Foreign Track Priority Problem

[jeffryfisher]

Early in my current game, an AI company built a long north-south track from Milwaukee to southern Illinois, creating an unavoidable hurdle that I had to cross when my Canadian company acquired US track-building rights years later. As traffic built up in the mid game, I had problems with my main east-west trunk through south Chicago...

I've discovered another problem with crossing foreign track (so that the crossing will be owned by the enemy). My trains don't merely drop in priority against foreign trains on the foreign track's cell. When one of my engines is in a foreign track cell, its whole train loses priority in every cell it touches. The rest of the train becomes vulnerable to my other trains back on my own track.

What happens then is that an express train can overrun a low-priority freight on the approach to the crossing, but as soon as the express enters the crossing itself, the lowly freight gains the upper hand, catching the express like a fly in amber even though the foreign track is clear. As the freight struggles to accelerate, another express can kill its momentum and repeat the cycle again. Such thrashing (rapid task switching) means that no train gets up to full speed, which means that a clog, once formed, becomes chronic.

Lessons learned (or reinforced): Foreign track is to be avoided if at all practical. Try to avoid stations near crossings. Don't turn trains (especially slow freight) at stations near crossings. If foreign track must be crossed, then use multiple parallel crossings to keep traffic low at each crossing. If you need a station at a crossing, put the station on a side-track so its operations don't interfere with through-traffic.

On the plus side, once an engine gets across the foreign track and back onto its own, the rest of its train asserts its set priority, even on the foreign track. For this reason, if I have any foreign involvement (and they usually cross me even if I don't cross them), I pump up my trains' priorities, using high (pax/mail) and normal (freight) almost exclusively. This disadvantages the AI that leaves most of its trains at normal.

[Superchief]

Now you know one reason why my before Conrail map is so hard - those grade crossings are murder on your bottom line!

[Gwizz]

With my style of play I would simulate the building of an overpass.

In simulation since there are generally no over passes in RT2:

I would #1 take early control of the AI RR and remove a few of the AI track cells to be replaced by my track cells.

or #2 and a better yet, Re-align AI track for a corner to corner crossing. As you know this crossing acts like an overpass.

With tight money the above may be too costly or the AI may have 51% control of his stock.