Railway Dispatcher Pro

🛠️ What Is the Map Editor?

This mode lets you build the line itself: stations, tracks, signals, and routes. Enter it from "Map Editor" on the title screen.

Lines you make appear directly in the map lists for Sandbox and Timetable Builder. Building a timetable and taking charge as the dispatcher of your own line all follow on in one continuous flow.

🔀 Easy and Advanced

Switch with "Easy" / "Advanced" at the top right of the screen.

• Easy — There are only four tools: "Create Vehicle", "Build Station", "Connect Stations", and "Connect Separate Tracks". Signals, levers, and routes are created automatically all at once when you place stations and tracks.
• Advanced — Lets you place and fix track circuits, switches, levers, routes, and signals one at a time. The natural way to use it is to fine-tune what you made in Easy mode afterward. The list of tools and the procedures are in Map Editor: Advanced.

🧭 Order of Work

If in doubt, follow this order. Each step uses the results of the previous one, so this order involves the least rework.

1. Line settings — Decide the line name, maximum speed, and signaling system (File → Line Settings...).
2. Create vehicles — Register at least one car type to run. You need vehicles to make a timetable, and platform lengths are also determined from the trainset length here.
3. Build stations — Choose layouts and place them on the map.
4. Connect stations — Lay the track, blocks, and signals between stations in one go.
5. Choose the starting point station — The station at distance 0 on the diagram. You are asked on the spot when you place the first station, so this is usually already done. To change it later, choose again in Line Settings in "Advanced" mode.
6. Save — F5. If any to-do items remain, they are shown in a list.

📁 Creating and Opening a Line

File operations are gathered under "File ▾" at the top.

• New... — Enter a line name and click "Create". The ID used for the save location is assigned automatically.
• Open... — Choose from a list of lines you made yourself.
• Save (F5) / Load (F9)
• Undo (Ctrl+Z) / Redo (Ctrl+Shift+Z)
• Line Settings... / To-do... / How to use (manual)... / Clear map... / Back to title...
• Publish to Workshop... — Publishes your map on the Steam Workshop (Workshop).

Continue on Another PC with Steam Cloud

Lines you made yourself (including their timetables) and timetables you made for maps subscribed to on the Workshop are saved to Steam Cloud. If you launch the game on another PC with the same Steam account, you can continue editing. Steam syncs when you start and quit the game.

📑 Duplicating a Map

When you select one of your own maps in the title's line selection, "Duplicate This Map" appears at the bottom right. Press it and a copy is made immediately, named "Copy of original name" (you can change it later in Line Settings).

• The timetables and scenarios made on that map are duplicated along with it.
• Once duplicated, it is a separate map. Fixing one doesn't change the other.
• Official lines and maps subscribed to on the Workshop cannot be duplicated.

You can also do this from the map editor screen. Choose File ▾ → "Save as...", enter a name, and the current content is saved as a new map. The original map stays as it was when last saved, and further edits go into the new one.

🚋 Creating Vehicles

Press "Create vehicle (answer questions)" to register a car type through a series of questions. Instead of asking for numbers like acceleration and deceleration directly, it decides them from the running character you describe.

• Number of cars and car length — As a guide: subway 18 m / conventional line 20 m / Shinkansen 25 m (max 25 m). Platform lengths are determined automatically from this.
• Maximum speed — You can't create a vehicle faster than the line's maximum speed in Line Settings.
• Icon — Choose from the official bank (commuter, suburban, limited express, Shinkansen × colors), or use an image you prepared yourself.

Using Your Own Image

Choose "Custom image" for the icon, and place a PNG with the name shown.

• The file name is the car type ID (not the display name). Example: TT_001.png
• Put it in the folder opened by "📁 Open Icon Image Folder".
• Any size is fine (the on-screen display size is adjusted automatically). Official icons are 51 × 53 px.

🚉 Building Stations

When you enter this mode, "Build station (answer questions)" starts automatically, and the layout gallery opens within it. Narrow down by conditions, pick a picture, and click on the map to place a complete station (tracks, switches, platforms, levers, routes, signals) all at once. After you place one station, the same button becomes "Choose a different layout".

