High Speed Rail Project (HSRP)

[BigSlark]

Great work, warrior!  You're become very good at transit modding in the past few months. I think your next project is HSR on rail lines, so that HSR can access inner-city stations without requiring a new, expensive, and destructive right of way (like Eurostar service into Waterloo before the new line through Kent and terminal at St. Pancreas).

Cheers,
Kevin

[Jonathan]

Kevin: That's a great idea, I think Olasz was working on that a yearish ago, but unless he pops up here(which would be fantastic as he had a lot of brilliant stuff) I'll have a go at it even though I have no idea how to implement it aside repathing the whole rail network which may unseen side affects.

But then this is the first pic of any form of HSR by me.



And you just have to read the first page to see how rubbish I was compared to now, and I still have a lot of things to learn and improve on.

[Swamper77]

So are the el-rail trains based on Rail? As the GLR tracks have rail paths on them I think?
If so what stops the normal rail getting mixed up with the El-Rail trains?

Another thing I don't understand is you don't get (normal Rail) Freight carts being pulled by a passneger engine and vise versa?

Anyway, thanks Swamper.

There are actually two el-rail trains in the system if the NAM is installed. One is the default that shipped with the game and  the other is the UDI-enabled one. However, for UDI to work on the elevated rail network, clones of the elevated rail paths were made and set to rail. I guess Maxis never intended for people to UDI on the elevated rail network, despite they left the icons behind.

The occupant groups and the properties of the exemplars for the various rail vehicles (heavy, elevated/GLR, monorail, subway) are what keep them from getting mixed up. That is why you don't see passenger engines towing freight train cars and vice versa. Also, the defined classes that Maxis setup for the rail vehicles are part of the reason. Some of the properties are also kept in a couple of Cohort files.

<-- Feel free to contact me, if you need further explanation. I'm online most of the time, even if it is not on this site.

-Swamper

[cogeo]

Kevin, I believe the decision to base HSR on monorail was right:
- Rail is by definition "slow" (together with buses they make up the "slow transit"). It's preferred mostly by $ sims. Basing the HSR on it would require either raising speed to a very high value, which contradicts with the concept of "commuter rail" and would also be unrealistic (tracks shared with freight trains too), or sticking with the low speeds of trains, which is not "High-Speed-Rail" at all!
- Monorail is marginally used by players, as really few cities have monorails (and on relatively limited stretches). So it was the easiest transit form to "sacrifice". Plus, it's speed can be modded separately and have the monorail trains replaced with something looking like TGV or Accela, ie you can have both commuter and HSR trains and trainsets. Losing the monorail is the least to lose.

As for the non-destructive tracks, I think this is mostly graphical, ie make some track that looks like (or almost like) common track that can be connected to stations. Eg I think it would be almost enough to just remove the fences from the GHSR track. Not many tiles are actually needed, just a few ones, straight, junctions and maybe (but not necessarily) turns and diagonals. If these are implemented as puzzle pieces, so much the better, they can contain dual networks (HSR/monorail and Rail), so this could be really shared track. Technically this is feasible (just like the Road/El and Avenue/GLR puzzle pieces). Anyway, I like this idea, and if the team agrees to do this and reserves a range of IDs for me, I could do it. I have made the Fenced GLR puzzle pieces, so I know how to do this. Only point, stations should be made so that they connect to this kind of track (puzzle pieces, just like the GLR stations), but this is minor. The great thing is that you can have stations servicing both commuter and high-speed trains.

Andreas, the station looks nice, but I have some points:
- HSR stations (esp big ones) are in many cases terminals, not through stations. So I would love to see this implemented as a terminal station too. A small modification to the BAT is needed (put something like a wall at the one end). You would end up with three BATs/stations, a through station, a terminal-track-at-left station and a terminal-track-at-left station.
- Some mechanism must be devised to keep sims from using HSR for short hops, ie as a commuter train, which would be totally unrealistic. Ideally HSR should be used for intercity travel only. Maybe setting Switch Entry Cost to a quite high value would do this (total commute time wouldn't suffer, because to the much shorter travel time). We could also issue this suggestion for all HSR stations and not just leave it to the players and track layout; otherwise they would be tempted to lay HSR track for intra-city travel, which would be crap.
- Not to mention, I would like to see a small modification of this station(s), for GHSR (I can't see it clearly in the pic, forgive me if it's already).

