Beginner question about rail

[Thinksamuel 5]

Hi

After a few years, I finally reinstalled SimCity and the NAM to play again. I have some questions about the railsystem that I cannot seem to find an answer to.

1) I suppose trains do not turn at a 90 degree angle. In the past I always built roundabouts but those take up quite a lot of space. Is there something in the mod that is a rail roundabout?

2) Rather than the basic train station, I can now use the modern train station that is 6 squares long. However, it points to a road connection in front, rather than to the side of the station. That would mean that there is a railcrossing the road at every station. Is that how it's supposed to be?

[matias93 7,535]

Hi!

1. Trains effectively cannot turn on 90°, and in general require wider curves, specially at higher speeds. Thus, any circle-shaped railway will be bigger. In my experience, the smallest possible circle that accepts inbound or outbound connections is about 8 tiles wide. You should just experiment with different figures until getting something that works for your specific situation. Keep in mind though that no railway in the game is unidirectional, so what you'll get is circular shapes, but not a true roundabout, because the inner track will run counter to the outer one.

2. All the stations, be the original in the game, the ones included with the NAM, or the ones you might download here or elsewhere connect to roads by every side. Thus, you don't need to create road crossings in front of every station. You can put the road parallel to the station and the railway and it will work just as well.

[Thinksamuel 5]

Thank you.

1) So I don't really have to worry about creating turns everywhere. Until now, I created these roundabout but from what I understand, it does not make a difference to the game.

2) That's great but why are there those arrow pointing to road access? I always thought you needed to place stations specifically to have road access according to the arrow. 

[matias93 7,535]

1. I would need to see what you are trying to build to say if some turnabout track is needed. But generally, no. Rail junctions usually aren't roundabouts.

2. The arrows appear in every ploppable lot, but transit station lots are designed to not need an specific direction to work. Residential and Commercial lots do need to face a road or street, though.

[nombex 26]

do you happen to know which pieces will make a proper track intersection? im trying to do something like this (not the elevated). will the trains even make use of that or is it best to just have the 2 crossing without sides connecting? i tried to browse through the NAM pieces but couldnt figure it out, tried tab and also tried spinning the map around

 

[rsc204 21,805]

1 hour ago, nombex said:

i tried to browse through the NAM pieces but couldnt figure it out

It's worth pointing out here that as a general rule, if you are dealing with draggable networks like these, you shouldn't usually need to resort to Flex or Puzzle items from the menus. Those connections where networks cross especially, that are supported will work by dragging the networks where you want them to go. If something isn't possible you'll generally get a red box appear which means the thing you are trying to do isn't possible.

1 hour ago, nombex said:

which pieces will make a proper track intersection?

With rail networks, simply crossing two of them will not allow for switching between the NS and EW lines, this is a limitation imposed because trains can not make sharp turns. Therefore if you wanted the possibility of trains from all directions to switch to any other, you need to add lines to connect each corner. The complication here, is that you are trying to intersect two networks in the same spot, which may require a little more creativity. There is a limit to how many things can cross in one tile, i.e. if it includes parts of a switch or points, then you won't be able to cross those spots with another network (the exception being the center crossing tile of the Rail, which can be crossed by Monorail). I found it best to build the Monorail junction first, not least because the presence of Rail on a connected tile can prevent the Monorail junctions from being built. The next problem is that Rail won't drag under the tiles directly adjacent to the Monorail points, so at least for the crossing, the rail has to move over by on tile in both directions. Then you can put the remaining Rail connections in place, but a little creativity is required to connect everything up:

That's the basic layout you are looking for, note the missing textures/models are a result of using RRW.

I would ask however, where are these monorail and rail lines going after the junction? If they just follow each other in parallel, one of them is clearly redundant and a waste of money/space. It's a little unusual to need 4-way interchanges for both in the same space, hence the complications in building it. Ask yourself, do all 8 lines total need to be here?, what purpose are they all serving? You may find you can simplify the junction if some connections simply aren't required by commuters or in relation to the overall route of the rail lines.

[nombex 26]

awesome thanks for that. i spent too much time thinking it was in those other pieces

 

not my screenshot, found on here actually. was just trying to figure out if that was possible to do and if the trains make use of it. im probably only going to run express lines