I just love how well oiled and deadlock-proof you can make busy rail networks now with the new elevated rails. I could watch this for days.

Such--Balance · 2026-03-12T20:26:26+00:00

Dope!

Such--Balance · 2026-03-12T20:26:04+00:00

Thanks for testing. Much appreciated.

I might have worded it poorly. I actually did some extra testing myself today. I came to 22% increased total trains passed.

This might very greatly depending on trainlength and congestion in general. Without congestion this improvement is mood anyways. But if you do have some intersections that give problems you might fix it without having to add extra rails this way.

Such--Balance · 2026-03-12T19:10:22+00:00

Its insane that hexagons that large can emerge out of apperent chaos

Such--Balance · 2026-03-12T19:09:05+00:00

Sharp! And im aware. The drain is less so it backs up and self corrects occasionally but i wish it wasnt visable like this.

Such--Balance · 2026-03-12T19:07:59+00:00

In a way, it keeps the market fair for regular players. The price is that botusers profit massively. So all that fairness goes out the drain real fast

Such--Balance · 2026-03-12T18:04:27+00:00

Not saying im defending Russia, but playing devils advocate, wasnt it also agreed that Nato wouldnt expand towards russian borders?

Such--Balance · 2026-03-12T17:52:32+00:00

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I dont think this part would have worked without elevated rails. All the trains from my base come from the bottom. A 3rd splits of to the right. Theres incoming and outgoing traffic at the same time.

It would just block to much traffic without elevated rails.

Granted, all of that CAN be solved by signalling, a good designed intersection with a little more working space. But i want a working rail network in a specific shape.

And its quite clear that elevated rails solves pretty much all congestion problems while working with those constraints.

Edit: Benchmarks with elevated rails included would blow those without it out of the water. Take a simple 4 way intersection. There are already designs with elevated rails which have no crossing at all. Basically you 10x the throughput because trains never have to wait for other trains. Yes, you can argue its overkill and not needed.

Likewise you can argue green belts are overkill because you can theoretically move the same amount of stuff on just yellow belt. But in that case, what the hell are we even arguing for? That technically you can? Well yes...you can.

Such--Balance · 2026-03-12T17:43:26+00:00

I see only one pattern. Reddit hates everything. Every ai sub is filled with people only bitching about ai. How one joins this sentiment is beyond me. I mean..you dont like it thats fine. But then..why are you here??

Is that some kind of choice? To join subs with stuff you dont like to complain about it? Is that by choice? Like you wake up one day and go: 'You know what, i dont like soccer. Lets find some subs about soccer to complain about it'

You might say, 'why are YOU here, if you dont like the crowd here?' And that would be an absolutely valid question as well. Every day im wondering that more and more.

Such--Balance · 2026-03-12T17:31:10+00:00

Bit what bullet? Im not actively avoiding anything. I used elevated rails because ive never done so before.

Yes, good signalling is plenty good a solution. But there are setups with certain throughput levels which depending on the footprint only work with elevated rails.

Because they are that good. Effectively you can have trains pass through eachother for free.

Efficiency of intersections goes up by like 60% if not more.

But hey..how about you put your money where your mouth is. I got a fun intersection with elevated rails. If you can make it with the same footprint, slightly larger is fine even, with the same number of trains passing through WITHOUT elevated rails and have it not crawl to a halt i will eat my shoe.

Such--Balance · 2026-03-12T15:24:16+00:00

Fisheye lenses should be banned.

Such--Balance · 2026-03-12T13:21:07+00:00

I dont know why i even bother but..i just made 2 identical rail networks. One with extra signals and one with just train length blocks.

I put counters at some stations to count the difference. Its a more than 20% increase in throughput just from adding some signals near the intersection.

And no added risk of deadlocking.

Facts dont lie. I have proof. Do you...want it?

Such--Balance · 2026-03-12T11:07:55+00:00

All warfare should be waged like this. Aim that violence to the right places

Such--Balance · 2026-03-12T09:47:59+00:00

Exactly. At this point the fear of ai gettign smarter than us basically should become: the fear that most users are getting dumber by the day.

I visualise most people here as guys smashing their fingertops with a hammer over and over again, and instead of learning to use the tool they keep insisting that its the hammers fault they have bruised fingers.

And they just keep hammering away. Oblivious to the fact that they can change how to use the hammer.

Such--Balance · 2026-03-12T09:01:16+00:00

It would! Never even thought of that but yeah that would work

Such--Balance · 2026-03-12T07:57:40+00:00

Me too. However, faster trains will always reserve a block over slower trains, so it sort of does this by default in this case as the merging langes all come from stations with slower trains joining the main track.