Moved to be part of the Traffic Switch Entry Cost - Discussion Thread  -JP

[Jonathan]

I think Kevin was trying to say was have HSR trains able to go normal Rail, they would have to slow down but this happens in RL, with the Eurostar, on the French side of the channel the track was built for High Speeds (the rails are one long continous piece of metal) While on the English side the Euro Star used standard tracks (short pieces of rails bolted together) So the trains had to slow down to be able to travel through England. This was until they built the HSR track through Kent allowing the train to travel at the same speed as in France.

I don't mean to be rude but the HSR doesn't replace any network (see my sig image, it's not photshopped), this allows GHSR, HSR, Monorail and Ground Monorail to work side by side in the same city at the same time, like Draggable GLR and SAM.

And if you make the fenceless GHSR models I can add in another "network" so they will be a total of 4 additional networks.

[cogeo]

This is exactly what I'm saying too, but basing the HSR on rail would result in either much reduced speed for HSR - and this would apply to the whole HSR, not just the supposedly shared track - or unrealistically increased speed for commuter rail (actually the whole "commuter rail" concept should be turned down). And this because there is only one speed parameter you can change, ie there are global speed settings for Rail and Monorail, but not separate settings for specific network tiles.

So this must be based on monorail. HSR (monorail) automata would not run on common rail track anyway. Now, making the "fenceless GHSR draggable network" would be almost pointless, providing a visual-only differentiation. Laying such track would be as demanding (concerning networks placement, crossings etc) as normal GHSR.

I think the only meaningful extras would be the puzzle pieces I mentioned above, and this because they can accomodate two network types, not one, ie both rail and GHSR (monorail). If it should look like "fenceless GHSR" or "common track", is something that has to be decided.

[Jonathan]

Ok now I understand your first post.

It is possible to have up to 2 paths on one network (excluding pedestrains) thats draggable, the only thing that has stopped making Ave/GLR draggable is that it more complex because avenue is a two tiled network.
And you can set different speeds for different networks for different automata, I know this from experiments I did with JPlumbley on the subway and BBD system.

For example buses don't travel the same speed as cars on road, and Cars don't travel at the same speed on road as Highway.

[Andreas]

Andreas, the station looks nice, but I have some points:
- HSR stations (esp big ones) are in many cases terminals, not through stations. So I would love to see this implemented as a terminal station too. A small modification to the BAT is needed (put something like a wall at the one end). You would end up with three BATs/stations, a through station, a terminal-track-at-left station and a terminal-track-at-left station.
- Some mechanism must be devised to keep sims from using HSR for short hops, ie as a commuter train, which would be totally unrealistic. Ideally HSR should be used for intercity travel only. Maybe setting Switch Entry Cost to a quite high value would do this (total commute time wouldn't suffer, because to the much shorter travel time). We could also issue this suggestion for all HSR stations and not just leave it to the players and track layout; otherwise they would be tempted to lay HSR track for intra-city travel, which would be crap.
- Not to mention, I would like to see a small modification of this station(s), for GHSR (I can't see it clearly in the pic, forgive me if it's already).

Well, I didn't make the station, I only updated the stats a bit. It's the old HSR station that was released some two years ago, when the idea of the HSR project came up for the first time. I'll definitely set the Transit Switch Entry Cost to a high value (according to jplumbley's formula, it would be 2.9), and currently, it acts as a transit hub between HSR, el-rail, (heavy) rail and bus. Needless to say, only one or two of those stations should be used in your cities, with the HSR part acting as regional connection, while the rail and el-rail parts should be connected to your local commuter network. I haven't tested the HSR so far, but now that we have a functional beta version, I can try to plop this in my region and see how it performs.

Moved to be part of the Traffic Switch Entry Cost - Discussion Thread  -JP

[cogeo]

It is possible to have up to 2 paths on one network (excluding pedestrains) thats draggable, the only thing that has stopped making Ave/GLR draggable is that it more complex because avenue is a two tiled network.
And you can set different speeds for different networks for different automata, I know this from experiments I did with JPlumbley on the subway and BBD system.

Warrior, I know that draggable networks can be double- (or multi-) pathed (eg this is the case with El/GLR), but can they be double-networked? Eg GLR/Avenue pieces are actually defined as both avenue and GLR (literally speaking as "intersections"), and this allows both road and El traffic on them, shown as different-coloured traffic arrows. I don't think the paths alone are enough.
Also if you define them as dual networks, ie Rail and GHSR how do you know which speed setting takes effect, eg monrail-on-monorail or monorail-on-rail?

