Gazz292

i have to admit i haven't driven a pendo at night, i drive the EU07 / EP08 almost exclusively (i even set my keybinds to be more suited for that train, i.e. my left and right arrow keys move the power controller wheel to the left and right, and up and down arrow keys move the shunt lever up and down) The lights from the EU07 / EP08's are pretty much as i'd expect, they are certainly brighter than a uk train from the 60's for sure, i believe the Polish trains had these massive bucket headlights (even the steam trains had them) due to the Sz signal thing, where the driver has to 'drive on sight at upto 20km/h' So i believe the EU07/EP08's headlights are realistic, and certainly put out enough light to spot an obstruction ahead when you are doing 20km/h, But as you go faster your headlights would need to illuminate to your braking distance, which is over 1 Km on most passenger trains, and can be 2 or 3 km on a heavy freight. In a car you do need bright headlights, you have to expect obstructions around every corner, get close to other cars ahead who can decide to stop dead Infront of you, also you can position your car anywhere on the road, swerve around obstacles, and stop from 100km/h in about 60 meters with modern antilock brakes. in a train the brakes haven't even begun to apply along the whole length of the train within 60 meters of moving the brake lever.

Last time i pretended to drive a train at night, the signals were lights themselves, which show up even better when it's dark, even the old semaphore signals had oil lights in their coloured glasses to allow them to be seen at night, If anything, high intensity headlights shining on signals would make them harder to see. : Every railway drivers book i've read has bits in it where they take someone for a cab ride in the dark, and that person is scared as hell because they are thundering along the track in the darkness, they ask why the trains headlights aren't brighter like they are in a car etc, The drivers usually reply... what for, what exactly do i need to see, the train 'steers' itself, it's routes are set up by the signallers, and they also regulate things to keep the traffic safely appart, and i know the route like the back of my hand, i could close my eyes and still know exactly where i am along the route. it's not like if you saw something on the track ahead in the trains headlights that you could do much, you can't exactly swerve out of the way, most trains took over a mile to stop, and we certainly do not have headlights that can shine over a mile ahead. that's why we have repeater signals, the signals that show the level crossing ahead is secured and so on. : I used to travel in early morning and late evening on class 101 DMU's in the early '90's, these trains had a big window in the back of the drivers cab, so if you sat in the front passenger seats, you could see the driver at work, and the track ahead, the trains 'headlights' were marker lights, there to show others the trains position (and originally used to tell the signallers it's destination and class by the different locations of the lights that are turned on... a throwback to the oil lamps)

I think i've found out the reason some people are getting no announcements, and how to get Polish announcements when your computer is not set to Polish,

comparing a car with high intensity discharge lights illuminating a road is hardly the same as a locomotive with at best halogen bulbs, in 1960's reflectors illuminating the track ahead, I too think SimRail has this pretty well spot on, the lights on older trains are crap, there's really no need to see ahead in the dark that much, it's not like you need to see far ahead to steer the train to keep it on the tracks.

