Train Foundry

Build complete trains from blueprint templates — no more placing locomotives and
wagons by hand.

A large foundry building sits on the end of one of your rail lines. Import a
train blueprint into it, queue it, and the foundry assembles the whole train and
sends it off onto your network on its own — with the right composition,
orientation, colors, fuel, schedule, train group and blueprint parameters.

How it works

• Place it anywhere buildable. While you hold the item (or a ghost for robots),
  a full preview of the building follows the cursor — in the game view and on the
  map — so you see exactly where the tracks and walls will land. The foundry lays
  its own exit track; just connect your network to the exit afterwards. It can even
  be placed on water: the footprint is filled with landfill automatically.

• Drop blueprints in the chest. A dedicated blue blueprint chest sits on the
  west apron — drop your train blueprints there (by hand or with inserters). The
  foundry's window lists them; click a plan to queue it. Blueprints must contain
  only the train (rails and signals under it are fine).
  

• Queue trains. Click a template to queue it; blueprint parameters are asked
  once. Trains are built one after another.

• Feed the parts. Each build pulls its locomotives, wagons, fuel, ammo and
  equipment-grid gear from the foundry's internal stock — fill it by hand or with
  inserters. Each component shows an available/required ratio, green when covered,
  red when short.
• Off it goes. Once built and the track is clear, the train drives away with
  its schedule, group, fuel and equipment already set.

Left or right exit

Trains leave to the left (west) by default. Open the foundry's window, click
the panel button in the title bar, and use the Configuration window to tick
Left (west) and/or Right (east) — either or both sides can be open at
once. The train takes whichever open side its schedule leads to. On a chained
foundry the east exit follows the far end of the chain automatically.

Longer trains

Need trains longer than five vehicles? Place another Train Foundry right against
the east side of an existing one and it chains on as an extension — the
internal track and capacity extend across the whole hall. Each module adds room
for five more vehicles (5 alone, 10 with one extension, 15 with two, and so on).
Extensions have no chests or signal of their own: the whole chain is driven from
one window, and the stock stays on the west end while the exits work across the
whole hall.

Recycling track

Tick Recycling track in the Configuration window to add a second, dead-end
track inside the foundry, with its own entry side (left or right) and a
Train Recycle stop at the closed end. Route a train onto it and the foundry
destroys it and refunds its full cost — vehicles, fuel and cargo — straight into
the internal stock. A one-way block signal keeps a bidirectional train from
backing out.

Fuel

By default the train is fuelled exactly like the blueprint says — whatever fuel
the blueprint puts in the locomotives is what the foundry loads. Nothing to set up.

For a blueprint that has no fuel in it, or when you'd rather not tie a plan to
one specific fuel, tick Generic fuel in the Configuration window: the foundry
then fills every locomotive with the best unlocked fuel available in its stock
and adds a refuel interrupt covering every fuel the locomotive can burn (top up at
10%, leave once full). A solar (burner-less) locomotive needs no fuel at all. A
blueprint with no fuel always uses this generic mode — nothing to honour.

Extras

• Circuit network. Wire the foundry's connector and, in the Configuration
  window, choose to broadcast either the internal stock contents or the
  components it still needs.
• Clear a stuck train. If a built train cannot leave, one click destroys it
  and refunds its cost.
• Remote control. A shortcut-bar button (or CTRL+ALT+F) opens the foundry's
  window from anywhere — no need to walk to it. One foundry (chain) per planet.
• Compatible with vanilla, Space Age and Nullius.

Credits

The reserve-chest sprite is the "tall steel chest" graphic from the Wide
Containers Assets mod by Lebothegizebo, used under the MIT License. Thanks!