Gazz292

The rules for Auto Block Signals state that you can pass them on red after stopping for a short time (few seconds) then travel at a max of 20 Km/h being prepared to stop at any obstruction ahead, This is because they are automatic signals and could be 'stuck' showing a red aspect, AFAIK a dispatcher can not give you permission to pass an Auto Block Signal over the radio, as they are not in control of those signals. so you'd be sat forever at a stuck red signal causing a traffic jam behind you. You can then speed up to route speed when you pass a non red signal, otherwise you can keep passing red Auto Block Signals, Obviously you can't pass a Semi Automatic Signal at red unless it's showing Sz (flashing white light) Then it's 40 Km/h, dropping to 20 Km/h when you exit pass the last Semi Automatic Signal and enter into the Auto Block Signal area. So the Ai trains are just doing what they should be doing, and human driven trains can do the same. This is just another thing that SimRail is doing correctly according to the Polish railway rules.

wait till it's dark in the sim, press 'N' whilst driving a train, get blinded by your torch shining back at you in the windscreen. I do wonder if other players see where the torch beam is pointing at? It moves with your head, and as i use TrackIr, where ever i move my head IRL moves the view in the sim, and the torch beam follows.... do others see this? (and do others see my drivers head move when i move it via TrackIr?)

what's wrong with the one we already have?

The sound i hear could be inverter / converter whine, aparantly the 'head end power' is 3kV DC sent down the jumpers to the carriages, there it gets changed to the lower voltage and to AC as needed. In the uk i think we varied from 800 volts single phase AC, and 415 volts AC 3 phase to power the electric carriage heating and the kitchen equipment (water boilers, grills, microwave, hotplate etc) ... that was in the HST trains, tho the voltage dropped to about 276 volts per phase when the power car's engine was idling, going back to 415 volts when it was at full speed.

The air conditioners sound works in the IC carriages, Turn the train heating switch on then walk back along the train, and as you get close to the air intake grills on the sides of the carriages you will hear a high pitched whine, which i presume is the air con compressors or the fans running. cycling through the camera views with number 4 key so you are looking inside on of the carriages near the middle and you'll hear the sound too. Turn the heating switch off, and the carriages are quiet again.

Issue the dispatchers with sun glasses ? 😎

Please please please... can we get some more key binds? Maybe add them to the 'buttons.conf' file and not the controls menu if that is getting too full??. This is done now, in the buttons.conf file there are a couple of entries that are not shown in the controls menu: TEST=T shp=Z buttonMove=LeftControl There used to be a TEST2 = Y.. but that was taken out a while back. Then people who really want to have more key binds can set them up in the settings.conf file, and the other people who are happy to use the mouse to drive just carry on as if they didn't exist. I have 96 keys on my laptop keyboard that could be assigned to operate things, and there are currently about 58 key binds in use (6 of which i hardly use as i drive the EU07 almost exclusively... i.e. door controls and cruise control) So there's room for 38 more key binds before we need to think about adding in modifier key functionality... i.e. shift + a key, control plus a key etc, which would triple the number of key binds possible. Would it be possible to add extra key binds to the settings.conf file and not have them set to any keys to start with? i.e something like 'WindscreenWashers=NULL' and we change the null to a key we want to use? or set all new key binds to the same key, something like F20 which most keyboards don't have, but is a valid windows key assignment. : Key Bind's i'd like to get are (all in the EU07) : Windscreen washers Traction motor overload reset Wheel slip brake button Compressor switch Converter switch Main power switch on and off Open line contactors (for when you are about to pass a neutral section sign and can't wind the power wheel to zero fast enough) Brake mode selection rotary switch High / Low power switch Maybe the headlight / tail light switches to set for left track running. Radio channel change up / down keys (would rotate the channel selector in the EU07, operate the radio channel up / down buttons in the other trains) Radio ZEW buttons

