Gazz292

Yep, in the uk the signals show the route ahead, so it's upto the driver to know if that route has a 20mph limit at the points... there are speed marker boards, but i don't think they warn you of the speed limits on the route you're about to take until you are about to diverge off the main line. http://igg.org.uk/rail/3-sigs/svgh9gi4.jpg It used to be all the driver may have is a print out / written schedule of what stations to stop at and the time expected there... that may well have changed nowadays tho, Most of Europe uses speed signalling, so if you get a '40 km/h' signal ahead, it's likely you are going to be changing line and going over speed restricted points, But the driver is expected to have a printed or electronic schedule / timetable that shows the expected route they will take, and you use the hectometer boards to know where you are and what speed to do (or the electronic ones usually know your location, and move a pointer for you to see what speed it is now and will be ahead, Obviously getting diverted off the usual route changes things a little... but as said above, the signals and signs warn you of the speed limits ahead.

There are only limited keybindings available, I was told it would be possible to activate every control in the cab to have a keybind assigned to it, but we'd run out of keyboard keys to use long before we reached the end of the list, Some controls are only found in a certain train and not others, so we'd need a way to assign the same key to multiple controls, i.e. the ones for cruise control do nothing in the EU07, as it doesn't have cruise control, but what if i want to use the + and - keys to operate the shunt/field weakening lever when i am driving the EU07, but the cruise control when in the ELF? Also, at the moment there's no way to use modifier keys, so as other sims/games use say 'V' for wipers on, and 'Shift V' for wipers off, that can't be done in SimRail (yet?)

i don't play as dispatcher, but i can see how things like opening windows in the signal boxes could be cool to have, we have them in the train cabs... and if they can get the sound attenuation things working so that opening the windows makes it a little louder in the cab, that would be good for the signal box too... you can hear the trains louder with the windows open... nad when the windows are closed, the sounds of the level crossing warnings could be quieter... i read some people don't like how loud that is in one of the signal boxes.

The ability to extract data from the trains / sim, So people who know programming (not me, i'm into the mechanical side of things) can use them to put data like speed, destination, position etc on tablets / 2nd monitors, and we can have a more immersive experience with a train cab like setup, From as simple as a phone and an android tablet mounted on the computer desk next to the main monitor, displaying the trains 'dashboard' data, Below is railworks / train sim classic, and TS-MFD is extracting the data and displaying it on the tablets as a MFD on the left that mimics the in train left hand screen, and a working live updating EBuLa on the right hand tablet : To full blown replica driving cabs that you would find at a train drivers training facility, or transport museum.

That i did, i was the weirdo on youtube who wore a BVG drivers cap when driving, as i had mounted the TrackIr led's on it. Back in 2011 i bought a dashboard from a scrapped MAN NG272 bus ... (later on i took my then gf on a 'trip' to Germany to see the xmas markets in Berlin and other places... and on the way called in at various bus scrapyards to buy more parts... and collect the BR111 train driving desk stuff... this was in a Smart ForTwo tiny car, luckily i had a tow bar on it, as i bought a cheap bike rack and a plastic garden store box and some ratchet straps to put the train stuff in, as i'd ran out of room inside the car) Then i got help from a guy from Brazil called Thiago (on the AussieX forums) to make the ''Gazz.opl'' plugin that got some of the lights and the gauges working with omsi, and worked my way forwards.. but always having the bus dashboard sat on my computer desk in the living room, Made an adapter to mount a bus steering wheel to my drivingforce GT wheel, Got hold of a british Almex ticket machine, and made a new button plate for it on a laser cutter at my local hackspace to turn it into a Berlin version. Helped a little bit with Komsi.. a much better and more user friendly way to control the lights, gauges, ticket machine etc. I was working on the IBIS unit next... by then i'd split up from that girlfriend (not because of the driving sims) and 8 months later met someone else... and then my world fell apart, Didn't have access to my tools etc, and generally ruined my life... but i did find out i have ADHD and other things that explained to me why i am 'weird' : It's only the past couple of years i've started re-making my workshop, and i started on a new version of my NG272 Fahrerarbeitsplatz / driving cab, i said to myself that 2023 would be the year i complete it... but now SimRail is coming out, and my plans may change again 🤪 I think i have it sorted in my mind how to have the full 6.5 revolutions of the bus steering wheel, with a custom force feedback program (EMC FFB) and a ~150 watt scooter motor, that will drive a NG272 steering column and wheel (on the floor behind the seat in the pic) The seat... erm...yeah... was brand new from an iveco truck and cost me £30, but i have it mounted on a proper suspension seat base from a bus, i will see about covering it to look more like a MAN bus seat sometime. I have all the steel to make the proper frame for the dashboard and locker to the left of the seat that NG272's have for extra switches (and i'll mount my electronics in there, the PC lives in the compartment infront of the dashboard, and the monitor (42" tv) will sit ontop of that. I just need to get my arse into gear and get on with the steelwork... cutting it to size and welding it together... i even bought a tig welder as my workshop is wooden, and i didn't want to mig weld in there (mig splatters molten metal all around you, TIG is basically electric gas welding, nice and gentle) : In 2021 i was working on a 3D printed MAS3 IBIS unit, and the thermometer from the original Berlin buses in Omsi : I even managed to mess with the data from Komsi to get it onto the LCD with the early/late timer thing on the right hand end of the screen (this is a replica IBIS, not my real one, that i need to gut to make work with Omsi. But this year (2022) i got hooked on tsw and went on with making the mostly 3D printed 'EuroRialDriver' which ended half done when i realised that tsw was just never going to work well with it, due to them not allowing joystick input for controlling the trains.