I've read a few posts now from people who like me want to hear the SimRail station announcements in Polish, but hear them in their local language instead... and some people do not hear the station announcements in any language at all. I think i've figured out the issue. Basically when windows is first installed on your computer, the language selected installs only that languages text to speech files, and as SimRail uses TTS to read out the station announcements, if your computer is set to English but you use another language, then only the english TTS files are present, so you will not hear the announcements in your local language if you have SimRail set to it.... even if you installed a second input language for the keyboard and text, the TTS language files need to be added separately it seems. Likewise if want to hear Polish station announcements on a non Polish computer, you need to install the Polish TTS file for this to work... plus copy the text from the pl.lang file into the local language file, i.e. for english computers this is the 'en.lang' file. _ The SimRail station announcement files are located here: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\SimRail\SimRail_Data\StreamingAssets\Locales\train-announcement Firstly i recommend making a backup of the whole 'train-announcement' folder, so you can easily put it back to standard if you mess something up... another way is to delete the 'train-announcement' folder then do a 'steam files verify' and it will download the folder again for you' These 'LANG' files open as text files, so double click your local language file, and when it asks what program to open it in, chose a text editor like notepad, and you will see this: The text i've highlighted below in the English and Polish language station announcement files tells windows which TTS language to use.... As you can see, for Polish TTS you need 'TTS language file 415' and for English TTS you need 'TTS language file 409' etc, and if you do not have that TTS language file installed, you will get no announcements. : : To install an extra text to speech language file, press the 'Windows key' the 'Control key' and the 'N key together, this opens up the windows narrator, which usually reads out text on websites / documents to you. Then click the highlighted area for 'Add legacy voices' and you will then get this screen: Click 'Add voices' and you get this screen: Type 'Polish' then click the checkbox that will come up when the Polish / Polski language file is shown, then click the 'Add' button to download it (do the same with any other TTS language files you would like to add, like your native language.... don't worry, you do not need to set any other TTS language to default or anything, SimRail takes care of playing the announcements in your chosen language as long as the TTS files are present on your computer) Windows will then tell you to restart 'settings' and any apps to use the new voice, but i found i had to restart my computer to get the new TTS voice files to show as installed: If all you wanted to do was hear the SimRail station announcements in your native language, it should now work, but if you'd like to hear Polish announcements, then you need to copy the Polish text from the 'pl.lang' file into the .lang file that your computer is set up to use, as i described at the beginning. So this is my 'en.lang' file, as i have my computer set to use english, and the SimRail language as 'automatic' : And i hear the station announcements in Polish, just like if i was actually driving the train in Poland. If you decide you don't like Polish station announcements and want them read in your native language again (which should now work thanks to the extra TTS language files you downloaded into windows), copy the backup of the 'train-announcement' folder you made into SimRails 'train-announcement' folder. Or do the 'delete the folder and steam file verify' method to get them back to standard. i would not recommend setting these files to read only as their contents change with updates, and if set to read only you do not get the relevant updated bits that everyone else gets.... If all you wanted was to hear the announcements in your local language, there's nothing else to do, once you have the required TTS language file in windows it's there to stay. If you like hearing the announcements in Polish, then just copy and paste the Polish test into your local .lang file again after an update that results in non Polish station announcements.

i used to get that waiting at a station and another players train came in, some of them would come in my cab and jump around Infront of me, then i think the devs made it so they can open your cab door but not come in, as this was obviously annoying people, (i think trying to climb in another train's door teleports you back into your own cab now) so every now and then i get someone who opens and closes the cab door a few times, then tries to jump onto the trains roof.

i just hope that having people spawn into your train in this passenger mode doesn't do similar to what happens when another train with a live driver in it comes into view and we get stutters etc, or an ad on to the ping time because there's now 2 + updates per second needed, one for the driver, one for the passenger roaming around the carriages changing views all the time etc. Or a passenger takes away a place on the server that could be used for driving a train etc.

i deleted SimRailk and re-downloaded everything again from steam... not heard any announcements at all 😞 I do mostly drive the 14100/41100 services, but it seems that just after a bug fix / update, announcements work for a day or 2, then stop, or are switched off... i was reading in the Polish forum with google translate that some people were getting looped announcements at some stations, so i wonder if this is why they keep being turned off?

SimRail is a train driving and signalling SIMULATOR, All the hard work is going into getting the driving of trains and working of the signal boxes / dispatching posts all working together properly in multiplayer, Do we really want devs taken off the task of improving the driving and signalling parts of the sim to add a ticket collector role? a cafe assistant role............ how about wandering about stations looking for posters that need replacing, or walk the 500Km of tracks looking for signal post phones to replace, or soft toys to collect?

are you starting the correct item up? prologue will always start up ... well the prologue, When you downloaded the early access version from steam, it will have a different start up 'icon' on the desktop and in steam,

isnt the button on the desk the one that just turns the desk lights on for as long as it's held down, The switch to turn in on or off all the time is on the front panel to the left of the driver below the desk.

at a guess, you have your 'settings.conf' file set to read only? Some people did this to stop overwriting of settings like view distances, but this also means that when SimRail has updates that needs extra entries in the settings.conf file to allow them to work, you don't get them, hence it can't save your preference for sending error data or not in the settings.conf file.