I'll definitely set the Transit Switch Entry Cost to a high value (according to jplumbley's formula, it would be 2.9), and currently, it acts as a transit hub between HSR, el-rail, (heavy) rail and bus.

I'm afraid a value of 2.9 would be way too high. Indeed how does this come out? A value high enough so that pedestrians don't use it is a shortcut? It's rather flawed. I think even a much lower value, eg 1.0, would be enough to render the station completely unusable. I was talking about a value like 0.20 or 0.30. Anyways, testing could tell what the optimal value would be.

Moved to be part of the Traffic Switch Entry Cost - Discussion Thread  -JP

[Jonathan]

The Speed settings are applicable for Puzzle pieces and draggable networks a like, there is no difference speed wise between Puzzle pieces and draggable networks.

The Rail will have a seperate speed to the monorail on the Combo network.


In the traffic simulator you define a speed for a passenger train to travel on each network, if you don't want the train to run on a certain network then you set that value to 0, at the moment monotrains are only set to travel on monorail network at x speed, but you could have it so that monotrain runs in monorail network at x and at the same time runs on railway at speed y.

Speed is not set per network only, it is set per automata per network.

I can't think of any other way to put this.

I think it was memo who put the capacity/speed of Avenues down to 0 so cars couldn't use them but left the El-Rail alone Cars were unable to travel on the Ave/GLR pieces but Trams did.

I have been trying the same stuff out with subway, getting cars to run on subways as "Cars" (not like atm where they are converted to subway traffic) and it worked fine as long as there were no roads above the subway, but that is something that only affects subway.


Anyway I have now started modelling a 1 tile Shift piece in 3ds max and for the first time ever I have actually managed to BAT something that looks better than a green box. I'll get it into game and post pics soon.
And I sill can't beleive that no one got the spolier in 5th last post (especially Joe)

[Andreas]

@cogeo: The value is calculated from a formula that jplumbley came up with along with his and mott's findings about TE lots. I don't know enough about that matter, so I can't say how it will affect the pathfinding engine.

Moved to be part of the Traffic Switch Entry Cost - Discussion Thread  -JP

[jplumbley]

This has become an interesting thread...  Maybe I should weigh in my two cents.
____________________________________________________________________

Lets start with the Traffic Switch Entry Cost:

OK.. from looking at the picture of the lot.  This lot *does* or *did* have a switch from each Traffic Type to Pedestrian Traffic, as well as, most likely a Pedestrian Traffic to Pedestrian Traffic Switch Point.  This clearly would show that the slowest Traffic Type that is using the lot is in fact Pedestrian Traffic.

Now, we can look at this from a few different view points.  Let's start with looking at where the intended Traffic Switch Entries are.

If you look at the picture of the lot, clearly, the North and the South side are both designed to be the terrances for the station.  These are pickup/dropoff areas.  This means if the Traffic Switch Points are setup so that anything the converts to Pedestrian Traffic can exit on the North or the South side, then we have created a spot where the Sim can jump from the North-West Corner of the lot to the South East corner of the lot.  This means that this is the maximum distance a Sim can jump through the lot.  So due to this the calculation must be done based on the diagonal distance of the lot to prevent the Sims from getting "free" commute.

Note:  IF a Sim enters a TE Lot that it can easily walk past, it is bad for the simulation of the game.  The reason for this is because when a Sim enters the TE Lot he "forgets" his past and must re-calculate his path.  Doing this re-calculation requires for more CPU useage and will distort the Commute Time shown in you Commute Graph and start giving you funny paths.  Only Sims that are using the lot for a purpose of a Traffic Switch such as Ped to Rail, should be using a TE Lot.

Now, for a station that has only one pickup/dropoff on the South Side of the lot can be more beneficial.  It controls where the Pedestrians are allowed to Enter/Exit the Lot.  This means that we can base the calculation for the Traffic Switch Entry Cost off of the length of the South Side of the Lot, in effectiveness lowering the Traffic Switch Entry Cost because there is a shorter maximum distance the Sim can jump through the lot.

You may now start to see big TE Lots can potentially be a BAD thing.

Cogeo, I have based my calculations off of a very good math base.  I assure you I am correct.  I understand the limitations of a high Traffic Switch Entry Cost, probably more than anyone here.  The problem is people do not know what the problem with a low one is, because they may not be able to comprehend what I have been saying.  For the Simulation to be *optimal*, my formula is the one you need to use.

