Points first.
Signal second. Move third.

Work the lever frame

1. Read every train’s entry, ordered exit, spawn step, and priority. Later chapters can also assign a mandatory middle road.
2. Set J1 to the upper M or lower S road. Set J2 toward exit X or Y.
3. Clear signal A or B only when its approach has a safe road. Holding both is legal but adds delay.
4. Advance one movement. If the frame reports an incident or a poor choice, rewind without losing the working.

What the controls mean

Twenty-four cards, three chapters

Every card is written by hand with its own train roster, spawn times, ordered exits, booked roads, and possessions. No card repeats another, even after swapping the two approaches, the two middle roads, or the two exits, and the tests prove it. Signal school teaches exits and approach holding. Route discipline adds mandatory M or S roads. Engineering nights combines booked roads with timed possessions. Every card is solver-checked, and every card can be cleared with the fewest possible held movements, which is what the mastery report grades you against. A dated daily working is stable for that date; a relief turn generates a fresh solver-checked card.

Where delay comes from

A train standing at a signal showing Hold adds one to the held count for every step it waits, and an express or passenger working adds a further priority cost on top. The register now names each held train and where it stood, the message line reports the running total against the best possible working for that card, and held steps are marked in the replay. Some holding is unavoidable on a single junction, which is why every card is graded against a solver-verified par rather than against zero.

Reading a step message

Every advance reports the whole frame, not only the train that moved. Trains that have just become due are named the step their booking arrives, with the aspect their approach signal is showing, and every train standing on the frame is listed with its position. The movement card carries a Due next strip naming the next two bookings, their step, their approach, and their ordered exit, so a lineup can be set before the train appears. The register keeps the running held count beside the best working the solver found.

The best working, from step zero

The train register shows Best working next to the score from the first step: the fewest held movements the solver can achieve on this card, and the step target. A card is not asking for zero delay; it is asking for that number. Clearing the card reports how far above it the working finished, and one thing to try next.

The frame on a phone

The junction diagram is wider than a phone screen, so it sits in its own scroller with a shaded edge on each side and a note saying so. It re-centres on the train that has just moved after every step, and the movement card below always states every train, its position, and its state as text.

Rewind, redo, and the walkthrough

Rewind steps the clock back one movement and counts as one assist. Redo puts that movement back and refunds the assist, so comparing two orders of working costs nothing. The line under Advance says what the clock will do before you press it. The first card you open runs a four-step walkthrough that can be skipped and is never shown twice, and ? opens the full keyboard reference at any time.

Questions at the block shelf