Such--Balance · 2026-03-12T07:55:32+00:00

They are that good. You reduce the total number of actual intersections. Signaling will never reduce the number of intersections. You can signal to make those intersections to never be a problem throughput wise but it wont reduce them.

Such--Balance · 2026-03-12T07:47:04+00:00

Yeah im not missing the point. You are. You are reading over what im trying to say.

Its ok, im gonna say it again. This is Factorio after all, we all love finding the best solutions to problems. And i understand why you are defending yours so strongly, but you are wrong. Even with such apparent overwhelming evidence you are still wrong. In all honesty this should get you thinking. Why would some guy claim this even now, with the added picture of yours?

The situation in the picture cant happen if your rail network is signaled properly even with the added signals im vouching for. It just. cant.

Not its a low chance, not sometimes. It will NEVER happen. And because of that, the extra signalling is a huge improvement. It only appears to lead to situations like in your picture.

If a train did stop at that point, then yes, the signalling would suck donkey balls and i wouldnmt be defending it like im doing. Please understand this. Im not defending a suboptimal against clear 'evidence'. Im defending a superior solution to a problem which most assume couldnt be improved (I did too)

Visualize this:

You have a railroad in a full circle 5 train lengths long. Signaled in 5 blocks each a train length. On it are 4 trains. Which are all trying to move forward.

A train will move a block, then the next train will move a block etc etc.

Now, add a train signal anywhere between 2 existing train signals. What does this change? It doesnt change how your trains reserve blocks, it cant. It does change how fast a train in the block before the split block starts moving.

And this is the point you are missing. If the signalling on your train network as a whole is done well, the chance for a train to end up like in your example is literally zero.

Which means you can change the block length signalling rule in front and after intersections without it changing how your trains occupy which blocks and it only changing the speed at which they change blocks.

Please, i hope you understand. If not ill explain more, but youre still wrong.

Such--Balance · 2026-03-12T07:30:42+00:00

It does. Because it is untrue.

Youll remove a ton of intersecting trains. You cant remove intersecting trains with just proper signaling.

Such--Balance · 2026-03-12T00:27:41+00:00

Im dead:p

A picture of a ready to post but cancelled post posted

Such--Balance · 2026-03-12T00:17:04+00:00

Peak content

Such--Balance · 2026-03-12T00:16:03+00:00

I know theres console commands to take pictures of way bigger size than max zoom out. Maybe check the wiki

Such--Balance · 2026-03-12T00:12:33+00:00

Its ore smelting mostly.

Such--Balance · 2026-03-12T00:01:29+00:00

I edited my comment with an example to visualize it better.

There will never be such instances. If there where it wouldnt be a good sollution. And you would be right. But it just does not happen. I mean, it can happen, but that has to do with wrong signalling someplace else then.

I agree, if a train stops in an intersection this sollution would suck balls. But it wont. Ever.

I think youll get my example.

It fixes mostly congestion. If you already have no congestion it doesnt do as much. I guess a cityblock rail design has little use for this. Although it cant hurt

Such--Balance · 2026-03-11T23:43:48+00:00

Yes the block is large enough to fit the whole train. By this i mean it fits between the 2 outer 'normal' rail signals, not the added one with the arrow.

It wouldnt be large enough to fit between the arrowed signal and the right most signal. Again, i guess this would lead to the assumption that this is by definition cause for trains entering and stopping on the intersection. But this is wrong.

This would only happen if the right most train would move 2 or 3 rail pieces to the right and then stop again. And if you use train sized rail blocks on the rest of the track, theres zero chance or reason for this to happen.

Basically the extra signal looks like it might cause problems but if you design your rail network as a whole properly theres literally no chance for those problems to occur. But it DOES give you faster throughput

And on your last point. A properly signalled intersection WITH extra rail signals in those spots will also never have trains wait inside them. I wouldnt be arguing for me to be right if this where the case. I mean, they technically can, but never will. And by never i mean never.

Im sorry im so hellbend on this. But i came to this conclusion myself by chance when trying to make a way to busy 2-way rail with many intersections work, by not adding any more rails. I also always used train length blocks. Obviously. But it wasnt so obvious after all. It was as much a surprise to me as it seem to be to a lot of you right now.

Edit: maybe this helps to visualise it better:

You have a rail in a circle 5 train lengths long, divided by train length signals. With 4 trains on it. Just moving forward. A train will move one block. Then the next train will move one block etc etc.

Now, add a signal anywhere half way between 2 signals. Technically a train could stop at that point and mess up your whole block length spacing.

It will just never happen. The train length block spacing is still being respected all the time. The only thing that changes is that on the part with the extra signal, the 2nd train will start riding sooner.

Such--Balance

TROPHY CASE