Blocked Track

[jeffryfisher]

I just learned a new way to block track: Cause a train to have no way to reach its next station.

I was experimenting with an event to simulate a labor strike. My idea was to deny movement rights for a company in one or more territories. What I saw was that trains headed toward destinations in the denied territory would stop and block track.

They didn't move up to the border and then stop, and they didn't stop like low priority trains allowing others to pass. Instead, they froze in place like broken-down trains but holding their priority to move. Most unfortunately, they usually did this as they turned around in busy stations. Dozens of trains piled up behind, unable to get into such stations.

With 300+ trains in a transcontinental network, it was very tedious to find all of the danger trains. Many were headed away from the dead zone, ticking time bombs waiting to screw up distant stations as they turned around to aim at temporarily unreachable cities a continent away.

If the game can ever be patched again, this behavior needs to be improved. A train should be able to plot its desired course on company track and move as a far as the last station before entering forbidden territory. If a train must stop, then it should wait on a siding at zero priority. A player should be able to set a preference to get a pop-up or other warning whenever a train's movement status changes to "can't reach destination", and the train list should have a filter to show all trains having impossible legs anywhere in their routes.

In the mean time, I will change the way I handle strikes. I also learned that purchased rights can't be turned off temporarily (they stay turned off, and the rights can't be bought again either, hanging trains until or unless all rights are granted by other events), so it was changing anyway.

I'll need to brute-force all of a company's movement rights off, then countdown the months of a strike, and then brute-force movement rights granted in any territory where the company has track rights. That's 3 monthly per-company x per-territory events where one should have sufficed. Ugh!

[jeffryfisher]

I have always thought that broken down trains always block track. It turns out not to be the case. Higher priority trains can put it to sleep. I don't know if that enables equal-priority trains to then pass.

The broken train can't change priority down, but trailing trains can bump up. It's probably not worth the effort very often, but it's an option.