Looking for advice on my city block setup

[vatanuki]

Hello engineers!

Im currently trying to design my first "real" city block.
Ive already got and implemented some feedback from reddit and now decided to ask most dedicated and involved part of the community - you!

I have a few screenshots attached to the post - overall view of a block, closeup of intersection and closeup of trainstation+enter+exit part of a block. And I would love to hear your feedback and thoughts on them.

Some random info:
The block and intersection are built to fit 2-8 trains.
Inside of a block is 10 by 10, 6 by 6 after substraction of all the train and belt logistics part.
Its possible to fit up to 24 train stations inside, with extra train waiting area

[mmmPI]

City blocks are ""best avoided"" because they complicate a lot the pathfinding for trains, which very often end up the limiting factor on (mega) base designed around them, the trains are the first thing that will slow down the game in those and unfortunatly when this happens the ""solution"" is to redesign simpler train network.

With that in mind, city blocks are great because of many reasons like modularity and ease of expansion, fun, symmetry , you name it !

Given that there are many reasons to like or want to have one, i don't think i can add on the list, that's personnal preference, but considering only the negative, i would question if it's not a bit overkill, the throuhput seems to be potentially very high as if everything inside was to be legendary, but you could also expect a legendary block of production to be supplied by several lanes of rails to keep up with demand. The risk here is that if you start a large grid the blocks in the middle would not have enough trains reaching the block to keep up with the stations. This is easier solved by reducing the expected throughput inside a block, (less stations) or larger blocks, or having "empty" blocks surrounding those that receive lots of trains. But remembering the "problem" with city blocks, the "empty block" solution is not best for performance and large scale.

If you are making blueprints, a good middle ground could be to have 2 version of the block, one that would be the size of 4 blocks, and not have stations on the sides, if you have to cross or a lake, or if you want to "leave some room for trains" around a congested block without adding too many rails/path. It also help expanding over lakes or forest faster without messing the grid.

Other than that the signaling seem good ! the layout too, I would still test-proof it with many trains on it, to simulate a congestion and see if there is no risk of dead lock with all trains turning "right" for example, as if 1 block is a "giant" roundabout, because those can deadlock and just from the picture it's difficult to be 100% sure with bridges that all chain signals are properly placed, but it seem like it ^^