Gazz292

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 :

The latest keybind additions that have only one action... the ones that you trigger the keybind once to turn the toggle switch on, and trigger the same keybind to turn the toggle switch off. So in the EP08-001 with the 5 individual toggle switches for the headlights, it does this with me for the headlight and tail light switches, also the left hand cab light switch does thas, as does the high current switch... first press does nothing, second press moves the switch and it responds fine after that. it does this from my keyboard as well as my switch panels, all the old single action keybinds work from the first trigger. : It would be really nice to have all 2 position switches (toggle and rotary ones) to have a seperate keybind for on and off, like we have for the pantograph switches etc, Then in the keybind setup menu, if you set both the on and off triggers to the same key, you then get the switch changing position for each press of that single key. This is mostly of use to people using button boxes, switch panels and controllers with 2 position switches, so if the real switch is in the wrong position to the one in the sim, changing the real switch position will sync the real switch to the sim's switch position, With a single keybind for on and off, changing the real switches position moves the switch in the sim to the other position... and is still the wrong position for the real switch, if that makes sense.

it all depends on the person who wrote the scenario... the original ones are still there and some are set to start cold, but later scenarios are set i believe part way through the day, so are a sort of mid shift crew change type thing, rather than taking a dead train into service. So they are just being true to real life, you don't cold start every train you take over, most of them are already running and in service, you are just taking over from the last driver,

I should have put that this should be an optional thing, with the ability to turn it on and off via the menu like you can turn the safety systems on or off etc. Perhaps it could be part of some things to help people with visual issues... like an option for colour blind people to adjust the signal colours so they can differentiate between them better,

Just posting a "little" update about what i've been doing with my controller project for the past year (my last post in may 2024 was just the Radmore style microphone being uploaded to the printables site) Basically i've done nothing much... i have of course been using my controllers whenever i drive trains in SimRail, just i haven't been doing that as often as i wanted, and i hadn't turned my 3D printers on for over 8 months, let alone fired up fusion 360 to work on any models. The reason for this is some medication i am on can work a bit too well at times, it's supposed to reduce the adhd hyper states where i start loads of different projects at once and never finish any of them before starting another load of projects, or deciding i want to sell the house and live as a hippy in a teepee in the woods. So it basically made me enter a 'can't be arsed' stage where i lost interest in pretty much everything in life (on the plus side... it's amazing how much weight you can lose when you only eat 3 crackers with cheese a day) .... other medical issues compounded things, it's been a miserable year weather wise where i live, and cold damp weather just causes me more pain than usual. Pretending to drive trains in SimRail helped me stay relatively sane... and i still managed to annoy people with my lengthy posts on the forum and discord. Then it was found i was very low on vitamin D (oohh err missus 😜) and i've had yet another pill added to my daily meds to combat this... possibly it's this that's kind of woken me up and got me back into wanting to make controllers again. . So here we are, near the end of 2024, and today i finally started the 3D printers up again and fired up fusion 360, then started playing about at making a new SimRail button box. My current button box was built to screw to the edge of a tiny overbed laptop table i used to have, that's why it is vertical when it should be horizontal, with the buttons and switches spread out across 5 rows. A change of bed to one with legs this time last year allowed me to get my much larger hospital overbed table out of storage, giving me much more room for controllers, but i simply placed the button box on the table to the left of my laptop and used it for a year. . So my next project is to make a more realistic button box that better resembles the switch panel found to the left of the power controller in the EU07 type loco's... below is the basics of what it will be, this one is going to be sized to fit in the 260 x 140mm space i have between the left side of my laptop and the edge of the laptop desk, without blocking the GPU exhaust vents. So again it's a compromise in size and the number of switches i can fit in, but the toggle 2 switches i've left out are for SHP and Czuwak light dimming, which do not have keybinds anyway. The push buttons i am using are 'only' 22mm outside diameter (the flat buttons having a 15mm actual button bit in the middle) so this is at least half the size of the real thing, but everything about this controller setup is sized to fit around a laptop on an overbed table, I will one day be making a full sized driving desk / cab after the input-output system is released for SimRail, that will be going in a room with my omsi bus driving cab and 3D printers. I do want to share the model files for the controllers i have made somehow, sharing just the .stl files would mean it's very hard for others to modify anything, but i'm not sure on how to share the model files from fusion 360... and then there's the thing that i often go back and tweak things as the controllers are evolving, Also i have not got a specific scale for my current controllers, everything is a mix up to what space i have on my laptop desk, so the brake levers are larger than the power controllers regarding scale. Then the biggest thing, writing instruction on how to assemble everything, there's a lot of parts that all go together a particular way to make everything work, and i'd end up writing a 200 page instruction manual that covers every eventuality including what to do if an asteroid hits the earth whilst assembling the controller 🤪

