Gazz292

i like using the french communities version : https://edr.simrail.app/ This has the server time displayed that includes seconds, which is extremely handy for driving with the HUD off, so you know if you have 5 or 55 seconds left until the departure time, so don't have to keep watching the clock to see it advance that whole minute.

yeah, the EU07 / EP08 was what the fast move function was added for, Moves the power wheel round to notch 28, or 43, or back to 28 and to zero.. gotta remember you need to pause in notch 1 before wanging the wheel round to notch 28. But this also works in the pendolino you can do the same key combo to move the power lever all the way to zero (and i think full power) <oh bod, i've just admitted that i've driven one now... it was only once, honest, and i did it to test my kindle drivers timetable i'd just made> There's also the fast move to running position for the brake lever, this is a dedicated key tho, but some people don't know about that too.... nor that you need to press and release the apply key once... which moves the brake lever into the apply portion of the levers range, then you can press and hold the apply key and the lever moves round slowly, Press and hold the apply key without the first step and the lever flies all the way round. :::::::::: I've also just learnt that the battery charge source switch in the EU07 / EP08 works now, it's that big knife switch under the small flap next to the hot plate/ring, It is supposed to be used to apply external power to charge the batteries up when parked in the shed, but operating it whilst running will kill the battery power, so the volt meter goes to zero and the lights go out if you use it whilst driving!

Along the CMK, most are on the right hand side (driving from Warszawa to Katowice) but one group is on the left. They are usually near water.

SimRail has been out in Early Access mode since January 13th this year, so coming upto 5 months, As one of the people who bought the sim the day it was released (and took part in the play tests) it has received many improvements, new features ae added all the time, updates to the Ai dispatchers logic, performance fixes, a free extra train and route extension, new timetables and so on. Each update fixes things, and there's multiple behind the scene hotfixes and mini updates pushed out that are not shown by a big fanfare and a noticeable download from steam. So far the things we were told we'd get we have got, the team are actively working on lots of projects for the simulator, This is also something new, a multiplayer train driving and dispatching simulator, based on the simulator used to train real life drivers in Poland. Unfortunately being a multiplayer sim is attracts griefers and trolls, some people admit they bought it only because it was multiplayer, and have no interest in railways at all, some thought they could drive where they wanted when they wanted and have their mates along for a 'race with the trains, I regularly drive for 4 hours at a time, driving the full length of the main route, part of the fun is trying to keep on time, and just like the real life that SimRail is simulating, running late is just part of the job for a train driver, so is working out how to keep the service running to time part of the dispatchers job. Train driving can be boring at times, you drive the same route over and over (thats how you learn the route and improve on your skills, knowing where to brake, when to coast, when to go as fast as you are allowed, stopping at the right point at the station with a single brake application and so on) It sure would be ever more boring if every time you drove you got all green lights and you ran to schedule every time.

I know the speed limit over the junction / points plays a part too, There's a lot of 40 or 60 km/h junctions in the SimRail universe, so they are not going to be as smooth to go over than a 100+ km/h junction i'd guess, and a junction that can be traversed at 160 km/h + should be smooth as silk, SimRail is set in 2018, so even a cab ride on the PKP today may be 'more comfortable' than it was 5 years ago, as a lot of work is being put into upgrading the Polish railway network.

i only drive the EU/EP07 EP08 loco's in the sim, and the lurching on points is exactly what i'd expect, as the loco is very heavy and has basic coil spring suspension. Not sure if the multiple units lurch like the loco's do, they shouldn't ... as mentioned above by Schyrsivochter, they have air suspension and share the same ride comfort as the passenger carriages behind a (modern) loco hauled train, but i think the movement in the loco's is way to tame, all the in cab videos i've seen on the EU07 and similar loco's, the driver is bouncing around all over the place, one of the Polish loco's is nicknamed the bull, a reference to how badly it rides at speed, it's like riding on a bull / bucking broncho, and there's one loco that when they tried to run it at 140 km/h shook and jolted so much that the drivers couldn't focus their eyes on the signals and signs! : The other route in SimRail (can't recall it's name, not the CMK) that's through an area with lots of mines, so subsidence is present, causing bad track and hence the slow speeds on that part of the line, it's also fishplate joined track rather than continuously welded track, and the bumps over the track joins are 'alarming' but true to life (SimRail has people on the team that drive Polish trains for a living, so you'd expect they have got the physics correct, as they have so much detail in how the loco's work)

is this based on you having cab rides or being a Polish train driver? the cab sway is very very tame compared to how it is in real life driving a 100 ton loco with metal wheel on metal tracks, so going over the frog of the points will give you a lurch when you are taking the diverting route, As for the level crossings, they are realistic to how they are in Poland, where some of them sound until the train has passed the crossing, unlike other countries where they sound only whilst the barriers are closing,

i have an idea to make force feedback levers one day, i.e. the traxx power and brake levers, But i want to start with using something anyone could use, i.e. an off the shelf force feedback wheel and a little program / API that run on the computer to turn it into a train power control wheel Then i can get into making a FFB lever from scratch using an arduino to control the motor and output, and as many 3D printed parts as i can, so others can make them without needing a machine shop. I did make a 'mostly' 3D printed mechanical set of levers last year, with interchangeable notch plates to suit different trains, but that was when i was messing with tsw... but after waiting almost 5 years the promised joystick control interface never materialised, and i gave up... on the controller build and that game.