yeah, that was all part of the plan to get you to buy all the DLC they made, even if you didn't have an interest in the route, if you wanted to see more than the same old dosto's passing you another £24.99 was needed to add a couple more trains to the route you liked... .... then another £24.99 and another... suddenly the game that you bought in a sale for £5 has cost you £250 and counting, and that was just for the German content which was all i was interested in from the choice of 3 countries that they covered then. : But their bug fixing was appalling, every bug being graded from 'game breaking so we'd better fix it asap or we'll lose customers' to 'meh!, can't be arsed with that, leave it as is... only 500 people have noticed it so far anyway'

what for? If it's for where i used an STM32F bluepill, i'd say no way, when i bought them they were £2 each (they are £5 each now) they have more inputs than most arduino's (especially for their size) much faster processor, and it's 32 bit Vs 8 bit, way way more memory, seen as a HID device easily (only a few arduino's can do that without flashing custom firmware on them) But they can be programmed as an arduino if you want (STMduino) But for the joystick / button box thing, it would take a hell of a lot of arduino code to get the functionality of FreeJoy, which once loaded onto the board uses a GUI to program it, much better than changing lines of code to set up all the inputs how you want... especially with debouncing, press timers and changing state switches to give a pulsed output etc. Now for where i used the 2 button keyboard, or the macro pad, then the small arduino pro micro's may have been better, But not for the microphones PTT key board, that is a single button board that plugs directly into a usb port, and was ideal for where i used it, plugged in the hub so the mic's PTT key presses against the button. But again, with arduino's it's programming them, and having to change lines of code each time you want to change an inputs assignment gets old fast, much better to start the GUI programming software, press the button you want to change, then 2 or 3 mouse clicks and it's changed and working. IF it's for the force feedback wheel as a train power wheel controller idea, then yes an arduino would likely have it working pretty fast, but that then means for anyone else to do the same they need to rip the main board out of their FFB wheel that they likely want to still use for driving games, So the idea of a windows program that takes control of the wheel, sending it a fake / test FFB signal that makes it act like a notched power wheel is a way to allow almost anyone to drive the EU07 type trains with a wheel.

And finally (for now) ... my EU07 inspired button box: Side view showing the toggle switch covers off better: This is a 3D printed box, 3D printed switch covers in the style of those used in the train, a 3D printed cab activation key, battery switch surround and switch cover, and some 16mm (22mm head) anodized alloy mushroom buttons, and some 19mm flat top push buttons (to which i applied a circle of label tape in red and green. All wired to an STM32F 'blue pill' board which is running FreeJoy, this sends joystick button presses to the computer, where i use JoyToKey to convert them to keybinds / key presses that SimRail can work with. Below is the inside of the box showing my messy wiring between the switches and the blue pill board: The toggle switches are the paddle type that look like this : As the 3D printed switch covers are thinner than the paddle width (i first made them full width, but it didn't look right), i shaved down the edges until there was about a 4mm wide stub left, and over this i glued on my 3D printed EU07 style switch covers: The cab activation key is a 4 position 90 degree rotary switch, locked to 2 positions with the tang washer they come with, then a 3D printed surround and key that pushes on the D shaft, The battery switch is just a 3D printed switch cover and surround to make it look a little like the battery switch in the loco. As i am limited to how wide i could make this switch box i had to make it taller than wide to get on all the buttons i wanted, of course only half the switches and buttons work, this is because SimRail has limited keybinds, i'll have to beg the devs to enable more keybinds, like the traction motor overload reset, wheel slip button etc. The FreeJoy screen showing how i set my toggle switches up: FreeJoy is rather good in that it allows me to use a single 'signal' wire from each toggle switch, then i use the 'toggle switch ON/OFF' function and a timer, and this sends a button push command for 200 milliseconds each time the switch changes position, JoyToKey then changes this button pulse into a keypress, and SimRail thinks i am pressing say the K key on the keyboard that i have set to turn the cab light on and off. I have about 10 spare inputs on the blue pill / freejoy, so a switch that has 2 states can easily be added (and more switches added with a simple latch register board, as freejoy can handle over 100 button input and outputs, plus 8 axis, and rotary encoders etc. __________________________________ Driving my favourite loco in SimRail is even more awesome now that i have these controls to operate it with, one day i hope to make a full sized cab replica.... or at least a semi universal train driving cab for driving the wheel type power controller trains (i have the real driving desk from a German BR111 train in storage, when i get the space i will get that set up to control the lever type loco's (traxx, pendulio, elf etc) My next project for now tho is to try and find someone good at writing windows programs who can help me use a force feedback steering wheel as used for road driving games, and make that operate like the EU07's power wheel, so you'd rotate it and it would click between virtual notches, and increase or decrease the power in the loco, Then i'd make a 3D printed brake handle that i can put on the wheels shaft in place of the steering wheel, and have a brake lever using a second cheap force feedback wheel, and a different 'indent and friction' map to match the brake lever in the trains. Me asking for help with programming for that project is here :

