Factorio Forums

TL;DR

Trains have circuit signal "settings" that can be read when stopped at a train station.

What ?

Trains will have a sort of built-in combinator that can store and send circuit signals to train stations when the train is stopped at the station. These could be set by a player for differing custom train IDs, types of items to be picked up, etc. I see this being useful for trains waiting for a variable length of time, or having multiple different lengths of train use the same station and storing the length so that only certain inserters activate.

If this does come around, I would also like to see it blueprintable and transferrable with shift left and right click.

Why ?

There isn't much in the way of transferring information with trains. It could be done with a spare cargo wagon holding fish or other unused items, but that solution is bulky and more limited.

There actually was a mod like this, but it hasn't been updated after Factorio 0.18. It has an MIT license, so somebody could pick it up, I guess.