I have been discussing and thinking (*warning* this will get very technical) about certain lots such as Ill Tonkso's large Rail Stations.  From the main formula we have derived that a 7x9 Rail Station should have a Transit Switch Cost of 3.3.  For the MAXIS Vanilla Simulator this is simply too high, the Maximum Commute Time for Mass Transit is 4.  This means there is only a 0.7 Commute left commited to the 2nd Station and the actual Commute, clearly not enough.  If the second Station was a MAXIS Standard Station 2x3, it would have a Traffic Switch Entry Cost of 0.91.. and you wouldnt have any time left for the physical Commute.  This is beyond the limit for the MAXIS Vanilla Traffic Simulator, but Simulator A and Simulator B have been modified and the Maximum Commute Time is different for this.

Maximum Commute Time (Mass Transit)
Vanilla Simulator = 4
Simulator B = 10
Simulator A = 14

If you were using Simulator B where the Maximum Commute Time for Mass Transit is 10, that would leave:

   10-3.3-.0.91 =  5.79 Commute Value

Speed of Rail = 90 Tiles per Commute Value

Therefore it would leave the maximum trip a Sim cna travel between stations is 521 tiles, or essentially one large city tile in length.  Simulator A will be even longer than that, but unfortunately it wouldnt work for the Vanilla Simulator.

There is still a way for us to lower that Entry Cost though.  As stated above, for many of Ill Tonkso's large Rail Stations the main entrance is the South Side of the lot.  This means we can make it so Sims will only walk out of the South side of the lot and base the calculation off only the length of the South Side.  In this case it would be 7 in the 7x9 lot.  So 7x0.29 = 2.03, much lower than the 3.3.  This means it will work even with the Vanilla Simulator because it will have an initial trip cost of 2.03+0.91 = 2.94 and have 1.06 left over for the physical commute, which is 95 tiles.  In MAXIS scale everything is small so, 95 tiles is pretty good.

Note:  Remember, each time a Sim reaches a Station it begins a new trip.  So, each station begins a new segment of the trip which has a fresh commute time to start with.

There is one other way to deal with this that will even further reduce the Entry Cost, but this comes at a sacrafice.  The sacrafice we must make is allowing some Pedestrians to use the lot as a shortcut instead of designing for the worst case scenario.  We could design it so that it is designed for 50% of the worst case scenario, or something to that effect.  Basing the calculation exactly the same except by cutting the time in half.  By doing this you will have stopped busses from entering a bus station and then converting back to busses taking a "free" tile, but a Sim walking past the station may choose to enter it and skip a tile.  This is not as evidently seen because it is masked by Sims entering and exiting the bus station properly is masking the Sim walking past and using it when it shouldnt need to.

There needs to be a community concensus about this and we are discussing this and how to apply it into the XTool to automatically set a Traffic Switch Entry Cost for the user.  When XTool is finished we will have properly modded TE Lots without having to think about it.  Myself and a few others have been discussing and testing the possibilities... this includes both Pros and Cons of the situations.  The thing that Creators need to be aware of is that MAXIS did not intend for large stations, that means if you go beyond the MAXIS scale you are hindering your own work and could render it useless.

Moved to be part of the Traffic Switch Entry Cost - Discussion Thread  -JP
___________________________________________________________________________________________

Now... Lets play with the idea of Dual Networked Draggables...

They are possible with limitations... There is that word again... Limitations.  MAXIS was great at giving us Limitations.

What do we know about networks...  We know MAXIS allowed us to build intersections with upto two different Traffic Types (excluding Pedestrians).  This allowed us to build Rail/Road intersections or Monorail/GHW intersections.

Some of you may ask so can we have Rail/Road/El-Rail intersections...

The answer is simply no.  We cannot, it has been tested and it seems MAXIS did not forsee us making "multi-networks" with 3+ Traffic Types in the same tile.  Therefore MAXIS never allowed us to do this and we cannot change this fact.

So, what is the big limitation of "Dual Networked" Draggables?  Well thats simple, if we had GLR in Ave and made it draggable it can only have intersections with GLR, El-Rail, Street, Road, OWR and Ave.. This means Rail and Monorail will not be able to have intersections for these "Dual Networked" Draggables... Although, it has not been fully tested but we may be able to get away with Puzzle Pieces for these intersections.  But, it may just simply not work.  This limitation has slowed down developement ideas into this possibility.
__________________________________________________________________________________________

This has been a long post... I think I will re-read this thread again later and maybe add more later.  But this is something for my two cents, for now.