I'm wondering about the LOD settings in SimRail, programming stuff is not my strong point, so this is probably obvious... but i'm wondering how the 2 LOD settings should affect things in the simulation. I know LOD stands for Level Of Detail, and it's for switching between low, medium and high resolution versions of objects as you get near or away from them. But am i thinking correctly that just having the 2 LOD sliders in SimRail as far to the right is 'best? I've read a little that having these kinds of settings too high can affect how much of that wavy like patterning you get on things like railings and lattice work.. like catenary poles, i've moved the sliders about but can't say i notice much difference. I'd love to find a way to make the rail shadows draw further away, so they are not popping out as i move along the track, but i think that is a problem all rail simulators / games suffer from, and it's not a LOD thing?

Maybe have a laptop in the signal box, and when the dispatcher has no trains to route for a while, get the virtual laptop out and play SimRail as a dispatcher in a busier box, or as a train driver whilst you wait the next train into your area 🤪

i got fed up of tsw* as that is always the same run, it's all scripted so you soon get to know which signals you'll be held at, what the other train moves around you will be etc. thats why i read about people who say they've 'completed the game' what they've done is driven every timetabled run once, and there's no point running them again as they'd already seen everything. i too would get bored if every run as a 'green lighter' drive at max line speed, stop at the stations on time... repeat for the next 500km. I love the randomness live drivers and dispatchers bring to SimRail, It's awesome when i keep getting speed checked by amber signals ahead that clear as i approach them, and i realise there's a 'live drivers' train ahead of me, running late but going just a little slower than i am, then i can ask the dispatcher if i can 'overtake' them at an appropriate place, this is the kind of stuff that separates a simulator from a game i think. *i also lost interest in tsw as they changed from saying they will offer joystick controller support, to only offering raildriver support, So the controller i was working on became useless,

i wonder how things will work regarding the SimRail team fixing things as the sim is released,... is the problem with the sim, or with the private server... can they get access to these private server logs etc?

That's because the driver is holding the camera... and floating around the train 🙂

I notice with the 31/12/22 update, the Hassler recording speedo/tachometer in the EU07 had been 're-calibrated' 🙂 Thankyou SimRail team. It now reads the same speed as displayed on the HUD (still with the realistic mechanical device's needle jump that is awesomely re-created) so we can now turn the speed part of the HUD off if we want, and not have to worry too much about the previously under reading in cab speedometer. I've also noticed the clock in the tacho head reads the correct time too. : I'd still like to see the ability for us to customise the HUD, i.e select just the individual parts of it we want to see, For me i'd like to be able to display : Current speed limit Distance to next signal... but NOT the signal aspect. Speed limits ahead Distance to next post / station stop Maybe the 'Throttle Position' display, but not the brake, or current ones, as the gauges tell me that info. Timetable panel Chat box I wonder once the SDK's are released, will they allow people who are good at programming/scripting/coding (i.e. not me) to make a 'pop out' panel with the info on it, that could be displayed on a 2nd monitor, or on your phone/tablet, leaving the main screen clear to see the beautiful artwork in SimRail as a real driver would see it from their cab, and a glance at your phone gives you the timetable panel, and the speed and distance overlays.

