Train Signal Help

[NosytNamffoh]

Hi Everyone,

I have been watching videos, reading the forum and looking at everything I can to help me figure out how to use signals properly. But I am still not able to do what I want and I am seeking some advice please.


So I have trains traveling from Point 1 to Point 3, Point 2 to Point 3, Point 2 to 1 and Point 1 to 2.

All I want to do is make it so that trains that travel from Point 1 to 3 and Point 2 to 3 dont run into each other at the track joint 3.

The problem is that the signals create/join 2 blocks, one before and one after. I want to put a signal between point 1-3 and 2-3 with one at the exit of 3 to create a block just at the junction. The problem with that is that the block at 3 looks forward and goes red if any train is past that block which is not what I want. I want as many trains as they want to go onto the rail at line 3 and just form a line.

Please ask questions because I feel like I have done a really poor job at explaining this.

As a second question, is there a way to ensure a gap between trains on my main line?

[Nexela]

Signal Help.jpg (152.17 KiB) Viewed 1600 times

Yellow is chain signal
Purple is regular signal



The ones that are on both sides of the track need to be placed so they are directly across from each other.


#2
Google factorio train tutorial Will be easier to follow than a wall of text.

[NosytNamffoh]

Thanks for looking.

I tried out what you suggested and its pretty close.

The good news is it forced me to play around a little more and it looks like I may have figured it out.

The whole Block thing for chain signals was only causing problems for me because I was being lazy. Basically I just kept walking forward properly signalling my whole train network and the problem kind of took care of itself.

The main take away from this is that you cannot treat train signals in isolation as they are always going to affect the block before and are affected by the block after.

[zebediah49]

Thanks for looking.
The main take away from this is that you cannot treat train signals in isolation as they are always going to affect the block before and are affected by the block after.

To speak in the language of graph theory, blocks are nodes, and signals are edges. This is weird, because it looks like signals are nodes, and they are connected together by the rails. However when you look at it as a pathfinding/routing problem, the rail blocks are nodes, and they are connected together by the signals between them.