[Glazert]

jplumbley, I found that a very informative essay. I will have to reread it several times to make sure, but I may be beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel, though that is the wrong transit metaphor.

Moved to be part of the Traffic Switch Entry Cost - Discussion Thread  -JP

[memo]

So, what is the big limitation of "Dual Networked" Draggables?  Well thats simple, if we had GLR in Ave and made it draggable it can only have intersections with GLR, El-Rail, Street, Road, OWR and Ave.. This means Rail and Monorail will not be able to have intersections for these "Dual Networked" Draggables... Although, it has not been fully tested but we may be able to get away with Puzzle Pieces for these intersections.  But, it may just simply not work.  This limitation has slowed down developement ideas into this possibility.

I'm sorry, I have to correct you. But that's not really the case. The "multi-type" intersections you were talking about aren't impossible because of the traffic types, but because of the network types they are based on. Therefore, the limitation is another, namely, Dual Networks cannot be dragged, because they are based on two networks ("intersections" of two networks), but you can only drag one single network. So essentially, "Dual Networked Draggables" won't be possible and Dual Networks will only be possible via puzzle pieces.

They won't work by changing the speed values for a certain network in the traffic exemplar, either, (e.g. speed of lightrails on avenues) because EL-Rails aren't supposed to drive on avenues at all, so the traffic engine won't be able to recognise avenues as a network that can be used by EL-Rails in spite of the adjusted speed values for EL-Rails.

Edit: I also have a question concerning the traffic switch entry costs.
If I connected a grand rail station like Ill Tonkso's large Rail Station with one single street tile only and left some space between the station and the rest of the streets, would it essentially suffice then to set a traffic switch entry cost of "0", since Sims won't be able to use the station as a short cut??
A little illustration:

s......
s..####
s..####
sss####
s..####
s..####
s......

s = street
. = open space
# = station


Moved to be part of the Traffic Switch Entry Cost - Discussion Thread  -JP

[Jonathan]

Jesus I'm confused now

What happened with the subway was, car paths were added to subway (so it has subway and car paths on them at the same time) Then the traffic simulator was changed so that cars had a speed on the subway network (the same as Highways what ever that is), Then Blahdy's Big Big lots were modified so instead of converting Cars o subwya traffic it converted Cars into Cars. Then in game the Big Dig lots were ploped and then the subway was dragged between them. Then on one side of the tunnel Industrail was zoned and on the other Residential was zoned, the sims were then able to use the tunnel and there was no other road access, forcing the sims to go through the subway or not go at all. And the sims did use the subway, and the Route query showed the route as a green arrow and lebelled "Cars" Meaning that the whole experiment had worked, but there is some complications to it, the files used are on the DevEx as BBDExp (except the traffic simulator).

[RippleJet]

I have been discussing and thinking (*warning* this will get very technical) about certain lots such as Ill Tonkso's large Rail Stations.  From the main formula we have derived that a 7x9 Rail Station should have a Transit Switch Cost of 3.3.

This is a bit hypothetical, since peds would never be walking that distance anyways, if the station wasn't there.

But even with a Transit Switch Cost of 3.3, peds would still, theoretically, be shortcutting the station.
This all due to the fact that peds don't walk diagonally.

The alternative would be to walk around the station, e.g. from the southeastern corner of the station to the northwestern corner:
  + 7 tiles along the southern edge
  + 1 corner/intersection tile in the southwestern corner
  + 9 tiles along the western edge
  + 1 corner/intersection tile in the northwestern corner
  = 18 tiles

With a pedestrian speed of 3.5 Tiles per Commute Value, this would give a total Commute Value of:
  18 Tiles / 3.5 Tiles per Commute Value = 5.14

Clearly higher than 3.3, but still a lot higher than all other alternatives.
None of the pathfinders would of course choose any of the options above.

Even the slowest alternative, cars on streets in Vanilla gives a considerably lower commute value:
  18 Tiles / 21 Tiles per Commute Value = 0.86

If I connected a grand rail station like Ill Tonkso's large Rail Station with one single street tile only and left some space between the station and the rest of the streets, would it essentially suffice then to set a traffic switch entry cost of "0", since Sims won't be able to use the station as a short cut??
A little illustration:

s......
s..####
s..####
sss####
s..####
s..####
s......

s = street
. = open space
# = station

That would of course suffice.
But that's not how users plopping a grand rail station would be doing it.