From what i have read, yes they are weighted, but due to the timetables we are currently running being based on empty trains, the coal waggons are only loaded to ~30 tons each, otherwise the tracks would be clogged up with slow freights not able to keep to their timetables. When the new timetables are released, then the loads can/will be increased, as they will take into account fully loaded trains taking much longer to get up to speed and brake etc.

back during the playtests i had a few occasions when my EU07 was overtaken on the left line by a pendo, this was Ai dispatchers doing this! I figured that the Polish railways have gone to all that trouble to make most of their lines both way running, that's what it's to be used for, but as you say, no one seems to do it.

i thought every control in a US locomotive is also wired into the horns.

exactly, there are enough disruptions in normal running, Yesterday i was running 1 minute early to Olszamowice in an EU07, unfortunately it was Ai controlled and of course it let me continue on the main line, instead of holding me in the siding for my booked 4 minutes (plus the 1 early i was) Result, i had 2 live driver pendo's on my tail for the next 20 minutes as my max speed was 125 km/h. at least one of them should have overtaken me at Olszamowice, thats what it's there for.

i don't recall seeing anything in the polish signs and signals rule book i machine translated to english, just the rule telling you that you are to sound the horn at certain signs, but i could have missed it... or it not been translated by google that well. i did wonder this myself, when i am nearing the ends of the line and am in the city or Katowice or Warszawa in early morning and i sound the horn at the W6b boards ... thinking that must sound lovely to those people in the flats either side of me (really wish we had reverb in the sim, it must echo well in all those balconies 🙂 Isn't the UK's trains no horns after midnight due to a road rule which applies to all audible warning devices, And is the reason that electric cars in the UK do not have the low speed warbler/beepers to warn pedestrians a silent car is about to run them over. As this sounder would not be legal to use 24 hours a day here, so they simply disable it altogether on a UK spec electric car... yet trucks have had automatic silencing of the reversing beeper and that annoying 'warning, i am turning left' sounder for decades.

Sorry, i was joking with the 'who's going to drive your train' bit. Quite often when i am waiting at a 5 minute station stop, i will flip through the camera views, i use head tracking so first thing is i try to move the view in the carriages by moving my head... that only works in the cab camera view, so then i right click and try to move the view... which doesn't work either, But i too would like to see more of the carriages, the dev's have modeled the interiors, but we can't move the view around to see all this lovely modeling, only cheat and 'crash' the number 2 camera through the carriages sides and see in. It's fun when you can follow a passenger through the carriage door and walk around inside the carriage a little, but i haven't had any passengers boarding my 14100 / 41100 service trains for a few weeks... if anything there's usually only 5 or 6 people stood on the platforms, and they are in groups talking to each other and never move 😩

If a train passes a 'W6b' sign in SimRail and no player is around to hear it, does it make a sound 😄 From: "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?"

oh there was part of VR signalling simulator shown a while back, showing situations at crossings, One of them was a bloke mad you stopped his car, and he tries to kick the door of the building in to get at you!

who's going to drive your train whilst you are in the carriages 🙂 isn't there supposed to be a passenger mode coming soon?

i drove for about 5 hours last night, and have to admit i didn't hear any station announcement either 😞 After going one way with no announcements, i deleted the announcement file and let steam verify and re-download the file, so i should have got english announcements, but again got none, Making me wonder if something if breaking on the server side after things have been running for a while.

