other train can go up the other bridge. This junction can deal with a very high number of trains, without needing to slow down. If required, a third bridge can be added, and so on untill there are no waiting trains.
| Prev Tip |