Moved to be part of the Traffic Switch Entry Cost - Discussion Thread  -JP

[cogeo]

From the postings above, I think it has now became clear that setting the Transit Switch Cost according to the lot size (so that pedestrians don't use the station as a shortcut) isn't a very good idea. In most cases the resulting values are so high that the station would get unusable. As most ingame and custom stations have a cost of 0 (and roads are always available), sims will just opt for another station and/or form of transportation, often resulting in a longer total commute time and increasing road traffic. For example, very few sims would use a 1x1 station with a Transit Switch Cost of 0.36, the value that works best for such a station would be 0.03-0.05 (most shortcutting eliminated). A value of 0.10 causes a noticable reduction of real usage (excl pedestrians and the through trafic) and eliminates almost all shortcutting for 1x1 stations. I would better accept some little shortcutting instead of setting entry cost to a very high value. It would be interesting to see the test results from the station makers.

And of course the station should also work with the standard pathfinding settings too, and not rely on or require installation of a special pathfinding settings set. Btw which is the default max commute time for SC4/RH. I know about the settings for SC4 Vanilla and the ones suggested by jplumbley/mott (refered to as "Simulator A" and "Simulator B"), but what are the ones for RH? Are they the same as Vanilla's? I think they should be named simply "default" or "standard", otherwise (ie using the term "Vanilla") players may think that the station is for non-RH SC4 only!

Memo, I agree with RippleJet, such a street layout works but it's totally unrealistic for a Hbf. Another alternative would be to limit the transit switches to specific lot sides, eg front only, setting the Transit Switch Point property. I have done so for my Suburban GLR stations (STEX), eg buses can only reach the stations from the front side. Just an idea.

Moved to be part of the Traffic Switch Entry Cost - Discussion Thread  -JP

[Jonathan]

The HSR is dependant on the NAM so all calculations should be based on the NAM as the uesr will have to have the NAM to be able to use HSR which is needed to be able to use that station.


Also this is getting slightly off topic and [almost] all the posts have been made by NAM members so any more posts on the TE settings should go in the HSR private thread, thanks.

-Jonathan.

Moved to be part of the Traffic Switch Entry Cost - Discussion Thread  -JP

[cogeo]

Warrior, I meant the default stuff that comes with NAM, the A and B sets are not a standard part of NAM and therefore many players may not have them installed, so stations shouldn't require them. But you're right this is station-making, so it should be posted in another thread.

Now about that dual track, what would you suggest? I think memo is right, plus making them this way doesn't require changing the global settings (ie what kind of traffic is allowed on each network type). Also take into account that they may prove quite complicated, as they have to connect and branch to both GHSR and Rail networks (in addition to the dual network itself). I don't know how difficult this can be if implemented as draggable, but even as puzzle pieces it would require a lot of work, because of the many combinations. For example, the "Right Junction" type alone would need the following puzzle pieces (I hope you understand what I mean in each case, descriptions may be confusing so please correct them if needed, my English is poor):

1. Rail/HSR Dual Track - Right Junction
2  Rail/HSR Dual Track - Right Branch to Rail
3. Rail/HSR Dual Track - Right Branch to HSR
4. Rail/HSR Dual Track - Right Turn / Forward Branch to Rail
5. Rail/HSR Dual Track - Right Turn / Forward Branch to HSR
6. Rail/HSR Dual Track - Right Branch to Rail / Forward Branch to HSR
7. Rail/HSR Dual Track - Right Branch to HSR / Forward Branch to Rail
(Hope I didn't forget anything).

Seems a lot of work, though as a design (graphically) these can look almost identical. If this shared track has the look of conventional track (and I think this is the idea, ie HSR terminating at "old" stations), for the above puzzle pieces there would be required 3 textures. One identical to the conventional Right Junction track (1,2,4) one with a forward/rail-to-HSR transition (5,6) and another one with a right/rail-to-HSR transition (3,7), ie both dual track and conventional track sections would be identical.

Comments please.

Moved to be part of the Traffic Switch Entry Cost - Discussion Thread  -JP

[Jonathan]

I think the new simulators will be part of the next NAM. Check the release thread.

What if a base set was included in the first beta (providing even that is ready in time) So there are no branches, just orth, diagonal basic crossing (if any) and then transitions?

There should probably be a slight visual difference between normal rail and and the dual network?

OR

We could add monorail paths to the whole MAXIS rail network and modify the simulator(which shouldn't be too much of a problem) this way HSR trains can run on rail without having to spend money and time redrawing rail.

Moved to be part of the Traffic Switch Entry Cost - Discussion Thread  -JP