Quacking Duck

I briefly elaborate on what was said by the previous reply. In ETCS level 1, your train only receives new information about your movement authority upon passing over balises, which are typically located at signals. When your train reads a balise at a yellow signal, it is told that your movement authority ends at the position of the next signal, which at that moment is red. If the red signal then stops being red, your train does not immediately know this. Your train can only find out upon next reading a balise. This creates a problem: if the next balise ahead of you is the one at the signal which was red, you would never be allowed to arrive at that balise because your movement authority ends there. Sometimes, "infill balises" are built[1] at locations between signals to mitigate this problem, but cannot eliminate it entirely: the problem would still occur if a signal stops being red only after you have already passed the final infill balise as you approach that signal. The solution to this problem in ETCS level 1 is that your movement authority has a "release speed": You are allowed to pass your end of authority (the signal which was red at the moment the movement authority was given to you) at a low speed, typically 40km/h in SimRail, for a short distance. This enables you to arrive at, and read, the balise located at the signal where your movement authority ends. If the signal there has become something other than red, that balise will give you a new movement authority. If that signal is actually still red, you will be stopped by ETCS; release speeds are typically selected such that you are brought to a stop before anything too dangerous results. This system sometimes means that ETCS requires you to decelerate nearly to a stop for a signal which you know to be green, which can cause considerable delay and frustration, especially when following another train. This is a major reason for continuous-update systems[2] such as ETCS level 2. [1] I am not actually sure whether these exist in SimRail. [2] A different solution is to use induction loops ("Euroloops") in ETCS level 1. I do not talk about these here because I am quite confident that they do not exist in SimRail.

I wonder whether the difficult starting conditions that would make such a button useful exist within the SimRail world. Would the gradients available within SimRail, combined with the effects of rain, prevent an ED250 under normal settings from starting in the uphill direction? In some documents[1] relating to railway electrification, I have seen the phrase "booster section", but do not really know what it means. Is there any connection between the "booster" button and such things? I had noticed that this button is next to the "neutral section" button. I therefore suspected that, if the neutral section button is used to handle neutral sections, perhaps the "booster" button is used to handle "booster sections". Do you know anything about the other two buttons I asked about? [1] http://www.irot.in/pdf/snt/S7 SIGNALLING IN 25KV AC.pdf This is the first apparently relevant example I found in a Google search, though I am not sure whether it is a representative example of the use of that phrase.

In the middle of the ED250 control panel, below the ETCS display and just right of the "control circuits" switch, there is a group of 4 buttons. The function of one of these, "forbid electrodynamic braking", is rather obvious, and it does what its name suggests. I have little idea of what the other three do. These other three buttons are named "neutral section", "booster", and "parking". Pressing any of them them while the train is moving appears to have no effect. I would expect the "neutral section" button to inhibit traction power, but it appears to be entirely possible to apply power, and even to start the train from a stop, while it is in the pressed position. My best guess regarding the "parking" button would have been that it would control some kind of parking brake, but I know that the parking brake is controlled by the "spring brake" switch toward the right side of the cab, and the "parking" button appears to be a momentary button instead of a toggle button. I have no idea at all what the "booster" button may do. What are the functions of these three buttons? Are any of these functions simulated in the game?

Can this behaviour be changed to prevent such problems? For example, whenever the bot departs a station, it can check whether the reverser is set in the direction consistent with the schedule. If no, it changes the reverser direction before departing. As far as I understand, the current behaviour has considerable potential for causing disruption in multiplayer. I sometimes use the bot as a "get me out of this mess" button to recover from mistakes or awkward situations. It can be particularly confusing and frustrating for such a feature to exhibit a counterintuitive behaviour that make things worse. A player with less situational awareness in the same circumstances, especially one who assumes that the bot must be doing the right thing, may significantly disrupt the flow of traffic before realizing what has happened. More importantly, I strongly suspect that it is possible to deliberately abuse this behaviour of the bot to cause disruption in multiplayer in a way that circumvents automatic moderation. For example, if a player were to idle on the mainline in multiplayer, the bot would take over after a timeout. However, if a player deliberately makes the bot drive backward, prolonged disruption may result because the bot is already in control, eliminating the usual automatic remedy for player misbehaviour.

