Portals

[tonic110]

I understand that portals are good for removing A.I. Trains from Scenarios. But could someone tell me where to find the portal tool ? , and how to place the portal.
Any help greatly appreciated. Creating my FIRST Scenario and having a portal saves worrying about stacking trains up.
CHEERS.
Tony

[Acorncomputer]

Hi

Portals are listed as Markers- Portal in the track linked assets - the one with the signal icon.

You can program trains to come out of portals as well as going in to them.

[tonic110]

Thanks for the rapid reply Geoff. So, do I just point and click on the section of track I want the portal to be?
CHEERS
Tony

[Acorncomputer]

Hi

You select the portal marker as with any other asset, place it on the track in the place you want it and then to complete the placing you need to put a link on the track. This is the actual point at which the portal works.

When writing scenarios you select the portal as the destination for your AI train or if you want a train to come out of a portal you 'program' the portal and tell it what train you want to come out of it. There is a bit more to it than this but if you play around a bit you will get the hang of it.

[RsDany]

What is distance in Portals?
What will train do when we go ex. 1 mile ?

I give my driver task "Stop at destination" when come back from portal. So it will go to
the my "stop destination" or will go nowhere and drive 1 mile :S ?

[skiddaw]

What is distance in Portals?
What will train do when we go ex. 1 mile ?

I give my driver task "Stop at destination" when come back from portal. So it will go to
the my "stop destination" or will go nowhere and drive 1 mile :S ?

From what I have read about portals the distance setting is the distance to an "imaginary" station x miles further down the line.
The time is a waiting time for the train at this destination.

When you use a portal in a "stop at" instruction the train will disappear into the portal and emerge after a short delay and proceed to the next "stop at" or the final destination. When it emerges the train is travelling engine first in the opposite direction ( ie it doesn't come out travelling in reverse). Also if a single portal spans several tracks and has been linked to all of them the train does not always come out of the portal on the same track it went in. This can be quite interesting.
If you want you can shuttle the same AI train back and forth between 2 portals by using a series of stop at instructions. It is advisable to keep this type of service separate from your mainline activities. It works well to provide AI traffic on lines which cross the mainline over bridges and have a portal at each end.