Breaker one - nine, this here's the rubber duck, i think we got ourselves a convoy... It just didn't feel right holding down a keyboard key and talking into space when contacting the dispatcher in SimRail, and as i drive the EU07 / EP08 99% of the time, i just had to get myself a Radmor style microphone. I did want to get a complete Radmor radio telephone set, but it seems all the people who have been playing MaSzyna have bought them up, so when one does come up for sale it's at a silly price. Just finding a microphone on it's own was hard enough, when i did find one the owner would not ship to the uk, and to be honest i'd have had to gut the internals anyway, so i figured a 3D printed one would be better, and others could perhaps copy it and make themselves a Radmor style mic too (one day i will 3D print the switch plate part of the Radmor radio (if we get the input to change channel and adjust the VOIP volume added to SimRail) This is a render from Fusion 360 of the front half of the mic: I designed it to hold all the parts in place that make it work, and the only soldering needed was to attach the key to the neokey board, Inside is a 3 port usb hub, a coiled usb extension cable plugs into that through the mic case (so can be unplugged when it's assembled) a usb microphone dongle, and a single key usb board which sends the keybind to SimRail to activate the mic (programmed with 'circuit py' but it's a drag and drop method of loading on code that's already written, like the code i have that sends the relevant keybind that i use for push to talk in SimRail). Other parts are a spring, 5 x M3 screws and a 50mm tweeter cover that i sprayed grey before gluing into the hole in the front of the mic (then a 3D printed trim ring glues onto that) And finally the microphone holder... 3D printed too of course : My mic holder has a bolt on horizontal arm that fixes to the back of one of my tablet mounts, but a desktop mount could be made, wall mount, or one that would fix to the back of a monitor with double sided tape. To use it in SimRail i just had to set the microphone used to be the plug n play dongle rather than the laptops main mic, and that's it, the neokey trinkey sends the keybind i set for push to talk in SimRail, and i have `the red led of the trinkey board light up when i have pressed the PTT button (can be seen through the mic grill) If anyone was interested in 3D printing themselves a Radmor style microphone (or any other things i 3D printed here), i can upload the .stl files to thingyverse, and make a materials list of all the parts i used.

Not to blow my own horn.... My EU07 inspired horn lever, I used a 2 way joystick switch, a 2 button usb mini keyboard and a 3D printed case that allows the horn lever to be mounted to the underside of my desk... so i reach over and down for the horn when i'm driving the train, just like you would in the real thing, The joystick switch is one of these: i replaced the black ball for a 20mm red one (i've got 4 'spares as i had to buy 5) I also removed the rubber bellows from the shaft. The 2 switches are wired to a 2 button usb keypad (a wasteful and expensive way to do this, an Arduino pro-micro or similar that can be programmed as a HID keyboard would have been a better option, but at the time i was not up to programming an Arduino, so used an off the shelf hack) I disabled all the RGB lights on the key pad and set up the 2 key binds to be the ones i use for horn high and horn low. Then the joystick and mini keypad were stuffed into a 3D printed case and screwed to the underside of my small 'shelf / desktop that my mouse / track ball sits on :

