Hi Yevgeniy,
Portals are scenery objects just like industries and stations. You place them in the Route layer, while editing the route, and you configure them in the Session, while editing the Route Layer. (It sounds confusing, I know.) There are many types of portals, ranging from one called Portal Basic, which looks like a piece of fixed track, to another one which looks like a tunnel. When placing a portal, you do not want to have the asset hang off the edge otherwise there will be derailing trains. You also want to have a long track lead to the portals, to allow for the longest trains you will run from it.
Once the Portal is placed in Surveyor, just like placing a station, you can name it. On my Gloucester Terminal Railway, which I modified from George Fisher's original, I called my two incoming portals From Boston and From Rockport. The trains then traverse the route, and exit out of the To Boston or To Rockport portals. Simple setup.
Once your portals are placed, and you are ready to run trains, edit your session.
In the session, go to the layers tab and select the Route layer.
Open up the Scenery Items tab, click on the ?, and then get the properties of the portal.
Now you can add your trains, either individual wagons and locomotives, or complete consists.
When you've added a complete train, add a driver and assign his route. This part is the same as a normal driver would have.
You can also specify a time interval between the first train and subsequent ones based on real time.
When your portal(s) are configured, you save everything. You'll be prompted to overwrite the route as well as the session. Do so as prompted.
In driver, depending upon your time interval, you'll see your trains running on the route.
I hope this helps. I was writing this from memory and I may have skipped a step.
John