Background While playing in multiplayer, I overshot a platform. To correct this, I set the reverser to reverse and then moved the train backward for a short distance until I could see the platform end sign through the cab window. I found that the "you may stop now" indicator did not appear, and opening the door did not make the station stop timer appear. I suspect in hindsight that this was simply because I needed to move the train further backward, but that was not what I did at the time. The problem Having no idea how to correct this situation, I activated the bot. It may be important that I was in third-person view (the view accessed using the "2" key) at the time. The bot moved the train further backward and made a valid station stop. I switched back to the cab view and noted that I was in the back cab. After the station stop was complete, the bot started the train again and proceeded backward from the station until it arrived at, and stopped at, a red signal. Not wanting to cause any more disruption in the multiplayer server, I promptly logged off. Interpretation I suspect that activating the bot when the train has overshot a platform causes the bot to drive backward to correct the overshoot (as it presumably should), but then fail to stop driving backward. Other conditions such as the reverser being already put into reverse and the player being in third-person view may be relevant. The relevant log is attached. SimRail_log_2026-03-17_16-30-09.txt

According to the old forum post linked below, the ability to open the doors of other players' trains once existed, but was removed due to abuse. Perhaps a new version of this feature could require the approval of the player controlling the train before another player is allowed to open doors or to board. I am interested in something resembling the proposed feature because I have been trying to teach my real-life friends to play SimRail over the past few months. Currently, this is accomplished by attaching two mice to the same computer. It would be very convenient if two people, each running a copy of the game and connected to the same multiplayer server, could sit together in the cab of the same train and operate that train's controls together.

I am reminded of certain user interfaces in aviation[1], which are arguably even more counterintuitive, in which the user first enters a value into a "scratchpad" field, and only then selects the input field into which to place the value. More relevantly, here[2] is a series of videos which has helped me learn to use ETCS, including the use of the touchscreen DMI. Because of these videos, I was able to effectively use ETCS despite bugs in earlier versions of the ETCS tutorial scenarios. As illustrated by the very first forum thread I posted[3], however, there remained some subtleties of the user interface which neither the videos nor the tutorial prepared me for. In case you have not seen it yet, here[4] is the official driver's manual. Though repetitive, it rather exhaustively illustrates the step-by-step usage of much of the user interface. [1] Here is a relatively short video showing an example of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sw8hQX2dFCE [2] https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-11Syv2fsjTVdOLoRmFc--BO-7Dyk8Hx [3] https://forum.simrail.eu/topic/11609-clicking-the-etcs-staff-responsible-acknowledgement-button-at-the-beginning-of-the-pruszkowskis-intermodal-scenario-does-nothing/ [4] https://www.era.europa.eu/domains/european-rail-traffic-management-system-ertms/generic-etcs-drivers-handbook

Much of what has been said in this thread appears to imply that the driver can choose between these brake timing settings. Is there some switch in the locomotive with which to do so? How do I know which setting is correct for a specific train? Similarly, in ETCS data entry, the driver has to choose between several brake timing options. How do I know which one accurately describes my train? I broadly understand that it is bad to overuse the "fill" position. What is the exact problem caused by doing so? How do I know when I have caused such a problem? Thank you for your patience as I try to understand Polish air brakes.

What are "T" and "G"? Does the "brake assimilation" button do exactly the same thing as the "fill" position on the brake lever? If no, what is the difference, and what is the significance of the difference?

Thank you for explaining what those buttons do. In what situation, and for what purpose, is the brake releaser intended to be used?

There are two brake-related buttons on the control panel of the Dragon 2 locomotive whose functions I do not understand. When the "brake releaser" button is pressed, it rapidly reduces the indicated brake cylinder pressure to 0, but only while it is pressed. When the button is released, brake cylinder pressure returns to approximately its original level. I had originally assumed that this button could accelerate the process of releasing the train's brakes. However, using this button while the brakes are releasing, after having charged the brake pipe to above 5 bar, does not appear to accelerate brake release in any useful way. It appears that there is a "true" level of brake cylinder pressure which can only decrease slowly. When the button is released, indicated brake cylinder pressure returns to that level. Under what circumstances, if any, does this button actually help to release the brakes? Toward the right side of the control panel, near the brake gauges, there is a "brake assimilation" button. Pressing it has no obvious effect. What does this button do, and under what circumstances is it used?

I have now tried this, and to my surprise, it worked. Thank you quite seriously. The scenario is playable now. Other suspected issues will be reported in separate threads as necessary.

Procedure to reproduce: Run the "Pruszkowski's Intermodal" scenario. Choose all the default options in the menus at the beginning of the scenario, except in the cargo menu where a DLC would be required to choose the default option. Set up ETCS, as shown in the attached video. As far as I understand, I did not do anything unusual while setting up ETCS. After pressing the "start" button, Staff Responsible mode is offered. Expected behaviour: Clicking the flashing Staff Responsible acknowledgement button, or pressing the spacebar, should cause the ETCS Onboard to enter Staff Responsible mode. Actual behaviour: Clicking that acknowledgement button, or pressing the spacebar, appear to do nothing. No mode transition occurs, and the button continues to flash. See the attached video for a demonstration of this problem. The log is also attached. Simrail 2025.10.25 - 14.12.59.01.mp4 SimRail_log_2025-10-25_14-11-55.txt