This and the next couple of posts will go into more detail about the controllers i use / built. I'll start with the macro pad with 3 rotary encoders and 12 keys, which is a shop bought item : The macro pad above can be found by searching for '3 knob macro pad' there are a few different types and their prices vary wildly.. amazon will be the most expensive of course, as you are paying for the convenience of getting it next day, but if you can wait for delivery from china, they can be had for £25+. I've changed the keycaps to 're-legendable' ones, and changed the outer 2 knobs to quick turn dimple ones... i got the keycaps from 'The Pi Hut' and the knobs of amazon (at inflated prices of course) The macro pad was very simple to set up once i downloaded the correct setup software: Above is the programming software setting up my top right key for 'emergency brakes' which i have set to be 'Backspace' in SimRail (my macropad is rotated 90 degrees to the layout on the screen... and keys 13 - 16 do not apply to this pad.... you can also set up 3 different key maps if you want to with the 'Layer' function, then press a tiny button on the side of the macropad to change between them. I set the right hand encoder to send the 'power increase' key bind for every click as it's rotated right, and the 'power decrease' key bind when it's rotated left... it has 20 indents / clicks, so takes just over 2 full turns to wind the power wheel right round in the EU07/EP08. I also set the button on that encoder (push the knob down) to activate the 'fast move' function, so i can press and hold the knob down and rotate it a little, and the power wheel in the sim will move to notch 28, 43, or zero depending on which way i rotate the knob. The middle knob is the 'shunt lever' again it sends a key stroke for each indent you move it past to move the lever in the sim up and down. And the right hand knob is the train brake lever, with the push down function being the key bind to move the brake lever directly to the running position. The keys i have set up simply to send the relevant key bind for the functions that i have printed key cap labels to show, i.e. i have 'V' as wipers, so pressing that button on the macropad sends the letter V to the sim. I really like twiddeling the horizontal knob to move the EU07's power wheel, shunt lever and brake lever, it's much better than pressing and holding keyboard keys, but not as nice as using a proper wheel, which i will build one day. Another post of mine in this forum is about an idea to use a force feedback steering wheel as the trains power wheel, <link to that post. However for this to work it will need a windows program writing to send a 'notch map' to the wheel, which produces the feedback in the form of notches that you move through as you rotate the wheel, then a way to read the wheels angle and convert that to key presses for increase or decrease power each time the wheel is moved around one more notch. Unfortunately programming is not something i'm any good at, so my only hope is for someone who can write windows programs to be interested in that idea and help me with it... i have an idea to 3D print a brake lever that will screw onto the force feedback wheels' shaft, after removing the steering wheel, so with 2 ffb wheels you could get both power controller and brake lever functions.

