Factorio is a bad railroad simulator because it is was never designed to be a railroad simulator. This has only a little bit to do with the respective grade-levels of crossings (because, I mean, many, many very functional rail networks actually-operate on Earth using only flat crossings, because the terrain is flat where these networks are built).
One way in that vanilla Factorio is a shit simulation is that it cannot couple and decouple cars. Trains are built by hand, and then those trains remain as they are until remogrified by hand.
Want to send coal/copper/iron/something (or a combination of things) somewhere else? Cool beans! People do this every day in the real world.
In the real world, cars are often left in yards and sidings to be swapped around and loaded by switchers and other mechanisms while the locomotive that delivered these cars has departed -- probably along with a train of other cars that this station isn't interested in.
In Factorio, one lets trains fill up with things at A (according to rules), and then it goes from A to B and unload those things at B (according to rules).
Stops for C, D, and E can be added, but even if they are: The whole train (including locomotives) stays coupled together together and there isn't any other way to do it.
The locomotive is always waiting unless it is travelling with the entirety of its assigned cars. The trains are completely inflexible.
Real-world train networks don't work that way. Got 50 containers to load up? Drop off 50 appropriate cars to be loaded up, and move on to the next problem while that station deals with putting containers onto cars. And at that next station, load up on already-full tankers. And then to the next station where a bunch of new Fords are dropped off in segments of TTX transport cars.
Factorio is also a shit simulation because these fixed-unit trains have a predefined route: Not only can cars not be picked up or dropped off, no station can offer things and no other station can order things. In Factorio, if there is iron to deliver: The usual method is to pick up as much iron as will fit on this inflexible train (however long that takes), and take it to station B to unload (however long that takes): It's a neat way to approximate how a belt works in Factorio over a longer distance, but it is not a simulation of how rail actually works.
It's a fun game and I love playing it, but it's not a fucking rail simulator[1]. Very few aspects of Factorio's rail system resemble actual rail systems in the real world that actually exists.
(Actually, while I'm at it: Factorio isn't a simulator of anything. Just because it is a fun game does not mean that it has to be a simulation of...anything.)
One way in that vanilla Factorio is a shit simulation is that it cannot couple and decouple cars. Trains are built by hand, and then those trains remain as they are until remogrified by hand.
Want to send coal/copper/iron/something (or a combination of things) somewhere else? Cool beans! People do this every day in the real world.
In the real world, cars are often left in yards and sidings to be swapped around and loaded by switchers and other mechanisms while the locomotive that delivered these cars has departed -- probably along with a train of other cars that this station isn't interested in.
In Factorio, one lets trains fill up with things at A (according to rules), and then it goes from A to B and unload those things at B (according to rules). Stops for C, D, and E can be added, but even if they are: The whole train (including locomotives) stays coupled together together and there isn't any other way to do it.
The locomotive is always waiting unless it is travelling with the entirety of its assigned cars. The trains are completely inflexible.
Real-world train networks don't work that way. Got 50 containers to load up? Drop off 50 appropriate cars to be loaded up, and move on to the next problem while that station deals with putting containers onto cars. And at that next station, load up on already-full tankers. And then to the next station where a bunch of new Fords are dropped off in segments of TTX transport cars.
Factorio is also a shit simulation because these fixed-unit trains have a predefined route: Not only can cars not be picked up or dropped off, no station can offer things and no other station can order things. In Factorio, if there is iron to deliver: The usual method is to pick up as much iron as will fit on this inflexible train (however long that takes), and take it to station B to unload (however long that takes): It's a neat way to approximate how a belt works in Factorio over a longer distance, but it is not a simulation of how rail actually works.
It's a fun game and I love playing it, but it's not a fucking rail simulator[1]. Very few aspects of Factorio's rail system resemble actual rail systems in the real world that actually exists.
(Actually, while I'm at it: Factorio isn't a simulator of anything. Just because it is a fun game does not mean that it has to be a simulation of...anything.)
1: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/simulator