schmusegewürzkatze621

Traffic volume depends on where you are. Łazy Łc and Sosnowiec Główny, for instance, rarely get boring. Otherwise … the inactivity check is currently a bit strict, yes, but they’re working on that. Not sure what you mean with suggesting ‘natural’ delays. Trains already tend to get delayed quite a bit in normal operation. I also have in dispatcher mode already taken cargo trains or light engines into a loop to let passenger trains pass. It’s a thing that already happens! Also, it seems they’re working on making the Zawiercie signal box playable, though probably requiring a higher player level, since it’s a bit more complex than the rest. What do you mean, you want to ‘generate’ trains? Trains run according to a predetermined timetable. If there’s freight cars to be collected on short notice, then where do you get the engine from? Who drives it? And when the freight cars are collected, where do they go and when? Some of these question may be moot in a simulation/game, of course. But it doesn’t change the fact that planning train movements and creating timetables is not the responsibility of dispatchers/signallers. Their job is to accept the timetable as it is and put it into practice as safely, precisely, and economically as possible.

I didn’t even know there were any announcements at all! Though, to be honest, I’d have expected there to be automated ‘next station’ announcements in the EN96/EN76 regional trains first and foremost. Though I have once been in a train and stopped in … I think it was Sosnowiec Głowny or maybe Zawiercie? where the information displays on the platform actually showed my train with its correct itinerary and even a ‘This train is delayed’ notice! I’ve got to say, that impressed me. Unfortunately, I haven’t seen anything like that again afterwards.

That is absolutely not the reason for having DSD buttons near the doors. The reason is that when shunting, or when departing with a passenger train from a platform, drivers may need to look out of the side window while the train is moving. There’s also generally an additional simple drive handle and train protection buttons next to the windows on both sides, for the same reason. If that story is true, then what that driver did was not only incredibly dangerous (evidently), but also incredibly against regulations.

Ah, so it’s similar to the ‘T’ boards on German tram networks. Definitely possible. I know the West and East German railways before reunification tended to handle railway power supply differently – in the West, they used a centralised, coordinated ‘railway power grid’ with its own transmission lines at 110 kV ~ 16.7 Hz running from central converter stations to substations transforming that down to 15 kV and feeding it into the catenary; whereas in the East, they tended to build decentralised converter stations producing 15 kV ~ 16.7 Hz directly, so they don’t run in phase with each other, necessitating neutral sections.

I’ve noticed that contrary to what I know from Germany, those ‘neutral sections’ aren’t announced in advance (with the equivalent of El 1v). That, plus the fact that there’s so many of them, makes me think they maybe don’t have to be obeyed (by opening the main switch) in normal operation. Maybe they’re simply like those signs on the German network that signify trains shouldn’t stop in a certain section?

Playing on Windows 8.1 with German keyboard layout, I’ve noticed the push-to-talk key isn’t working any more. Or actually, it is, but it’s now the Ö key. What’s the Ö key? It’s the key immediately to the right of L, that is, the US keyboard’s semicolon key. The Controls settings menu still shows ASCII grave (backtick), as it was. On a German keyboard, that key is a dead circumflex. When I try to remap the binding to be the original key to the left of the number 1, the menu now shows a backslash as the bound key. Which is in a totally different place both on US and the German layouts. What is going on here?

A few minutes ago, on DE3, Katowice was deadlocked again. 😑 No trains were leaving towards Załęże or Ligota or arriving from there. In the Zawodzie signal box, all tracks to Katowice were set to outbound direction and AI Katowice was not making an effort to reverse them (why would it, seeing as no trains were running in that direction?).

So a dispatcher at Będzin had some ‘fun’ and sent me, an ECE, to Sosnowiec on the third track. Which is not electrified. And I only noticed that when the catenary was already gone. Surprisingly, though, the pantograph was still up, the voltmeter still showed around 3 kV, and the sound effect of the auxiliary power converter was still running, too. I imagine I would even have been able to accelerate if I’d wanted to. I’d have expected that as soon as the catenary ended, some safeguard in the locomotive would’ve lowered the pantograph and possibly even triggered emergency braking (not sure how that is in reality). And even if not, I’d have expected that power would cut out.

I’ve been playing under Proton on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, and the game has been working fine-ish for the most part. However, whenever I press one of the pairs Home/numpad 7, End/numpad 1, or Del/numpad point, the game acts as if I had pressed both of them. That is, when I press Home or numpad 7, the cursor is placed to the beginning of the text entry field and a number 7 is inserted; when I press End or numpad 1, the cursor jumps to the end and a number 1 is inserted; when I press Del or numpad decimal point, the character after the cursor is deleted and a comma is inserted (German keyboard layout). This all happens while Num Lock is on. Arrow keys and numpad 8/4/6/2 work normally.

