Central rail depot for everything?

[Plawerth]

I am trying to figure out a way to have one single huge depot where all trains without a stop will wait until there is a spot free for them to go.

This depot is attached to a freeform track network via entrance and exit onto any track.

I understand the basics:

• All depot parking stops are named the same, and trains will just pick the next available parking bay.
• Multiple item drop stops of the same type are named the same. This way a train from the depot will release and pick either one.

However, this does not work. if the rail network is subdivided with the regular type rail signal so that multiple trains can occupy the tracks, then trains do not wait at the depot until needed. Instead they come out of the depot, and line up one after the other at each rail signal block, even though their final destination rail station signal is busy all through this, and cannot accept them.

I don't want them all parked on the main rail line like this. I want the rail network split into blocks for other traffic but not for trains to park on the main line, with no particular destination available.

Also, if there are multiple trains in the Depot which all have one station as their destination, all the trains will try to leave the depot to go to that destination, even if there is room for only one arriving train to go there. The other trains arrive and have no place to go, again just sitting on the main line tracks and blocking other traffic.


I am trying to figure out how to make them stay at the depot until there really is a rail stop for them to go to. If that station is occupied they won't move from the central parking depot.

And if a single station opens with multiple trains having it as the destination, only a single train will try leave the Depot to go to it, rather than all of them simultaneously.

[Kelderek]

I would assume you need to use circuit network to control this. Have your trains in the waiting yard wait for a circuit condition and then control that from the destination station.

If you assign a virtual signal like A, B, C, etc. to a station then you could conceivably control which of the waiting trains is activated by the value of the signal, so for example:
A=0 means the station is closed
A=1 means send the first train
A=2 means send the second train
...etc.

I haven't done this myself, this is just me theorizing. I assume it would take some combinator magic to create and control those signals.