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Berlin Potsdamer Bahnhof

After a long break, I found my way back to this game, which has since developed a lot.
I was particularly interested in the new shunting feature.

I took this as an opportunity to try out one of Berlin's large terminal stations...

Very quickly, the game mechanics and my ideas clashed. For example, you are not supposed to perform locomotive changes in the game, you can't split up trains and you can't simply get locomotives out of a depot without a schedule. This forced me to make some major adjustments to the map and schdules.

Anyway, here's the result:
The Potsdamer Bahnhof - the starting point of Prussia's first railway line. To keep the overview, I limited myself to the passenger station; freight and postal station are only roughly shown and without traffic. But the passenger station still offers enough variety with its three seperate stations: Fernbahnhof, Ringbahnhof and Wannseebahnhof.

The situation shown corresponds roughly to the period 1935-1939 and thus to the last era before the station's demise due to the opening of the north-south S-Bahn tunnel and the destruction in World War II.

Regardless of what would be contemporary in this era, all signals are automated and equipped with the necessary sensors. In reality, the control area shown had about a dozen signal boxes...

The game is set from 8:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. The traffic is made up as follows:

The S-Bahn trains of the lines
Ws (Potsdamer Bahnhof - Wannsee) and
WsC (Potsdamer Bahnhof - Zehlendorf [Mitte]) terminate at Wannseebahnhof.

Both run every 10 minutes and overlap to form a 5-minute cycle. The line WsC only runs during peak hours and is parked at around 9:30 a.m.

In the Ringbahnhof,
the S-Bahn trains of line A (S-Bahn ring line in both directions with a terminus at Potsdamer Bahnhof)
terminates on tracks 1 and 2.
line Lio (Potsdamer Bahnhof - Lichterfelde Ost) terminates on track 3 and the steam-powered suburban trains from Mahlow, Zossen and Wünsdorf terminate on track 4. For simplification, I universaly have referred to these as line Mah (this actually only came into being in 1939 with the start of S-Bahn operations on this line).
The lines A and Lio run every 10 minutes, with line A overlapping both travel directions to a 5-minute cycle on the line to Potsdamer Bahnhof. The not quite real line Mah runs every 20 minutes. There is an important note about this(!) further below.

Last but not least, the Fernbahnhof:
It consists of the departure tracks 1 and 2, arrival tracks 3 and 5 and track 6 for baggage handling. Since it is not possible to uncouple and park baggage wagons separately in the game, I took advantage of a different use:
In the era of express diesel railcars, these occasionally ran from the short baggage wagon tracks - simply because you could. A 2- or 3-car SVT was pretty much the only train that fit on these tracks.

Apart from an SVT on track 6, various express commuter and long-distance trains run arrive on track 3 or 5 and then either disappear into the depot (Betriebswerk PB) or have to be shunted to be reused later for departure from track 1 or 2.

And then there is S-Bahn line WsF (Potsdamer Bahnhof - Wannsee). These trains run every 60 minutes during rush hour.

Trains of line WsF terminate (and depart) in the Fernbahnhof on track 3.
Express and long-distance trains (almost) all arrive on track 3 or track 5
and all depart on track 1 or track 2.

A few more tips before playing:

I built this map to try out shunting and the new features of the game. So the focus is on shunting and operational peculiarities.

All stations and sensors for train journeys are already preconfigured. There is no need to do anything manually to operate lines A, Lio, Ws and WsC, they run practically fully automatically. If you want to do more yourself, you have to delete the configurations from the sensors individually.

Shunting and parking sensors are not preconfigured. These must be configured yourself or you can simply shunt each train individually.
The track to the depot (Betriebswerk PB) is not equipped with sensors. Journeys to and from the depot must therefore be set up yourself.

IMPORTANT for the line Mah, which is locomotive-hauled, a locomotive change is required here!
The game does not intend for such a thing, but it is possible. The first train Mah040 (the very first train in the game) comes with a locomotive at each end. The locomotive at the front must be uncoupled after arrival and brought forward. Don't forget this, otherwise you won't have a locomotive for the next train! For this reason, the departure sensor at the Ringbahnhof track 4 is the only one that is not preconfigured, so if you do nothing, the train will signal again and won't just drive off.
The locomotive must then be turned around and, after the train has departed, shunted into the reversing track in front of the platform, then turned around again. After the next train has arrived, the locomotive can be coupled at the back. It is best to uncouple and bring forward the leading locomotive beforehand.
The procedure described can also be set automatically using the shunting sensor, it works - but requires a watchful eye! Since it is the wrong train of carriages for the locomotive, the game does not recognize the coupling process itself and at departure time automatically lets the train drive towards the buffer stop into the other locomotive. This leads to a collision which results in Game Over.

To prevent this, the locomotive's shunting chain must be deleted before departure so that the train automatically departs in the right direction (assuming you have programmed the departure sensor).
An annoying side effect is that the single locomotive constantly reports that it is standing in front of a stop signal. I see no other way to solve this.
The last train is Mah056. If you want to clear the table, so to speak, you can leave the leading locomotive on the train and let the train depart with 2 locomotives, but the game can also be completed with one locomotive remaining behind.

If anyone knows a more elegant method for changing locomotives on a dead-end track that can be fully automated, please let me know, because I don't like the existing solution.

Finally, a few tips for shunting in the Fernbahnhof.
You basically have free rein there, but I tried it out with a uniform scheme that can be set using the sensors.
If you want to be creative and find the best individual shunting solution for each train, I would like to say:

Have fun with the map, please do not read any further.

For anyone who would like to be guided, I will explain the tried-and-tested scheme here.
The arriving trains on track 5 all drive into the shunting group P and are reused later. The stopping time at the platform is sufficient to move the locomotive to the other end. The trains should be shunted over the track to the left of the main line tracks past shunting group P into the siding behind shunting group P to be pushed into the siding through the back door. This avoids a bottleneck on the points directly behind the platforms.
The train can now wait in the siding until it is used again. At least 5 minutes before the train has to be on the platform, it should be pushed out of the siding.

The trains arriving on track 3 either drive to the depot (Betriebswerk PB) or, in the case of line WsF, also depart from track 3. Trains to the depot can be pushed there, but the time on the platform is also enough to move the locomotive around the train if you want. The trains on line WsF are either multiple units for which no action is required or locomotive-hauled for which the locomotive must be moved around the train.
This can be programmed into thes shunting sensor on track 3.

That should be all there is to tell.
Have fun with the traffic at Potsdamer Bahnhof.