Filter Options

• Tracks — 1 to 4
• Location — Mid-line / End of line (terminus)
• Type — Turnbacks/overtaking (interlocked station) / Stop/pass only (halt)
• Connecting track — Double track / Single track / Single + double
• Crossover — Double crossover / Single crossover / None
• Depot — Yes / None

From the second station on, the picture list starts with "Same layout as last station", and ends with "Customize" (answer one question at a time, down to crossovers on each side, the number of depot tracks, and platform length). Use the former for lines where the same layout repeats, and the latter for shapes not in the gallery.

Placing Controls

• Click — Place a station at that spot
• R — Rotate 180° (swaps the directions the tracks continue in)
• Ctrl+Z — Undo the whole placed station

From the second station on, you are asked for the station name each time you place one (for placing stations one after another). If you leave it blank, "New Station n" is used. For the first station, you aren't asked if you already entered a name in the questions. When you place the first station, you are also asked whether to make it the starting point.

🛤️ Connecting Stations

With just three clicks, this creates the track, blocks, signals, and route chain between stations.

1. Click the track end (●) of one station — Ends that can be connected glow with a yellow ○.
2. Click where you want the track to bend (skip this if a straight line is fine)
3. Click the track end of the other station

Choosing Single or Double Track

Choose from "Auto", "Double track", and "Single track" in the sidebar. It starts at "Auto", which guesses from the tracks of the station you clicked in step 1, and the button shows the guess, such as "Auto (Detected as double track)". If it's wrong, press "Double track" or "Single track". While pressed, it doesn't revert to the guess.

The connection choice returns to "Auto" each time you connect a section. The next section is guessed again to suit its location.

Length and Speed

• How to enter length — You can switch between entering "Whole section length" and "Length per block" (both in meters). The number of blocks is determined by how you draw the track, so the two are two sides of "whole = number of blocks × one block".
• Speed limit — Defaults to the line's maximum speed in Line Settings. You can change it for each section.

After laying the track, the sidebar shows something like "Result: 1 block ≈ 200 m × 10 = 2000 m for the whole section", so you can spot input mistakes right away.

🪢 Connecting Separate Tracks

If you draw a long line straight, the board stretches too far sideways to fit on the screen. So, like a real dispatching panel, you draw it folded into several rows, and this tool treats "the right end of one row" and "the left end of the next row" as connected. All the bundled lines use it.

1. Left-click the source point (click the track end at the end of a row)
2. Left-click the destination point (the track end on the next row)
3. Press "Register jump"

Once registered, the two points are joined by a thin line, and the game treats them as the same place, so routes and trains continue without a break. To remove it, right-click to select it and press Delete.

🚏 Building a Single-Track Line

On a single-track line, "where trains meet" forms the skeleton of the line. Keep the following three points in mind.

• Place stations where trains can meet (2 or more tracks) where trains pass each other. These automatically become breakpoints that prevent deadlock.
• Stations with 1 platform and 1 track (where trains can't meet) are not breakpoints. They are treated together with the single track on both sides as one exclusive section, which prevents trains entering from both sides and ending up face to face.
• For a station that should be the boundary between double and single track, choose "Single + double" in the gallery. Only one side connects to single track, and R swaps left and right.

Example: Building Three Single-Track Stations

This example connects Station A (origin), Station B (where trains meet), and Station C (terminus) with single track. On the bundled New Chitose Airport Access Line, Izumisawa – Suimeikyo – Nishimori – Lake Shikotsu Onsen is single track built the same way (Nishimori has 1 platform and 1 track).

1. Place Station A — In the "Build Station" gallery, filter by Tracks 2, Location End of line, Connecting track Single track, choose one, and place it on the map.
2. Place Station B — Tracks 2, Location Mid-line, Connecting track Single track. This becomes the station where trains meet (with a one-track station, trains can't meet).
3. Place Station C — Choose the same way as Station A, and press R to face it the opposite way before placing it.
4. Connect A and B — With "Connect Stations", click A's track end → B's track end. Before drawing, make sure the sidebar button says "Auto (Detected as single track)" (if it says "Detected as double track", press "Single track").
5. Connect B and C — Draw it the same way.
6. Check — If a thin amber line runs alongside the track you drew, the single-track flag is set. Also make sure no "Single-track flag" row appears in "File → To-do...".

