Track direction

[Milaga]

I've been reading the tips and tricks thread, which is quite long. Some of those posts are a few years old so I'm not sure if their suggestions apply to TS2009.

One of the suggestions is that the direction in which you lay track is important because the AI prefers track laid in their direction of travel. Is this still true? I had been using the directional arrows to force the AI to use specific tracks but I've not paid enough attention yet to know if that's working.

I really hope I don't have to dig up all that track. It certainly won't look good on my quarterly report if I've had to lay all my tracks twice.

 

[big_b]

It is better to lay in the direction of travel but not everyone does including me.After a while you tend to forget about direction & lay track as you think of something new to add .I use the direction markers as well as trackmark to guide them & haven't had any real problems so far.

The one problem is that signals will align to the side of the track for that signasl type to the direction track was laid so they may have to be rotated & placed manually on reversed laid track as a signal will face against the direction of travel.

Dave

 

[cascaderailroad]

Replacing track, one by one, one single section at a time, is easy, but is time consuming.

Adding 2 spline points, then deleting the mid section of track between the 2 spline points, adding the track there, then deleting the 2 spline points magically replaces a long section of track, with new track, or a new type of track.

I am unsure if track dirrection is important. I have heard that it isn't necessary...someone will advise you soon.

 

[Dermmy]

Don't worry about it. If there is any effect (which I doubt) it is minimal. Also adding and deleting spline points reverses the 'direction' of any spline, so to get everything right direction wise your track and junctions need to go down perfect first time every time. Too hard!

Andy

 

[bpalmer]

I think, judging by experience so far with 2009, this is still the case. It does help to lay the track in the direction you expect traffic will move since this will affect the way the AI will handle trains. Of course on a single track RR this may not be the case but if you are doing a double-tracked main it is better to lay the two tracks separately if you intend to have any AI controlled trains on the route.

Regards....B

 

[boleyd]

AI "seems" to prefer to follow the track direction if no marker is present.

 

[Milaga]

Thank you for the replies. Looks like I'll just spend my time on other things.