Gazz292

you learn something new every day, wonder why it does not work on the 3Kv DC lines, usually in countries that use the 15/ 25Kv OLE, the neutral sections are controlled automatically using trackside magnets similar to the PZB ones, It would still be nice to be able to set every control in the trains to a keybind if you wanted, even if all that happens is the button moves with your key and does nothing, but i guess we have to wait for the Input/Output system to be released to be able to do that... just that may be a long way away, so i always look in the keybinds menu first after any update to see what new ones we get (got the Passenger Lights off keybind in the latest update... i think that was to fix an issue i reported where in the EN57, the 'passenger lights on' keybind would jam the switch on.. as that train has 2 spring return toggle switches controlling the passenger lights, one for on the other for off.

i get by with my 8gb vram on my RTX3070Ti laptop edition gfx card, getting a steady 'clamped' 60 fps most of the time... tho it can drop to 40 or so in the biggest stations... normally 30fps is enough for a train simulator, but i notice under 40 fps as my TrackIr movement goes a little less smooth than i'd like. i have every setting as high as it will go, except for mirrors off, vegetation density slider at 85% (this gains me 10 fps alone) and i reduce the grass draw multiplier slider a bit... more so i don't get grass growing over the tracks... but i've since learnt that IRL on some parts of the tracks modeled inSimRail, they are pretty run down and do actually have lots of grass growing through the ballast. but i know a lot of people struggle to run SimRail on systems that should handle it well, so maybe have a 'steam / smoke' density slider so people can control how much of those lovely visuals they get if we get leaky steam heating pipes added.

That would be an awesome visual to add, wonder how badly it will affect the fps rate tho, some people say the steam from the cylinder cocks being open tanks their FPS.

We have most of the keybinds that are used when driving the trains now, but one that is still missing is the 'Train Heating' switch in the EU07, EP08 type loco's. This one is important to have as if you trip certan safety relays it shuts off the converter (iced up overhead lines being the most common one to happen many times during a run, but sometimes overcurrent trips do more more than trip just the motor relay, and i've had all relays tripping when moving the power wheel down too fast at times) The converter can not start up under load. So after an undervoltage trip happens due to iced up wires, you can reset the relays using keybinds, you can hold in the main switch with a keybind... but to get the converter to start up you need to use the mouse to drag the Train Heating switch off... restart the converter with the keybind, and then mouse the Train Heating switch back on.

Yesterday i asked on discord if INT1's timezone could be changed to UTC+0 as EN1 used to be, and this was done, So i imagine people can chose an initial server based on their timezone (obviously not all timezones can be accomodated) and then find the server they like playing on the most after trying a few others out. EN1 has always been a mix of different nationalities all playing well together, i think it works so well as most people don't tend to use the radio much on that server, and the dispatcher post auto reply messages are translated into the language the user has SimRail in. So when things are running well, the signals tell the drivers all the info they need.

I think SimRail needs to make it clear if it intends to be a simulation of the Polish railway only, or a simulation of railways worldwide. I believe the CEO once said he would like SimRail to be like the flight simulators, where the whole world's railways are available to all (obviously that would take decades to accomplish, but a lot of people really liked that idea) There is supposed to be German, american, and i think austrian? content 'being worked on' But no one seems able to provide any news on the progress of those projects for what seems like a year or so, so people are naturally assuming they have been abandoned, and thus SimRail will remain focused on Polish railway operations only. : All other mainstream train simulators out there focus mostly on the big 3... uk, German and american railways, mostly because that's where the guaranteed sales money is, as they are the biggest market for railway simulators. But there is a market for the more hardcore, realistic train simulator SimRail has given us, and the multiplayer part really makes things come alive (no 2 runs over the same route will be the same due to the human effect) . But if serious proposals to make an official Spanish route and rolling stock for SimRail were 'rejected' you have to wonder why, i'd have thought they'd want as many different countries railways in the sim as possible, before SimRail, most of the world had no idea what the Polish railways system was like, and that's one of the things a train simulator is good at (along with nostalgia, being able to relive a bygone era in a train sim is something that really should be done more i think) I guess all we can hope for is that we do get the editors to allow anyone to make content, and groups of people can show the world their railways that way.

