Big hubs in a nutshell – finding a universal hub design

Recently I started playing a game on my own, featuring some LL-RR main network. When I had to build my first ever 4-way hub for double tracks, I first took a look at the Junctionary just to find out that all hubs were designed quite different and hardly any of them follow all necessary rules (curve length, double bridges/tunnels, merge after split). I then started wondering if there’s a universal way of thinking about hubs.
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Station balancing

As a follow up to the blog about Clean building we have noticed that, in recent games, stations frequently aren’t balanced.

During a game it is important to have a balanced network. There are a couple of ways to make the network balanced, one of them is by building a load balancer on the mainline. However a balancer like that isn’t preferred. It is preferred to let stations entries and exits function as balancers of the traffic load over the mainline.

Station exit balancing

Image taken from Memberzone Game 6

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