Serpent Station

[glenjimen]

Hello Locomotion Community,

I discovered a new* way to load / unload long trains at stations. (* new to me, if anyone else already found this please let me know ) You have to build your station in an S-bend, such that the track passes thru each 'lane' in serpentine fashion.

SerpentStation-Locomotion.png (322.5 KiB) Viewed 7401 times

To get the train to stop correctly, you have to place a way-point directly before the last station section. Also, the train must be in Express mode, not Local. Then direct the train by telling it to drive to the way-point, then stop at the station, then load / unload. The cars really do load at full speed in the station, and slower around the curves!

I'm sorry this looks so ridiculous and non-prototypical. If anyone can find a way to expand on this idea, or make it better, let the community know!

(And yes, I'm running the original locomotion, with no modification to the software.)

[odisseus]

That's a great idea! And it sort of makes sense: if platforms are needed for unloading the wagons in a timely manner, the penalty should apply only to those wagons that are not next to a platform. You could put empty spacer wagons in the middle of your train, and suffer no penalty at all.

Unfortunately, this doesn't work in OpenTTD: the whole train is unloaded slowly.

[glenjimen]

There are a variety of configurations you can build. Some look a little better.

This combines the invisible station with the overhead coal loader. The only problem is the way-points. Each train is told to drive to a specific way-point, which is on a specific track. If their track is occupied, the train will just wait, even if the other track is open. Not optimal...

SerpentStation-Locomotion-CoalU.png (149.6 KiB) Viewed 2539 times

I'm sure someone out there has more creativity or better imagination than me. Show me your cool ideas!

[Hibi]

I have never thought about that, I've always made trains as long as stations and spending lots on multiple trains on multiple station tracks. Cool! An even more compact design can be done with the narrow gauge rails and their tiny turns, but it's probably innefficient to run long alpine trains, but just an idea.

glenjimen, that's a sweet screenshot.