TrainController Gold and Silver - Freiwald Software

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• Other trains, that reserve one or more blocks and routes ahead of the train.
• Locks applied to the entry or exit of certain blocks (see page 146).
• Blocks or routes, that are reported as occupied by unknown objects; more severe, if
the rules specified for the schedule do not allow the entry of occupied blocks or
routes.
• Conditions, that prevent a block from being reserved or a route from being activated
(see the following section).
• The distance to an appropriate destination block.
• Superfluous loops.
There are also criteria, that raise the chance of a certain path being selected:
• Blocks ahead of the train that have already been reserved for this train.
• Activated routes ahead of the train , that are not reserved by other trains.
• The distance to the nearest obstacle listed in the previous list.
At first the Dispatcher evaluates each possible path according to the criteria listed
above. Two paths are equivalent with regard to these criteria, if exactly the same aspects
apply. If two paths are equivalent, then the Dispatcher performs a random selection.
The criteria listed above do not prevent a path from being selected. They lower the
chance of a path to be selected, though, but the Dispatcher might select a path,
which is affected by a negative criterion, if there is no “better” alternative.
Special attention should be paid to the distance to an appropriate destination block. If
the distances to appropriate destination blocks of two alternative paths are different,
then the Dispatcher will probably select the shorter path. If the shorter path is currently
locked by an obstacle, then it depends on the difference of these distances, whether the
Dispatcher uses the longer path or decides to try to pass through the shorter path in the
hope, that the obstacle soon disappears. In other words: the Dispatcher does not select a
free path under all circumstances, especially not, if the free path is much longer than
other alternatives, that are currently not available.
Release of Blocks and Routes
In general a block or route reserved by a schedule is released when the train has reached
a block ahead of this block/route and when this block/route is not indicated as occupied
anymore. In Diagram 118,
for example, block “Main Line East” is not released before a
train coming from “Hidden Yard” has reached “Southtown”. If “Main Line East” is still
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