PAX aren't taking fastest route
As a preface to this question, please don't get on me about any aspect of my build being unrealistic, that is not how I play the game.
I have a very weird scenario here. I started a newish world a few weeks ago centered in Virginia in the US. Disregarding my metro and bus lines because I don't think they are relevant, I have 3 basic regional lines created so far. One line, the Roanoker (pink) line, stretches from Bristol to Richmond with some stops along the way but most significantly to the dilemma in Roanoke and Lynchburg. My second line, the Blue Ridge (blue) line, connects Roanoke to Washington DC, with important stops in Lynchburg and Charlottesville. My newest line, the one that is making things very weird, is the Colonial (brown) line, which connects Staunton to Norfolk with important stops in Charlottesville and Richmond.
Each of these lines has other stops, but I'm choosing to leave out the specifics of each line because they don't seem relevant. If they are please let me know and I'll add details in the comments.
Details on each route are basically the same. The pink line operates on 30 minute frequency and has an 8 hour loop. The blue and brown lines also have 30 minute frequency and have 6 hour loops. They all operate on the same train, the CG RABDe 500 ICN on 200kph tracks outside the city, 120kph tracks within the city and 60kph tracks close to the station. They only run from 0500 to 2300 as well before heading to the depot.
After creating my brown line, I went into one of my brown trains to see the passengers heading west from Norfolk and what their stops were. Interestingly, all passengers heading to anywhere southwest of Lynchburg (Lynchburg, Roanoke, Bristol, Blacksburg etc) all were being routed through Charlottesville. To anybody familiar with the geography of Virginia, this immediately will cause you to raise an eyebrow. This is a nonsensical route. I assumed I built something wrong and it was actually the faster route because I know the game always chooses this. But, when I went in and actually verified this I saw it is NOT the fastest route. The fastest route from Norfolk to Roanoke for instance would be for the passenger to make an 8 minute transfer in Richmond on to the pink line. The game is routing ALL passengers going any to Lynchburg or anywhere west of there through Charlottesville by remaining on the brown line. They then make a ~25 minute transfer in Charlottesville onto the blue line and continue south. They arrive in Roanoke ~45 minutes after the pink line train that left Richmond arrives.
EVEN CRAZIER THAN THAT:
The game recognizes the correct path in the opposite direction. Any passenger from Lynchburg or west will take the pink line to Richmond, then connect on to the brown line to Norfolk.
I have tried everything I can think of to troubleshoot this. I temporarily disabled the blue line, and the passengers got rerouted through Richmond, proving that there isn't an issue with it being unviable as a connecting station. I tried increasing frequency of the pink line to see if that helped, but it did not change where the passengers routed through.
I included two screenshots of both my whole map, as well as the proof from the dominating trips pop-up. Any help or explanation would be greatly appreciated. I'm happy to answer any needed questions about more details.