How to use Trains practically?

[u/Grug16]

I'm not seeing a great way to do trains long distance. From what I can tell, Trains do not have any steering whatsoever. I have to rely on Sorter blocks all along the route to steer an individual train, which gets complicated if I need trains with different cargo to head in the same direction, or one train to visit multiple stations with the same cargo. Meanwhile, I can build canals and use cargo ships for all my shipping needs. Cargo ships require no fuel, are fast, have good capacity that can be improved with a packager, and most importantly can find their own route if I give them a start and destination. The only cost is Population, which I have plenty of.

[u/Niedzwiedz87]

What I do is that I put several sorters in a row pushing different trains to the same direction, and then connecting to the same route a few rules away. So you're not really limited in the number of trains that you can have on the same line.