Today, while playing Dąbrowa Górnicza, the dispatcher in Ząbkowice kept offering me the delayed LTE 242227 on the left track and cancelling it a few seconds later even when I accepted it. Then after the next train came through normally, DGZ sent me LTE 242227 without notification.

I thought it was simply for overlap (thus more realistic)?

Holy shit, you’re right. The green is almost cyan! … Also, for displaying train numbers on the open line, I appreciate the block section numbers being readable now, but why remove the train numbers display fields? Now I need to hover my mouse everywhere to see train numbers! That’s neither realistic nor does it make the game better in any other way, as far as I can see.

‘Lowest’ is playable on my Ryzen 3 5300U with 16 GB RAM using Steam Play on Linux. Only when approaching and driving through Sosnowiec and Katowice it starts lagging, tearing with weird green artifacts, and eventually crashes.

Game runs okayish via Steam Play/Proton on my Ryzen 3 5300U laptop on lowest graphics. Dispatcher mode and driving through the countryside work with 10~20 fps, but as soon as I’m driving through Sosnowiec or Katowice, the framerate drops to < 5 fps and the simulation starts lagging badly, especially when I’ve been playing for a while. I assume it’d run better if it were native Linux. (I wonder if there’s a way to force the engine to use Vulkan rendering and whether that would help?)

The game already gives you more information than a real train driver would have. Like, if you’ve got a yellow light (‘expect stop’/‘caution’) then afterwards you don’t know whether the next signal has changed to allow passage until you can actually see that next signal. (Line speed restrictions, on the other hand, are reflected in the working timetable, so in reality you don’t have to drive solely by those signal signs.)

Na ja, oder halt, wenn Gefahr besteht. Also z. B. wenn ne Person im Gleis ist oder dicht daneben.

The Polish national train control system is not really a ‘protection’ system like Indusi/PZB, even though the transmission technology is identical. It’s more like an additional vigilance system. On top of the normal timeout-based one (czuwak, Sifa, DSD etc.) you also have to acknowledge every signal you’re passing, using the same button or pedal. You’ve probably switched it off along with the czuwak. AFAIK, the SHP ‘magnets’ are placed a few hundred metres before most signals and/or at the location of exit signals.

I’m thinking the render distance should have a dynamic aspect to it, just as in Zusi: if FPS falls below a configurable value, then view distance should be gradually reduced up to a configurable limit until FPS is back above the threshold. Should have hysteresis, of course, so that the render distance doesn’t oscillate back and forth.

On the contrary – it allows you to accelerate even with the driver’s brake valve in ‘braking’ position! And definitely if the direct brake is applied, too.

Soweit ich weiß, wird bei der „echten“ Bahn – zumindest in Deutschland – entweder mit der Hand gegrüßt oder durch kurzes Auf- bzw. Abblenden des Spitzensignals.

I’ve also noticed that and don’t like it. I also think that ‘devices’ here is questionable localisation – ‘interlocking’ would fit much better. Also, in German, it’s especially egregious, because it says ‘electronic’ there – although ‘electronic interlocking’ in German means computer-based interlockings (not mechanical or relay-based)!

Concerning the updated localised dispatcher interfaces: the electronic/computer-based interlocking is translated quite well. However, the controls on the relay interlockings in Łazy Lc and Będzin read as if they come from Google Translate. They’re … not good. I can’t figure out the purpose of half of the buttons (especially those related to the trail block). Also, in the text-based ‘radio’ communication with other dispatchers, the prefab text for ‘Train has arrived’ is wrong. It reads: Zug <train number> ist in <arrival time> angekommen – it should say Zug <train number> ist um <arrival time> angekommen.

Thank you for the answer! Seems I learnt something new today.

Thanks for (inaccurately) translating my message to German, I guess? I’ve never heard ‘Shuntierung’ or ‘shuntieren’. Where is it used? Where is it common? Certainly not on the AC-electrified main network where transformer tap changers are all you need for controlling power without semiconductors?

Another thing I forgot yesterday: in dispatcher mode, the signal box descriptions, specifically the interlocking technology. For the electronic/computer-based interlockings, it currently reads something like ‘Art der Geräte: Elektronische Geräte’. It should be something like Stellwerkstechnik: Elektronisches Stellwerk or maybe Art des Stellwerks: Elektronisches Stellwerk. Not sure what it currently says for relay or mechanical interlockings, but those should be Relaisstellwerk and Mechanisches Stellwerk respectively.