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Laying tracks side by side looks way better than the (very unrealistically) spaced tracks that most people tend to do – for no prevailing reason whatsoever.

Here's a factory with a side-by-side tracks network that works wonderfully. Obviously it doesn't comply with OP's suggestion, which sounds rather interesting.

I have one comment at OP: Your diagonal tracks aren't as close to each other as they could be, which is in violation of your rule b).

This is reality. Look at the gap between tracks. It is more than one gauge size, almost twice more. Therefore laying tracks side by side has nothing to do with reality.

hitzu wrote:

reality

This is reality. Look at the gap between tracks. It is more than one gauge size, almost twice more. Therefore laying tracks side by side has nothing to do with reality.

in reality trains overhang the rails by a fair bit

there isn't space for a person between those rails; if 2 trains come by at the same time.

ratchetfreak wrote:in reality trains overhang the rails by a fair bit

there isn't space for a person between those rails; if 2 trains come by at the same time.

Actually there is almost always space for at least a maintenance walkway for safety reasons in between the tracks. In Germany it's at least 1 meter free space in between 2 passing trains, for high speed trains with 250 km/h even more due to aerodynamics coming into play.

Sometimes the catenary poles are also placed in the middle between two tracks (even most railway companies try to avoid that to keep the footprint low)... and sometimes they also run the cabling there for the signals and other stuff (which they often integrate into the maintenance walkway in those cases). For the most part though it's a standard to put that stuff to the side of the track instead of between.

I think the most important argument against having tracks so near together is, that a left turn cannot be separated:
If you place the tracks like above, then every time a train crosses that switch it will block the other direction, even if both trains want to go straight.
This is not the case in the lower pic: If both trains want to go straight, they don't block each other.

Assume the tracks from left to right (and vice versa) are the "main line". Then having tracks so near together decreases the total throughput of this line by 50%. Having several of those crossings on one track, each reduces the throughput, by another 50%! Maybe it's only 25%, the exact number doesn't matter, but it is a big reduction in short and in sum a huge reduction.

So in short: A separation of both tracks is needed to keep the throughput high. How is another question (big roundabouts are for example also a solution), but in general having rails near together reduces the options to find a good solution to avoid that.

[quote="Gandalf"]Laying tracks side by side looks way better than the (very unrealistically) spaced tracks that most people tend to do – for no prevailing reason whatsoever.[quote]

I don't know why your going on about what's realistic, this is not a game based on reality, its nowhere near what sim games like Trains is like. This game functions nothing like realism and spacing tracks is not for "no purpose whatsoever" as you say. The purpose to space tracks is to allow for fully functional and more complex intersections than a side by side track could never do.

@azurelinctus I don't know why you're so annoyed by what I wrote. I'm not telling you how to build your factory, just how I build mine. I think tracks laying side by side look better because it's closer to realism. If your style of playing centers solely around functionality that's fine, mine involves a few aesthetic considerations which are of course subjective.

@ssilk pointed out a valid disadvantage, so it's not “no reason whatsoever”. Yet I think the issue is minor enough that putting tracks side by side is still worth it. What I don't like is the general tone of “if you're not doing it like this you're dong it wrong” stance that a lot of people are taking on the subject.

I changed the topic title (again).

And back to subject: The more dense you play, the more useful is it, to take space for the train.

A good example of what I mean is in the split dependencies https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... 316#p99316 .
They have built the rail too dense and now they got gridlock every now and then. They can place chain signals, so that the areas with the gridlocks are not entered, but that will spread the gridlock just to other places, because at some switch the trains need to come together.

The same game with just one more space between the rails will not gridlock, because you can separate the accommodating rails.

@gandalf I'm not annoyed i just feel strongly about what I believe. This is text only so you cant really tell if I'm sad angry happy or annoyed. The claim of "no reason whatsoever" and "unrealistic" came from you and i wanted point out it was incorrect.