Building depots
Manual Tutorials

Basic tutorial:

Starting
Setting up a bus service
Setting up a train service
Setting up a plane service
Conclusion

Advanced railway tutorial:

Two Platforms
Two Tracks
Basic Network

In game tutorial:

In-game tutorial
In-depth Instructions

Railway construction:
Building tracks
Building stations
Building depots
Placing signals
Buying & selling trains
Converting railways
Road construction:
Building roads
Building stations and loading bays
Building depots
Buying & selling road vehicles
Waterways construction:
Building docks
Building depots
Placing buoys
Buying & selling ships
Building locks and canals
Airport construction:
Building airports
Buying & selling aircraft
General construction:
Building bridges
Tunnels
Landscaping
Working with vehicles:
Setting vehicle orders
Refitting vehicles
Replacing vehicles
Grouping vehicles
/File/en/Notice.png
Note
This page describes only railway depots. There are also depots for the other transport types.

Here you will learn how to build (place, position) the depots so they align with your tracks. Depots are places where you build your trains. They are also used by running trains for servicing, so make sure trains can enter and exit from depots.

Contents

How do I place a depot?

  1. First of all, you must open the Railway construction toolbar - click the railway build button /File/en/Manual/Manual html m772c5b23.png on the menu bar to display the railway construction toolbar:
    The railway construction toolbar
  2. Click on new depot button or press "7". A new window with depot direction selection will open.
    Selecting new depot button
  3. Select the direction you want your depot to face - this is where the trains will exit to tracks.
    Window for selecting direction of depot
  4. Now you must position the depot next to your tracks, facing the depot exit towards the tracks. Besides building on flat land you can also Build on slopes.
    Selecting position for a depot
  5. Once you are happy with the position, click your mouse to place the depot. If there are rails adjacent to the depot, additional tracks will be placed automatically.
    A newly built depot with automatically connected tracks

Remember, you can always destroy your depot with the dynamite tool /File/en/Manual/Clear title.png.

Where do I place a depot?

Where to place a depot is a strategic decision completely up to you. (You can always just stick couple of depots on your lines and hope for the best /File/en/Manual/Smile 22px.png)

You should make sure that trains:

There are a few strategies for achieving those purposes:

  1. Let the trains service at specified time intervals or add depots into the train's orders list. The depots can be added into the train's orders list in the same way as stations and waypoints.
    Depots at the entrance of a station
    Depots placed on tracks
  2. Build rails in such a way that trains are forced to enter a depot each time they pass through a station or rail.
    Depots at the end of station lines. Trains are forced to service.
    Depots that forces trains to service

There are also other advanced depot configurations that solves some issues found into the basic configurations described above.

The most common problems related to depots are:

Advanced depot configurations

Other advantages for this configuration:

  • Needs minimal space
  • The fast and long trains are slowed down only once for both servicing and passing through the station.
  • Avoids sharp turns by using the 'depot trick' to turn vehicles around 180 degrees (this is considered bad by some players because it looks ugly and is not realistic)

Trains waiting in the depot until there is a free platform. Note the path signal in front of the depot entrance.

Be sure to stop the trains when modifying tracks or signals around them; failure to do this may lead to another crash.

Pre-signals
/File/en/Manual/Entry presignal.png

/File/en/Manual/Exit presignal.png

/File/en/Manual/Combo presignal.png
Entry pre-signal  ·  Exit pre-signal  ·  Combo pre-signal

This layout creates a pre-signal chain running backwards along your track. In the picture, a train on the main line has made the gray exit pre-signal red. The red exit pre-signal communicates to the combo pre-signals, and turn them red. The entry pre-signal is red because its only exit pre-signal is red.

Right-of-way depot. The train from the main line has the priority over trains exiting the depot

Split in 2 or more rails before servicing is useful if the traffic is high. The trains slow down when entering depots so a queue of trains may appear before a depot. If the trains are directed to 2 depots using Signals then 2 trains can be serviced in the same time allowing a high traffic on that line.

This does not affect the average speed on the main rail.

Next: Placing signals »