yeah, there will be build in failures and random events in SimRail, ATM i think it's just the signals, at an Ai controlled signal you have a 1% chance of getting an Sz signal, i've had this a few times, and according to the experts who know the Polish railway system, 1% is way too high for real life, it's more like 0.01%.

i think the problem is as it was when they were doing this on the EN servers... one person decides to say there's a problem at one place, disrupting all trains in that area... ok, can happen in real life. But then the next dispatcher along wants to do the same, so now that's 2 dispatch locations with made up problems, then the next dispatcher wants in on the action, so their post has a made up problem, before you know it the whole line is full of made up problems delaying everyone for hours, the people doing it are having fun, the drivers not so much. Especially the driver who has limited time on their computer due to having a job, family etc, They get say 2 hours to drive on an evening, and can only make it 20 km along the line due to all the disruptions that have been made up..... No worries, just a bad day, they next get time on the computer 2 days later, and what do they find, every dispatch post in an area is blocked up with made up problems, and they can never get very far along on their drive before their time is up. When every single day this is happening it gets annoying, the only people enjoying it are the people creating the made up problems, anyone who doesn't like this happening every day repeatedly gets shouted down, and told 'hey, this kind of thing happens all the time on real railways' erm, no it doesn't, If it did, no one would use the railways. The idea of multiplayer means that no 2 runs should be the same, but there is still the overall timetable to run to, and the job of the dispatcher is to move the trains through their section without causing delays to others, The driver is to follow the signals and keep to his timetable, The variations come from the train ahead not making it through the junction on time and delaying you by a few minutes, being held at a red signal a little longer than usual, being routed to a different platform etc, It's not about a few people who decide to play god and turn the rail system into their own private model railway... as we keep hearing, the people who are making up the problems seem to think they are doing everyone some good, Yet the people caught up in their actions think they are ruining the sim.

I've had Polish announcements all along. It gets reset after an update, which is good.... i don't set folders to read only (people do this to avoid them being re-set back to original at update time), But doing this this means i'd lose out on new features added to those folders... some people have found this out when they set the settings.conf folder read only, new things are added at update time and they don't get them as the patch couldn't write them to the read only folders.... similarly the announcement files have been altered lately to add new announcements about reserved seats and coach locations.... and i do wonder if people who are not seeing things like other players carriage lights have set folders to read only so are not getting the updates as intended? So, after each update, i navigate to : C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\SimRail\SimRail_Data\StreamingAssets\Locales\train-announcement That's where the station announcements are stored, if you want to look at the announcements, open the .lang files as text files in your usual text editor. To get Polish announcements, you can either copy the text in the pl.lang file, and overwrite the text in the xx.lang file appropriate for you (for me it's en.lang for english, but de.lang for German, fr.lang for French etc) note doing this you lose the original language text unless you make a backup of it somewhere. Or as i do it, i rename my 'en.lang' file 'en.lang.old' (accept the warning about changing the file extension, you are making it so it's ignored by SimRail, so that's what you want) Then rename 'pl.lang' 'en.lang' or de.lang, or fr.lang as appropriate for the your native language you have SimRail in. Next time you drive, you should hear Polish station announcements at the stations, just as you'd expect from driving a Polish train on Polish rails and stopping at Polish stations. My theory on why the different languages for announcements, is that there are some people who shout very loudly about not having everything translated into their language in a game, one country in particular has more than their fair share of this kind of person, they think the whole world should speak their language and they won't buy anything unless it's fully translated... yeah, even if it totally breaks immersion. If you find you don't like Polish announcements for some reason, to go back to how it was is easy, if you overwrote the language file, then simply delete the '\train-announcement' folder and do a steam file verify and it'll re-download the original file, Or re-name the .lang file that you changed to your native language back to pl.lang, then change the 'xx.lang.old' file back to 'xx.lang' again accept the warning about changing file extensions, and you should get your local languages playing at the stations again.