I've now printed and assembled the new version of my main switch panel: All switches and buttons work in SimRail except the brake delay mode rotary switch, and the train heating toggle switch, due to missing keybinds in SimRail... and as i mentioned before, i did not have room for the 'adjust axle forces' rotary switch, the SHP and Czuwak dimmer toggle switches, and the 'reserve' red mushroom button, none of those have keybinds either, so i'm not missing out on much right now. The blue mushroom button on the front of the panel is the sanding button... these controllers are mounted on my overbed laptop desk, as i spend a lot of my life on my bed due to medical issues, i can't operate foot mounted switches on this set of controllers. The panel lamps are not functioning yet... but they can be illuminated when a 5mm LED that fits in them is powered, below is one of the early versions of the panel lamp being tested on the electronics bench, When we get the I/O system in SimRail, i will add another controller board and make the panel lamps functional: I hate how the camera shows up light reflecting off the layers that you don't notice with your eyes, it's even worse when zoomed in... these indicator lamps measure only 18.5mm square! I'm currently working on the design for the lighting switch panel, the main thing i'm stuck on is getting the angle is sits at right (TBH i think it'll look better at a shallower angle than reality to match my laptops screen angle) After all, these laptop switch panels are not 1:1 copies of the real thing, they are sized to fit in the space i have available on my laptop desk, and i've worked out the switch panels are about 1/2 scale (a real flat push button is ⌀46mm overall, with a ⌀30mm button, the ones i use in these panels are ⌀22mm overall, with ⌀15mm buttons) My brake levers and wipers button panel are closer to full size, and the power controller wheel and the EN57 controllers are sort of in-between somewhere, the main thing i wanted was to drive the trains at my laptop desk with controls that resemble those in a train, instead of using the keyboard and mouse. I have started modeling the full size buttons and switches, and the size difference really shows up here: But a 1:1 size driving desk is what i had a 'simulator room' built for a few years back, it's currently housing my Omsi bus driving rig... which is still a work in progress 12 years after i started it, and about 5 years after i started re-building it 😞 It's also got parts of my BR111 train drivers desk in it (that project is on indefinite hold, as i much prefer driving the wheel controller trains like the EU07 more than the lever ones) And that room is where the 3D printers, electronics bench, and my many plastic tubs of 'things i can't throw out, as they may come in useful one day' live, so it's not sitting empty whilst i play about making mini controllers, but one day it will have a full sized EU07 style driving desk in it. A panoramic shot to show how many containers of junk **important stuff** i have stored on the high level shelving around the room 🙈😬

I'd really like to buy some real Polish train parts (i'd really love to buy the entire driving desk from a train similar to the EU07) But the problems i have had before when trying to buy parts from Poland is i live in the UK 😞 and that silly brexit thing we had has made it more complicated for people in europe to send things here now, having to fill in customs forms and all that (which i always offer to pay extra for the persons time to do that, and of course cover all shipping costs) Then uk customs tries to charge me import duties and UK VAT (taxes) for second hand scrap parts i buy before they will deliver the items to me (i've bought old bus parts from Germany before for my Omsi driving cab) but i am getting used to that now, and know that 'second hand parts from scrapped vehicles' should not be taxed, but that's something for me to deal with, not the seller. I did try to buy some EN57 parts last year, but was told they would not send them out of Poland, seem's i am a minority being an english person who lives Polish trains thanks to SimRail. ----- Sorry for writing in english in the Polish section, i've been told in the past not to use google translate and try to post in a language i can't speak, as it's better to let the reader of the post translate the english text themselves.

When you are on the server selection screen it tells you the timezones, and the regions... tho there are just 14 Europe regional servers, 1 Asian and one North American one. Of the 16 servers currently running: 9 are on UTC +1, 2 are on UTC -2, 2 are on UTC -5, 1 is on UTC +5, 1 is on UTC -8, 1 is on UTC 0.

INT1 is having it's timezone changed to UTC+0 at the next server restart (early hours of the 15/01/24) So that should give people some indication to what servers are going to have people on them from their area or the world.

The map sites are nothing to do with the SimRail team... so it's up to the owners of the map sites to update things for the new server names... the ones i use have been updated and are fully working, But some will need the maps owner to find time to make the changes. I just asked on discord and INT1 is being changed to UTC+0 at the next restart 🙂 I believe the server names were changed to try and show the servers are not specifically for use only by people who speak that language fluently (except PL2 where occasionally some people make things very very uncomfortable for you if you are not fluent in Polish) I read that the devs were getting constant questions from new players as to which server they need to use, when they speak xxx language and there is no server with that language designation. Some servers had very few users due to people thinking you have to be fluent in that language to use it, so the idea is to make people aware that the international servers are for everyone, the servers location is shown to help people choose the best one for them based on it's physical location (i.e. likely fastest connection... not that it matters really when the train locations are updated every 500ms... it's not like a FPS game where a 1ms delay means a lost shot) obviously when a group of people speaking the same language are in a specific server, that will over time become known as the one to use if you want to talk in that language by the regulars.

Totally agree, we need more keybinds... a subject i am kind of passionate about.. as i really hate using the mouse when pretending to drive a train.

