As player you can decide at every tick different. So the game needs to reserve the tracks. See how the gates work: They open, even if you don't want to go through. As a player, yes you can decide where you're going, but you only go in one direction per game update, not all directions. When driving ...

The thing with manual trains being able to take any route is true, however it's only taking one route when it approaches a switch. You use a left/right keys to alter the switch for you to take the new route in relation to the train's forward direction. The track reservation could be updated to refle...

My suggestion is to make rail signals react the same way to both automatic and manually driven trains. I know that automatic trains "reserve" the track ahead of them, making their next signal amber, and effecting any chain signals based on this reservation, which in turn effects other traf...