I've been messing around the past few months designing and 3D printing a few different things that i use to drive the trains in SimRail, plus learning excel to make drivers timetables. So i thought i'd start a topic to show them off, and for others to post pics of what they use to drive the trains (that is not a standard boring keyboard 🙂) the idea being to give others ideas that they can build on and make similar or better versions of controllers. Proper controller support is being worked on according to a 'roadmap' type post on steam / discord, when that is available i can imagine there will be lots more people who start building / adapting controllers for their favourite train, but for now we have to send key binds / keyboard key presses to operate any controls and i know some people are holding off making controllers until we get proper axis support for moving the main controls of the trains. My favourite train is the EU07 / EP08, so you will notice my controllers are based on operating that train. I have some disability issues so i am confined to my bed at times, so i use a gaming laptop to drive in SimRail (Lenovo Legion 5 Pro) and this is sat on an overbed table... it has a Tobii enabled webcam built in, and i use this face tracking to allow my view in the sim to move as i move my head (Tobii camera talks to FaceTrackNoIr which outputs TrackIr data that SimRail reads) As you can see in the photo above, i have added 2 android tablets and a kobo clara HD e-ink reader either side of the laptops screen, they are held in Brodit mounts connected to 3D printed arms connecting them to the mounts on the frame and desk of the table, my phone sits in that empty brodit car charger mount below the right hand tablet (it's in my hand taking the photo here) The right hand 10 inch tablet i run a remote system monitor on most of the time, shows me how the laptop is doing when i am driving in SimRail without having to display any kind of overlay on the main screen, I average 60fps @ 2560 x 1600 resolution (it's a 16:10, 165Hz screen) and the laptop has never gone above 75 degrees C for the CPU or GPU <3070Ti> when running SimRail at all max settings, except for the 'Vegetation Density' slider that i set to 80%. To the left of the big tablet is my Kobo Clara 6 inch e-ink reader (like a kindle.... but better 🙂 ) on this i display my version of drivers timetables so i can drive with the HUD off, they are similar to the ones at SimRail Express but i adjusted the layout and removed 3 columns that were just repeating the same info over and over, this is to allow the content to fit properly on the little 6 inch screen and fill it fully.. i.e. no borders as every mm is needed, I also show all speed limits along the line including temporary ones on my version of the timetables. The 7 inch tablet on the left is always running the French SimRail live map and EDR when i drive in SimRail. Mounted to the left of that tablet is my 3D printed Radmor style microphone, which i use when talking to dispatchers / other drivers in SimRail. Below the small tablet is my EU07 'inspired' button box. To the right of the laptops keyboard is a macro pad with 3 rotary encoder knobs. And below the side table with the tracker ball on is my horn lever. : I'll go into more detail in the next posts about the individual controllers / microphone etc.

blimey, SimRail is getting more and more realistsic, glad i made the update to my signs and signals guide to add the train light settings, as it look's like we will have more than just setting the left headlamp to red when traveling on the left track.

Have you played railworks / train sim classic? the sound in that is miles better than tsw, tsw has always had sound issues, a lot of it due to their 32 sound limit, at one point they even admitted they had issues with sound and said 'we may have to look into getting in a professional sound engineer to look at the problem' !!! They are a multi million £ company, and won't pay for a professional to sort their sounds out until half the community complains (and as of when i gave up on tsw last year, the sound system was still pretty crap to my ears as afaik they haddn't got this 'sound pro' in to look at the issue.

well, tsw was always intended to be a cash cow, they worked out that their average player does not have the attention span to handle more than 90 minutes, so thats the limit for most routes they make, this results in short routes, They boast about their longest route yet, a 'whopping' 186 km!! but that's driven at 280 km/h, so is over in about 40 minutes. Only they are allowed to release routes / trains, or a select few 3rd parties who do so on a franchise basis... so tsw gets a cut of course. But their whole strategy is release as many DLC's as they can, they try to release a new route or train every 3 months, again they worked out their average player needs something new that often to keep them interested in their game, due to their scripted runs being the same every time, it's not long until you know exactly what the signals will be and when train will pass you each time you do the run.

tsw really does not do sounds that well, Drive a train in railworks / train sim classic to see how railway sounds should be done... simple things like reverb so the horn echo's a bit when sounded in a tunnel or cutting, the sound when you go over a bridge / viaduct is simply awesome, both tsw and SimRail do not play any different sounds in this case... hopefully thats for the future in SimRail. tsw does have a major issue with being limited to 32 sounds played at any one time, that is way to few sounds channels for a train simulator, you notice this a lot with lack of flange squeal in all but a few places, and when you do hear the flange squeal it's a simple repeated (badly) loop with no variation playing on the loco only, and you notice you have lost the track clicking sounds to allow the squeal to play.

