Trains - Factorio-Access/FactorioAccess GitHub Wiki

Trains

What trains are for

Trains transport passengers, items, and fluids across large distances. Common uses include hauling ore from distant mines, carrying oil from wells to your processing area, and moving intermediate products between factory sections. Trains are optional — belts and pipelines can cover the same jobs — but they scale better as distances and volumes grow.

Trains can also serve in combat: they deal heavy impact damage and can carry advanced weapons.

Trains vs transport belts

Both work at long distances, but rails have the edge as distances grow. Rails are wider, require more space for turns, and cost steel rather than iron. They also cannot go underground to avoid obstacles. The payoff is that trains carry far more material at far higher speeds, and rails cost less iron per unit distance than belts, especially faster belt tiers.

Trains vs pipelines

Both work at long distances. Pipelines are cheaper and can go underground. In Factorio 2.0 pipeline flow does not degrade with distance within the 320-tile limit. Trains can carry multiple fluid types at once and generally offer higher throughput despite moving in discrete loads.

Definitions

  • Train: A group of connected rail vehicles.
  • Rolling stock: Another name for rail vehicles.
  • Locomotive: A burner-powered vehicle that moves the train. Can be driven manually or run automatically on a schedule.
  • Cargo wagon: A chest on rails. 80 inventory slots.
  • Fluid wagon: A fluid tank on rails. 25,000 units of fluid capacity.
  • Train stop: A named stop where trains can park. Interfaces with the train's schedule.
  • Train station: A train stop plus the surrounding infrastructure — inserters, chests, pumps, power.
  • Rail signals / chain signals: Devices that divide rail systems into blocks and prevent collisions between automatic trains.
  • Rail segment: A connected group of rails with no forks, signals, or train stops.
  • Rail fork: A point where a train can take one of multiple paths.
  • Rail junction: An area containing one or more forks.
  • Rail intersection: An area where rails cross without any forks.

Accessibility in Factorio Access

Factorio Access provides a full set of tools for building and running trains without relying on visual cues. The key systems are described below. For the complete control reference, see Docs: Rails.

Building rails: the virtual train

Rail building in v2.0 uses the virtual train. Place a straight rail, then with a rail in hand press LEFT BRACKET on it to lock on. Drive the virtual train to lay track:

  • COMMA — move forward (place rail)
  • M — turn left
  • . (period) — turn right
  • ALT + COMMA — flip to the other end of the current rail
  • BACKSPACE — undo the last move and remove any rail it placed
  • / — toggle speculation mode (preview moves without placing rails)
  • SHIFT + B / B — push/pop a position bookmark (useful for building forks)

For signals: CTRL + M or CTRL + . places a regular signal; SHIFT + M or SHIFT + . places a chain signal.

For larger or repeating structures, use the rail builder menu (ALT + LEFT BRACKET while locked on a rail) or Syntrax, a text-based scripting language for rail layouts. See Syntrax Language and the rails docs linked above.

Building train stations

Place a train stop from your inventory. It can be renamed by opening its menu with LEFT BRACKET. Once a train stop is placed, the rails in front of it are identified as station rails. Walking along them reads out station spaces, telling you which wagon part will align with that rail when the train is parked — use this to position inserters and pumps for loading and unloading.

Manual driving

Manual driving is done with the arrow keys but is strongly discouraged in complex rail systems. The recommended approach for getting a train somewhere is to use the schedule editor to add a temporary stop. See the next section.

When you do need to drive manually: K reports heading and speed, L gives basic train info, and a directional tone plays when the train changes orientation or after 50 tiles of travel.

Automatic trains and the schedule editor

Trains run automatically by following a schedule — a list of named stops and wait conditions. To access the schedule editor, open a locomotive's menu and find the schedule editor on the second row to the right of manual mode.

Wait conditions include time, inactivity, empty/full cargo, and passenger presence. Stop names are typed manually. See Docs: Rails for the full schedule editor controls.

For quick single-destination travel while riding a train, use the "go to station and wait for passenger" or "go to station and wait to disembark" buttons in the locomotive's config menu. This is the v2.0 version of subautomatic driving.

Rail signals

Rail signals divide your rail network into blocks. Only one automatic train can occupy a block at a time. Chain signals add the extra check that a train will not enter a block unless it can also exit — which prevents deadlocks at intersections and junctions.

Place signals using the virtual train's signal controls (CTRL/SHIFT + M or .). The rail builder menu includes pre-built intersection entrance and exit signal pairs.

Rail crossing safety

Three alert levels warn you when trains are nearby:

  • Slow beep: a train moving within 200 tiles.
  • Fast beep: an automatic train within 100 tiles heading your direction.
  • Frantic alarm bells: get off the rail immediately.

Global trains overview

The trains overview (ALT + W from the world menu) lists all trains. From it you can jump your cursor to a train, open its menu, or toggle it to manual mode — useful when a train is moving and cannot easily be clicked.

See also:

External links: