An Access in CTC is a point where there is an interaction between your trains and your territory with the outside world. There are essentially two different types:
- Stations – where passengers can board a train, or goods can be exchanged
- Entrances/Exits – where trains enter or leave your territory.
An access can have one or more tracks (“access track”) with a name applied to all tracks within the access group.
A train schedule determines which accesses in which order a train has to go to in order to meet the schedule. At any point and time the virtual train driver knows which next destination the train needs to reach, i.e. the next station it has to stop (if any) and the exit to use for the completion of the current leg. Note, a station can also serve as an “exit” on the last leg of a schedule in order to transition the train to another schedule while it is at the station. If you send a train on a route that makes either destination unreachable (without changing the travel direction of the train), the train driver will notice that, stop the train, and give you a call.
To complete the destination, any track within the access group can be used, with some notable exceptions.
For further information on each access type in CTC see