Then, if your timetable has trains from A and from C meet at B, the opposing train waits at B until the train that entered the single track first has passed through. The trick is to have trains stop at B, not pass it.

Even trains in the same direction enter a single-track section without block signals only one at a time. The following train waits at the previous station until the train ahead has fully entered the next station. For sections where you want trains in the same direction to run one after another, place a block signal partway along the section in Advanced mode, and end the starting route just before that block signal; trains can then follow block by block.

⚙️ Line Settings

File → Line Settings... These are the rules for the whole line. They open automatically right after you create a new line, and you can reopen them as often as you like. In Easy mode, you are asked the following in turn, one question at a time.

• Line name — Shown in map selection and on timetables.
• Description — A short description for map selection (may be left blank).
• Signaling system — Wayside signals (color-light) or Cab signals (ATC). ATC doesn't need block signals (they aren't shown even if placed). If you choose ATC, you are then asked how the brakes work (Single-step braking / Stepped control), and, for stepped control, the speed steps.
• Line maximum speed — The upper limit for vehicles, and also the default speed limit between stations.
• Difficulty — Shown as ★ in map selection.

In "Advanced" mode, the same content appears in a single window listing everything (the starting point station is also chosen here). It also has Line name on timetables (can differ from the name shown in map selection) and an In progress checkbox. The window's content is written when you press "Save and close".

🧾 To-do (Pre-save Check)

File → To-do... lists what is currently missing. The same check also runs when you save. Press an item's → and the camera jumps to that spot, and the named track flashes red. If saving failed because of errors, the band at the bottom of the screen says so too (errors are listed first).

• Errors (red) — You can't save. Only things that would break or lose data if left alone appear here (CSV rows discarded on load, a starting point pointing to a station that doesn't exist, and so on).
• Warnings (to-do) — You can save. These are things that can be expected in a work in progress (starting point station not set, mismatches between signals and routes, missing or extra single-track flags, platforms shorter than the trainset, and so on).

🎮 Playing on Your Own Line

When you go back to the title, your own lines appear in the following two map lists.

• Sandbox — Dispatch services freely
• Timetable Builder — Build a timetable for that line

The basic flow is to first draw train paths in Timetable Builder, then go to "Play This Timetable". For how to make timetables, see Timetable Builder.

Deleting Your Own Map

Select your map in the Sandbox or Timetable Builder map list and press "Delete This Map..." at the bottom right (or Delete). Press "Delete" in the confirmation window and the map and all timetables made on it are erased. This can't be undone, so if you want to keep it, first copy the map's folder ("File → Open map folder..." on the map editor screen). Official lines cannot be deleted.

Maps whose names are followed by "(Not saved yet)" or "(Cannot read data)" in the list are empty or broken and can't be played. The former become playable once you open them in the map editor and save. If you don't need them, you can simply delete them.

⌨️ Key Reference

View Controls

• Right-drag — Move the map
• Ctrl+wheel — Zoom
• H — Return to a view where the whole line fits

File

• F5 Save / F9 Load
• Ctrl+Z Undo / Ctrl+Shift+Z Redo

While Editing

• R — Rotate a station 180°
• Delete — Delete the selected item / Esc — Cancel the current operation, close a window
• Items used by something else can't be deleted. If you see "Cannot Delete", first detach whatever is using it
• Ctrl+A — Select all in bulk edit mode

❓ Common Stumbling Blocks

R doesn't work after placing a station

Right after typing a station name or similar with an input method (IME) such as for Japanese, Chinese or Korean, the IME may still be active and swallow keys for conversion. In the latest version, it is turned off automatically when the window closes. In older versions, click an empty spot in the left panel before pressing the key.

"Ends that can be connected" don't light up

Only track ends (where no track continues beyond) can be connection targets. Sides already connected to another station and points inside a station are excluded.

The vehicle icon stays a plain square

Check that the file name matches the car type ID, and that the file is in the folder opened by "📁 Open Icon Image Folder".

My line doesn't appear in the map list

Check that you saved it (F5). Also, lines made with a newer version than your app can't be loaded (update the app to play them).