somewhere fictional

sims dont all have to be all about millions of junctions and shunts. id happily play a small sim with a few moves like youve just suggested as i prefer quiet sims for a nice laid back game. its a shame there arent more 1 player sims

I think the main problem pointed out was that you need to generate a complete history of your layout, to explain the station locations, track layout, signalling/interlocking oddities, trains used, TOCs involved, through traffic, before then designing an entire interlocking from scratch to fit the layout. The conclusion probably was that it sounds almost as much work as a real sim!

When you look at a track plan, can you readily identify every track’s purpose? Real railroads don’t select track arrangements because they “look cool,” they put tracks where they do because every track has a purpose. I remember the very first track plan I ever drew. First, I just knew the plan had to fit onto a ping-pong sized table, so obviously it needed to be a loop of track. Next, I thought a crossing would be cool, so I tried to work that in. Then I had an exciting prototype photo of a double-track line with a crossover, so I added a second track and a crossover.

I ended up with a total mess, crossings and crossovers helter-skelter on the plan. I had no sense of why those track arrangements existed, except that they looked cool.

I now realize that I had no sense of how a railroad really did what it did. I didn’t have a clue of how to do a decent track plan that would give me a satisfying layout.

So what’s it take to learn how to do track planning right, where every track has a realistic sense of purpose and no track is wasted or excess?

There’s no better way to understand how railroads use these tracks than to go to a realistic op session and run some trains. To do that, you need to get yourself invited to some more serious operating sessions.

A simulator doesn't have to be based on reality to simulate good signalling practices. I think it's time to permit fictitious sims so that budding developers can spread their wings without having to climb up giants in order to stand on their shoulders, as Isaac Newton might have said had he been inclined to mix metaphors.

What about a real place but on a closed line or a line that was supposed to have been extended

Steamer's description in post #8 spells out the difficulties nicely, but again, with a brand new layout unfettered by historical constraints, this could also be viewed as an abstract problem of designing appropriate signalling and full interlocking to accompany it. Maybe I'm naive, but surely interlocking for small junctions is straightforward, while interlocking for larger ones can be "borrowed" from existing examples to learn the principles. In addition, all aspects of fictitious layouts (geography, signalling, interlocking) can be tweaked until they work intuitively and there are no nasty surprises, a luxury not available in real life.

This would make such a layout a good start for the beginner who looks for the logic behind a system. Much better than being fobbed off with "Well, that's how it is in real life", when faced with an illogical situation (my middle name is Spock).

My main peeves are to do with lack of automation enabling single-player operation, in particular lack of auto-raise on level crossings....

....This is one reason Wembley Suburban is one of my favourites; the other is that it all fits neatly on one screen. Maybe the kind-hearted developers could provid an extra but non-prototypical option to make all signals and level crossings automatic; this option could be turned off by the player requiring more realism. After all, TORR is available on nearly all sims yet is conspicuously absent from many in real life.

Level Crossing Controls

Selection box: 'Normal' is all crossings controls & penalties active, 'No Penalty' is just that, means you can be as evil as you like, so you don't get irate drivers waiting at crossings, 'No Crossings' is just that, all controls, penalties and calls have been disabled. Defaults to Normal.

Bear in mind that (unlike Waterloo and Wimbledon sims) the Euston layout in Wembley Mainline is quite different to the one in the Euston sim, since the area was quite extensively remodelled, but I'd still recommend playing Euston first. Speaking of which, Euston is another good sim to get started on the harder sims, though doesn't have the ARS to ease you into it like Waterloo does.

I remember that Euston was made with the old eras in mind, but it is funny how we still don't have a 1960s TT to work with.

... and the SIM omits the practice of "shunting the sleepers" - a highly entertaining move on nights where several arrivals comprised trains with both passenger and sleeping vehicles. In order the clear the platforms the sleeping cars were removed from the trains on arrival and shunted together down Platform 15 ...