(a post in the SP part of the forum spurred me to make this post) I've been making suggestions to have a keybind for every control that works in the trains since SimRail came out, and i'm not alone in asking for this, I'm one of those who really really does not want to have to touch the mouse at all when driving a train, as it breaks immersion big time. Most people i believe drive using the keyboard, and i can imagine that most people doing so do not enjoy having to have to grab the mouse, move the view, then drag a switch on or off, when most of the other controls have keybinds. i get that some people do drive solely using the mouse! 😬 for them keybinds do not matter anyway, everything already works with mouse clicks and drags. . We have been getting the odd handful of new keybinds added with each update, for which i am grateful for, i recall back when SimRail first came out, one dev said they could assign every function to a keybind if they wanted, then another said they would only assign functions that you use whilst in motion to keybinds, ones you'd use when stopped you can use the mouse for 😖 One of the reasons i once read about not having all functions bound to keys (not by a dev) was that there are only 78 keys (not including the F keys) that can be assigned on the average keyboard with a number pad, and you need about a quarter of those keys for non driving functions. But with the 3 modifier keys we can now use with those individual number and letter keys.. we get 312 keybinds we can assign. Plus we can also combine modifier keys... i.e. a keybind can be any combo of SHIFT and/or ALT and/or CONTROL plus the individual letter / number key, and we are now up to about 546 keybinds we can set. I am aware there's some issues with certain keybinds where modifier keys are used, causing the non modifier keybind to operate as well, i can only guess that's a bug as it's mostly with the keybinds added with the december 2024 update that it does that. Now if we could have the ability to assign joystick buttons in the keybind menu, then we really will never run out of key / button assignments.. as you can just keep plugging in more joystick boards in button boxes to get another set of buttons assignable. . . Finally... getting to the title subject: The keybinds menu for train driving is a bit confusing and long right now... it really needs an overhaul as there are entries all over the place, sets of switches that are grouped in the trains you have to hunt around for and so on (i.e. the light switches in the older loco's, headlight, cab light, instrument lights etc) An idea would be that we have the ability to bind keys / buttons to each train type... so you'd have multiple pages in the 'train driver' section with the different train types on each page that you can scroll sideways between, You can have a 'universal controls' page that shows up first when you click on 'train driver' key binds button. And that page has a button to click to set all trains to have the same keybinds copied over for all functions that the trains share between them (like power controls, brake lever movement, pantograph switches, cab activation switch, battery, horn, the 'all headlights on/off keybind' etc) Then you can go into the specific train page to assign keys individually, with different train types having different keybinds assignable if we choose..... say you want to use the left and right arrow keys to move the EU07's power wheel, and 2 keys above each other for the power lever in the EN96 and E186, different keys for the ED250 as that lever works differently to the EN96 and so on, same with the brake levers etc, like how we can save different seat positions for the different trains now. And you also have the key assignments for the buttons and switches found only in specific trains on those pages, like the emergency panto drop button in the EN57, cruise controls on the modern trains, door buttons on the EMU's, the multi position rotary light switch in the E186, the pulpit light switch and so on. . Another thing is that all toggle switches need to have a seperate on and off keybind, as there are 2 or more states those kinds of switches stay in when you release the keyboard key, Then add the ability to set the on and off keybind for toggle switches to be the same keybind if you want, i..e you press the same key once for on, press it again for off (but make that optional, keeping the ability to assign different keybinds to each state of a toggle switch as we have now with the pantograph, instrument and cab light switches etc) Then ideally have a different keybind for all rotary switch positions like is done with the radio channel keybinds, but also have the option to have a 'Next / Previous position' keybind to move the rotary switch around one notch each way as we have with the wiper and radio channel switches now.

i've reset all my keybinds, as somehow i had something stopping the fast move function moving for the power wheel and shunt levers. I've still got the need to press the 'new' keybinds twice to get them to react initially, i have noticed in the EP08-001 the headlight switches respond to the first press, the tail lights, high power and 'overall light' switches do not tho, they definitely need a double press to get them initially working.

Yes you can... i use 3D printed switch and button boxes as well as controllers to drive my favourite trains in SimRail... for me it's about immersion, i hate using a keyboard or mouse to drive a train. Can your button box be programmed to send keyboard keys? If so, then that's all you need to do, just program each button on it to send the relevant keyboard keys that you use to operate the controls in the trains (quite a few keybinds need assigning in the controls menu of SimRail first, a lot of things you operate with the mouse can be triggered with keybinds) If the button box only sends joystick buttons, then you can use a program like JoytoKey to change the joystick buttons into keyboard key presses... i use this myself for my home made button boxes that i use a joystick button board inside them. you basically just press each button on the button box with JoytoKey open, and select the input that shows up and set that to the relevant keyboard key that SimRail uses for that control in the trains. Below is a screenshot of the JoytoKey assignment i set up for my EU07 train switch panel :