there's a good 5 or more small groups of cows in SimRail's universe. But if you have the 'vegetation density' slider on max, all but one are pretty much hidden in all that procedural flora... i lowered my vegetation density slider a bit and no longer get drops below ~30fps... at some points before i got as low as 8fps for short times... and it was in the middle of the countryside not in the cities... thats what led me to try the vegetation density thing (i also get less corn growing on roads and along the cuttings where it shouldnt be) The only sheep i've seen is called Shaun, and he drives the trains.

that's exactly what i'm thinking... people will have a force feedback wheel already, or can buy one pretty cheaply (i paid £50 for my Logitech driving force GT, 900 degree wheel) Find a way to interface with it and set a 'notch map' and we have an awesome and realistic way to operate the EU07's power wheel. Anything i find out about this i will share here

The EU07 loco's use a 'steering wheel' to adjust the power, a single rotation of just less than 360 degrees, with 43 notches, each one being an increase or decrease in power (ignore the bit about how it's working on the train with the resistances being switched in / out etc) Most people into train sims are also into road based driving games / sims, so likely have a force feedback steering wheel already, and i know a lot of people lack the skills, equipment and time to build custom controllers from scratch. So how about using that 'store bought' force feedback wheel to drive the EU07 ? To do this would need 2 things, a program which can 'emulate' a static force feedback map, and the output from moving the wheel to send a keyboard press for increase or decrease power (until we get controller support in the sim) Now programming is where i fall flat on my face, so i am wondering if there's anyone out there who has an idea if this can be done... Rather than having the FFB wheel connect to the game being played as usual, we'd run a program that connects to the wheel and sets up a static 'notch map' So the wheel will move around from 'straight ahead' to 180 degrees to the left, and then when you grab hold of the wheel and turn it to the right, you feel the feedback increase, then you go 'over the hump of the notch' and the wheel clicks into the first power setting, After a pause you turn the wheel some more, clicking through the notches that feel like turning a big heavy rotary switch, a heavier notch is present at notch 28 (the series / parallel motor connection point) then again more clicking / clunking as you move through to notch 43, where the feedback stops you going any further. When we get more trains in SimRail that use these notch wheel / handle types of power controls, we could have multiple different 'notch maps' that we set to match the train we are driving, i.e. the EN57... that uses a handle to rotate through i think 7 notches, so again the FFB wheel could be used to drive that train. Got 2 FFB wheels and the ability to mod things a little... remove the wheel and fit a handle and you have a brake lever... again a notch map is sent to the wheel and the force feedback generates the resistance and clicks as the brake lever is moved around (i know most car type FFB wheels point at about a 75 degree angle off vertical, but an L shaped piece of wood clamped or screwed to the desk will allow the wheel to clamp on, rotated upwards so the wheel points almost straight up, i did this for my Omsi driving desk) I had an idea a few years ago about making force feedback train driving levers of the types used in modern trains, there i was going to use an arduino to control it, and someone on the arduino forum made this graph to show the feedback profile for the notches: Can this be done with a windows program / API that would communicate with a standard shop bought FFB steering wheel? I found a website that lists how Linux does force feedback, would that be possible to use on a windows program / API to send a static 'notch map' to the FFB wheel? https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/v4.13/input/ff.html

The 411xx services going the other way are booked to arrive in Katowice station at 1 minutes past the hour.

i'd ignore the time zone thing when searching for when to take over a train to drive it for as long as possible, Pretty much all trains run every hour or half hour, with a few after midnight running every 2 hours, So say you want to drive a 141xx service from Warszawa Wschodnia to Katowice, a distance of about 250 km and takes upto 4 hours to drive, Those trains are timed to arrive in Warszawa Wschodnia station at 26 minutes past the hour.... So one will be at the station at: 10:26 11:26 12:26 13:26 14:26 and so on so thats around the time when you want to be looking for them to appear on the train selection screen on the server you chose to drive on. Now if you are like me and love the EU07 / EP08, and hate the traxx, every 3rd service on the 141xx / 411xx services is a traxx, so i have a choice of 2 hourly trains i'll drive, then one i wont,

from what i've learnt, there's no 'universally accepted' 'EBuLa' equivalent in Polish trains, There are a few systems that run on tablets / laptops, and maybe even one of the MFA screens in trains like the traxx, but it is pretty much an electronically stored copy of the paper timetable. ( .... i could be wrong here... and there is a fully integrated electronic timetable which auto updates your position along the route as you move like the German EBuLa does, but from what i've seen it's pretty much the same info as on the paper timetables, i.e. no gradient warnings, no Esig, Asig, BKsig entries to tell you where important signals are, or when you would be clear of points, and likely no La part, which is temporary speed limits downloaded over the GSM-R radio, mind i don't think the German version ever got the 'La' part fully working either. So the simrail.express timetables, if you display them on a tablet / 2nd screen give you an approximation of what to expect. I know you want in sim / on main screen timetables, and i know that the SimRail devs are working on that project. So for now an external drivers timetable is the best we have, i.e. the ones from simrail.express.

i turned my 'Vegetation Density' slider down to 80% to tame back the jungle a bit I gained a good 15+ fps, and i notice things i missed before.... like there's at least 4 groups of cows in the fields along the CMK, with the veggie slider on 100% they were hidden in tree's /corn so i only saw the one group of cows that are right by the tracks.