i really should have replied to the 'raildriver' post with the link that shows mine and a few other peoples controllers we are building instead of derailing this topic... now there's been replies if i change my original post, it will mess things up even more? The link to the controller build 'blog' :

As the owner of a raildriver i can confirm that the raildriver is horrible to use with european trains, people who don't own one often do not realise it's size either, it's only about the size of a shoe box!, so if you have adult sized hands it's levers are tiny.. the shafts of them feel like matchsticks in my hands, then you have the constant recalibration needed due to how loose the connections are to the electronics, and the need to leave 5 to 10mm of travel at each end of the throws to enable you to move the ingame control fully on or off. So about 3 or 4 years ago i started working on making my own 'Euro-raildriver' with 3D printed parts in a laser cut perspex case : The levers had fast swappable notch mechanisms that allowed me to change the levers feel to suit different european trains, and as i was making this to play tsw, i had to incorporate a way to change the controller mapping on the fly, as the tsw raildriver control assignments changed depending on which dev set them up for each train, The control reconfigurator is what goes in the empty holes on the top right of the top panel above : Unfortunately half the switches i'd made would never work due to the very limited keybinds and raildriver assignments in tsw, it would have been so much easier if i could have simply set each lever up as a joystick axis, and each switch and button as a joystick button input.... but the tsw devs said that as most people are happy to play with a keyboard or a console controller, there's no reason to spend time adding user assignable joystick inputs Then i really got disillusioned with tsw when they made it so you basically had to buy the game again to use new dlc's with it, so i gave up when tsw3 came out, and waited for SimRail to be released instead. So my Euro-raildriver controller sits on one of my 'never finished project' shelves, maybe to be brought to life one day when SimRail gets joystick inputs. . So... as i much prefer driving the EU07, EP08 and EN57 style trains in SimRail, i instead made some 3D printed controllers for my laptop desk to suit : The wheel and levers rotate potentiometers via gears, and arduino's inside each controller convert the movement into key-presses ... as that's all SimRail accepts for input right now, for the power wheel, reverser and shunt levers, and EN57 power, reverser and brake levers this is easy, as they all have notches for each position the arduino's simple send an increase or decrease key when the lever moved to a new notch. For the EU07 brake levers, the train brake lever has notches, but it also has the main portion of the travel smooth,9 for infinitely adjustable brake pressure in that section (like IRL), and the loco brake lever is just a 180 degree smooth travel with end stops. So for this to work the arduino's send an increase or decrease key-press for every few degrees the lever is moved, this isn't perfect and needs a stable fps rate to work reliably (thankfully my gaming laptop runs SimRail at between 40 and 100 fps, so i limit it to 60 fps and 95% of the time my brake levers stay in sync). But things will be so much easier when we get joystick support, and then when we get the full input / output system, i will go on to making the indicator lights and gauges work (in a similar way to my Omsi driving cab i built back in 2012) So for me too, it's the input / output system that i am mostly looking forwards to in SimRail, and for now every new keybind added makes me happy, as i really do not like driving the trains having to use the mouse to operate certain switches or buttons. . One day i may get into driving 'newer' trains a little more, as i have the driving desk from a BR111 wittenberger steuerwagen in storage that i've partially converted to work with the computer.... i got this originally to use with train simulator 2012 (now train simulator classic) , as that allowed input and output via an external program, but then i got into tsw for the better graphics, and realised tsw has very limited input, and is never going to get output options... so that kind of made that project useless... it's better to be used with Zusi, but i just can't accept it's outdated graphics 😞 So it was put in the storage container of projects i'll likely never finish (this was before i discovered SimRail) One day i may get back into connecting the BR111 driving desk to the computer, but before i do that i want to at the very least have made a full size 3D printed EU07 style driving cab (i'd really love to buy the real controls from a scrapped Polish loco, but when i have tried buying parts advertised in Poland before, i was met with hostility and told they do not want scrapped Polish train parts going to the uk, and that the Polish train simmers who are making driving cabs should get access to those parts firs, even tho i was willing to pay more to get what i wanted. But then there's the whole brexit thing that makes 'importing' even scrap parts much harder than it was when i got the BR111 driving desk and NG272 bus parts from Germany. Anyway, enough waffeling, i've really taken this post off topic... it was about how some people really hate SimRail and seem to want it to fail, and here's me going on about how much i love SimRail and am looking forwards to it's future.