just noticed there is a new entry in the 'settings.CONF' file.... for: VL_EnableWind=False Not sure if that's for sound or effects, i.e. tree's moving more than the do now. I changed it to true, but no extra noise when cab windows opened, i thought i heard more wind noise around the train, but i could be imagining that.

you do get to hear external ambient sounds tho... like frogs croaking, station announcements, church clocks chiming (in 24 hours... i.e. 20 gongs for 20:00) etc when you open the cab window.

sounds like you have 'settings.CONF' file set to read only? people usually do this to stop their modifications to draw distances being set back to stock every time they open the menu, but this also means that updates that change / add new items to that file do not happen, and any changes you make in the menu wont be saved for next time. The 'settings.CONF' file is where it stores your preferences for HUD items, use TrackIr or not and so on. C:\Users\%username%\AppData\LocalLow\SimKol\SimRail\settings.conf Here's part of mine, i have TrackIr always on, and all Hud items off except the notifications one... thats the pop out messages top right of the screen telling me i'm being penalised for speeding etc. : In_TrackIR=True ------- UI_Default_State_Timetable=False UI_Default_State_Notifications=True UI_Default_State_TrackInfo=False UI_Default_State_Speedmeter=False UI_Default_State_Chat=False UI_Default_State_User_mini_profile=False :

Thing you got to be careful about with allowing made up incidents, is what happened in the early days of SimRail... before the 'no track closing, events etc' was added to the XX1 servers descriptions, That was one dispatcher deciding they would make up a reason to have a track closed. then the next dispatcher along wanted in on the action, so made up that there was an illegal rave in the goods yard and people were using the main lines as toilets, Then the next dispatcher made up that the over head lines had been stolen, the next dispatcher said that cows were shagging on the tracks... And so on, All great fun for the individual dispatchers they thought, but totally unrealistic and annoying for the drivers who were stuck in queues spending 2 hours getting past a section that should be cleared in 5 minutes, where all the 'issues' were in the heads of the dispatchers in question.... i.e. no shagging cows to pass or the need for a tow from a diesel engine past the missing overhead lines. In real life trains would be cancelled, terminated short, replacement busses but on etc, And in real life there are not that many incidents in such a short section of line, especially not every day, if there were the line would go bankrupt due to no one wanting to use it, So in a way, normal operation is the every day normal for a train driver, with just the odd speed restriction here and there perhaps... but also gotta remember that no 2 runs will be the same in SimRail, due to the human factor. : SimRail is going to enable it's built in random failures sometime, so i think it should be left to the sim to decide on when these incidents occur, with the exception of the certain servers which do allow role play (that i avoid for that very reason)

so, there's this SDK for adding force feedback to games for logitech wheels : https://www.logitechg.com/en-gb/innovation/developer-lab.html but i have no idea what to even look at, i've never written a windows app/program before (writing simple arduino sketches is my limit... and that's modifying existing ones usually) What i'm thinking... you know with a FFB wheel's software you get some 'test effects', i.e. press a button and the wheel shakes left to right, press another and it wangs right around from stop to stop etc. Could a constant effect be sent to the wheel i wonder, in the form of a sine wave shaped 'notch map' from this test like thing, allowing the the wheel to produce the notches of the power wheel as it's rotated, Then output the wheel position signal, which can somehow be made to give a keyboard key 'press' for each notch that is moved to in one direction, another keyboard key press in the other direction.

I read UK train drivers 'lives / autobiography' books a lot, i am always reading about how much a loco lurches, bumps and bangs about on the 'road' This is what helps the driver know where they are along the route even in the dark, some of the descriptions of the 'kicks' from the different points sound like 5mph faster and the train would have derailed... yet they were traveling at the line speed. A common trick to play on someone who had managed to get a cab ride pass was to give them a cup of tea just before you set off, then watch as they spill it all over the place from the 'normal ride' of a locomotive.