Factorio Forums

So I've been trying to have two trains going to my oil place (which is moderately far) and i'm putting rail chain signals for the station and when I want to put my rail signals, the green squares don't pop up! Take a look!

So what you're saying is that you want that to be a two-way track? If so, you need to put signals on opposite sides of the track at the same place - put a signal in the white box.

Every signal is a marker to the train. If you have a single signal it effectively meant that train can pass this point only one way. To make rail segment two-way you have to place signals in pairs opposite from one another which is suggested by white box. So two-way track should have such pairs on both ends.

Try to act as a train and pass from one station to another. Consider signals as diodes for electricity. If you can pass from one station to another having a locomotive facing forwards then you are good. If you need reverse you got to place locomotive on the other side as well or you got to make loop for train to turn back.

If you place a signal on one side game does understand that this is one way track and does not let you place signals on other side of the track as they do not make any sense making this track dead end from both sides. Game does let you place signals in white boxes right opposite from existing signals to convert it to two-way.

That thing you just said ought to be added to the train tutorial. (Or it should have been when chain signals were introduced in the game.).. Used to be if I wanted to run two-way track, I thought the answer was, "don't. It doesn't work. "

Now there are tutorials on two-way track cropping up everywhere.

There's no intuitive reason that chain signals on two way track must be directly across from each other and there's nothing in the internal game documentation that suggests that you must. Of course now that the graphics interface highlights that one spot and makes it the only spot on the other side of the track where you can place a signal,new players are not going to have as much trouble, and now that the gui has made it more obvious, there are more people writing instructions about how it works.

JDoolin wrote:That thing you just said ought to be added to the train tutorial. (Or it should have been when chain signals were introduced in the game.).. Used to be if I wanted to run two-way track, I thought the answer was, "don't. It doesn't work. "

Now there are tutorials on two-way track cropping up everywhere.

There's no intuitive reason that chain signals on two way track must be directly across from each other and there's nothing in the internal game documentation that suggests that you must. Of course now that the graphics interface highlights that one spot and makes it the only spot on the other side of the track where you can place a signal,new players are not going to have as much trouble, and now that the gui has made it more obvious, there are more people writing instructions about how it works.

It is not about just chain signals. Its about any signals. Every signal defines the direction trains can pass this point. So if you want a two-way track and still need signals (have more than 1 train or have intersections) you need to place signals in pairs defining signalled point as two-way.

And I am sure this IS documented and is covered in rail signal tutorial.

The tutorial I remember didn't have much in the way of explanation of the way things worked. It was a set of three scenarios set up like puzzles and you had to guess where to put the signals until the trains started running.

My experience was that after placing enough signals the trains would finally go, and then a congratulations screen would pop up hiding the solution. I know that in the last tutorial scenario, I went through it twice and got the trains to run but I never knew exactly what it was that I was supposed to have learned.