The ZEW buttons on the Radmore radios in the EP07's, EP08's and ET22's do not make the tone sounds anymore, you just hear the buttons clicking as they are pressed then released. The ZEW buttons to make their proper tone sounds in the EN57's tho.

The recent update fixed the keybind for the anti slip brakes in the EP08... but it still does not work in the EU07 I apologise for not mentioning that this keybind did not work in both the EP08 and the EU07 in my last bug report on this issue, and thank the devs for working again over the weekend to fix bugs like this in this great simulator.

Drove an EN71 tonight and i noticed that using the keybind for 'Compartment Lighting' makes the momentary toggle switch on the trains driving desk stick in the up position.... in the EN57 and EN71 there are 2 spring loaded momentary switches for passenger lights on and off, if you operate the switches with the mouse, they spring back when you release them as expected. But using the keybind for 'Compartment Lighting' makes the switch get stuck in the upwards position... pressing the keybind a second time releases it. There is no keybind for 'Compartment Lighting OFF' so i assume this is the issue here? We really need all keybinds that operate toggle or rotary switches to have a seperate on and off keybind... as things like the pantograph switches do... or perhaps a set of train specific keybinds for the switches that are different in the different loco's / EMU's?

The fast move function does not seem to be working in the any of the EP07's, EP08's or the ET22 for the power wheel and shunt lever... i.e. where you press 'shift' plus the 'move power wheel' keys to rapidly move the wheel from say notch 43 to 28, then to notch 1, and then to notch 0 and vice versa. It does work for the brake levers, just not the power and shunt levers, just not the power controls.

i'm noticing that the newest keybinds added in the december patch... i need you to trigger them twice the first time i use them to get the switch in the cab to operate, after the first trigger they will respond immediately. This is annoying for the switches that are toggle switches or rotary ones, as i have moved my 3D printed switches and nothing happened, then when i move them back it triggers the function... but now my switches are reversed. This would be a lot better if we had dedicated on and off key binds for every switch that is a toggle or rotary switch in the trains... like the original cab light switch keybind has.

i can see what they are trying to replicate in the first 2 pictures ... the large amounts of water that runs down the windscreens from the roof when you slow down... i've noticed that it flows downwards below about 30 km/h, and upwards over until about 90 km/h where it will clear, it does need 'some' tweaking to get it more realistic tho... i wonder if it is the new water shaders making it appear different than expected? . in the other photo's i imagine that's the mist or dirty edges of the unwiped parts of the windscreen, in the 'settings.conf' file there are entries for : WindowsDirtStatus=True EnableFoggyWindowsController=False so i wonder if having the windows fog / mist up in wet cold weather is something being worked on?

That's exactly why i made this post... some people were expecting the 'full version' to have everything in it that was ever mentioned in dev logs, posts on discord and even posts random players said they wanted in the sim, and the wording on steam does imply that 😞 But from following on the forums and discord i knew that there was a lot of things we are getting later and not in this update, but people who only read the steam pages do not know this.