Can i ask what makes you think the signs should only be on low posts? A genuine question, as i am wondering if the signs and signals guide i made needs some things clarifying on it.... like i've read that some people think that distant signals are only 2 aspect signal heads, as i didn't make it clear in my guide that almost any 'main' signal head can be a distant one, as long as it has the W1 sign Infront of or on the signal post.

i think here it shows how different the language based communities are, On the French servers it seems to be polite, professional, friendly, Yet on some of the other servers it's more like 'i got here first, hahaha, i'm staying on this post all day, and i'll do the same tomorrow and the next day and the next.... screw you' Even some people discussing how they are making a macro/code thing that will get them into their favourite dispatcher post before anyone else the second it becomes free, ------------ Similar with the radio... on the EN servers it's pretty quiet, and radio com's are about train running and what you'd expect for a railway radio. Yet the drivers timetables that 'Zapach Kreozotu' made, he put text on his timetables telling people : "Use your radio for essential communications only. Do not abuse." And i read something about on some of the Polish servers the radio topic is always about 'Mariana's ass' !? 🤔

from what i've heard, operating the signal boxes in single player mode would require a lot of server side stuff to be made local, and that would give the asshat's who pirate games what they need to get SimRail pirated 😞 Same with private servers, not going to happen due to piracy issues. Quite often on Discord the topic of a dispatchers points systems comes up, i don't know if it's changed recently, but having the requirement to operate a dispatchers post based on time spent driving trains isn't really working. Something like they earn points operating smaller posts, work their way up to the larger boxes, then lose points for every Sz signal they use unless it is a valid option, lose points for misrouting trains and so on, lose to many points and they get demoted to a simpler post until they build the points back up again,

Sometimes happens to Ai trains when spawning (only way i can imagine this happened... the loco was stopped at a red signal further up the track on the left) )

i don't play as dispatcher myself.... but i can see how it must be frustrating for people who'd like to try out the bigger dispatcher posts, but see the same people in it all the time. Someone on discord was talking about writing something that would automatically log him into his favourite post, basically by automatically spamming the server with requests to join the post he wanted, so the second it becomes free, he's in it (thankfully i believe there are things in place to prevent this, but it can't be nice to think that same person in the best post is there due to an unfair advantage) At least with driving the trains, your shift ends at the final station, and if you are driving the ~4 hour / 270 km long passenger services, there is a new one every hour (even if now every 3rd one is a damn traxx) so others get to drive them. there is nothing to stop someone playing the same dispatcher post all day long every day apart from server restarts 3 times a day. So something needs to be done, a shift system would be what i'd go for, with the lesser used posts having longer shifts available.... something that will help spread out the dispatchers over more servers too, as for the english community, everyone wants in on EN1, whilst EN2 and 3 are pretty much empty... except for the newest big dispatcher posts.

made V 2 a few weeks ago... has train head / tail light position added.

it's often all red, or all green (like the catenary masts sometimes go red or green... i assume this is the base colour and the texture map has failed to load) But not long ago i saw this.... rather groovy i thought, in a 1970's psychedelic way 🤯

Are you able to show the server time with seconds? Often the server time is 5 or more seconds behind real time, but also it's handy to glance over and see that departure time is in say.. 28 seconds. rather than just having minutes showing and wondering if it's about to change to the next minute, or has just changed and you have another 58 seconds to wait till departure time.

about a month ago there was an open invitation for people who can model trains and routes to get onboard and produce content for SimRail, That's how we have the German route being built, plus i believe an american one and more, SimRail is still in early access, has only been released to the public for less than 5 months, there are still bugs to work out, things to get working properly, new timetables to be released, until all that's sorted out there's no point releasing an editor, as things are changing all the time with how SimRail works.

i'm waiting for controller support before making my control desk (tho i have already made a Radmor style microphone and an EU07 style horn lever that i use in SimRail) I 3D printed a desktop controller last year to drive the German trains in tsw, but 5 years after they promised controller support, they still didn't provide it, so i gave up.. with both the controller and tsw. I really hope we get the kind of controller support they have in railworks / train sim classic, with 2 way communication, i.e. you can query the position of a control in the train, then command it to move and check it actually has moved where you wanted it to. And also when you first start the sim up, it will set the trains controls to where your controllers are set at. Much better that sending a command to move a control and just hoping it's received... a bit like now when if the FPS is low it misses inputs from the keyboard. But as you can likely tell, the coding / programming side of things is where i struggle, i'm a mechanical guy so have no problems making the actual controls,