i personally think the points scoring stuff should be more hidden, as it's clearly worrying some players who are chasing points all the time, even causing arguments on some servers where the dispatchers are role playing single line working due to a 'pretend' signal failure, most drivers are ok with that, adds to the realism etc, But some really hate it, and i've heard some pretty nasty comments when a driver would lose a few points due to being held up and 'made late' due to the single track working thing. . I can understand losing points for not stopping at a station with a passenger service, but losing points for 'missing' freight layovers isnt really fair, as often it's the Ai that's decided to let you straight through, and when its a live dispatcher, they often ask if you are ready to depart early as they have a route free for you. . . . I don't care one bit about points myself, but i do understand there needs to be some way of recording your progress, as it seems that in the full release you will need to 'earn' a certain rating to drive more difficult trains? and 'ratings' are really needed for the dispatchers to work their way from a simple pass through signal box to the complex multi route ones, so as to avoid total gridlock with someone totally new to the sim trying to take on a big signal box and being out of their depth.

in the ...Locals/Multiplayer/xx.Lang file, there is an entry for a text banner (i think) that will display when you have reached the end of the map, it reads : ''You have reached the border of the map. Further, the bot will drive the train.'' I'm imagining that in the full release of SimRail, when we reach the actual end of the map, this is how the train will carry on under Ai control, Could be that with the playtest having a small portion of the map, when we reach the end the only option is for the train to de-spawn for us. tho if you have the live map running following your train, when this happens the trains avatar changes to a bot and carries on along the track... whilst we get the empty station scene and our train has diapered. of course i could be totally wrong here, and we are supposed to see that message in the playtest, but i cant recall ever seeing it. It would be really nice if we did a crew changeover as you suggest, At the last station on the route we have to get out and see an Ai driver get in and drive off, then we walk to a booking off point. or for a freight, stop on a siding, and your relief crew knocks on the cab door and enters to take over from you, you climb down and walk to the crew hut to book off and get a cup of coffee before you go home... there the sim ends and you get the overview of your drive.

True, everyone is different with regards to what they want out of the simulator. maybe some of the public servers could be set for role playing things like signal failures, broken level crossings and so on where the dispatchers are routing trains differently to normal, And the rest of the servers are for playing normally. But not if it results in there not being enough servers to go around so people are forced to drive in a role playing one. i do see that sometimes a dispatcher is bored, they route my passenger train in a snake like pattern through the sidings and out the other end back to the main line, and when i pass the signal box they are outside jumping up and down on the track i am driving on.

i read that when something like that was happening (role playing) on i think a french server, most people were fine with it, but some drivers got really arsey and demanded to be routed properly. That's the problem you can get when someone who is so focused on earning points thinks they are going to lose out on some 😞 Which is why i don't give 2 farts about points myself, it was something i hated in tsw along with those stupid trophies for pressing a button you had to press anyway, But i understand some sort of scoring system is needed to allow people to advance to other levels and access harder trains / signal boxes. Maybe the points thing could be more in the background, like is is with Omsi, your driver record gets updated at the end of a drive, and you have to go and look at it to see how you are doing, but you don't get that '-1000 points for missing a stop' flashing up on the screen when your freight train was allowed to carry straight through the sidings 20 minutes ago.

When i was a quarter of a loco length past the station end, when i looked back the coach doors were being opened and people were getting on and off.... so reversing back then would definitely be a career terminating event. Wonder if it could be arranged so that if all your coaches are in the platform, just the loco or nose of the emu past the end, you lose some points for not stopping properly, but don't get the current thing with the next stop distance thing not changing for a while. But if one or more coach doors are off the platform end, you need to get on the radio and ask what to do... maybe be told to set back, lock out the doors in the coach that's off the platform (get the guard to do that on loco hauled trains) , or carry on to the next stop.

i've held back on my speed a little when running a passenger train that i joined ahead of schedule, but i only drop down to about 100km/h when i should be doing 120. I have the live map on a tablet by the side of my laptop screen whenever i drive, so i can see if there's live drivers behind me, and be sure i'm not holding people up, but doing 20km/h to avoid having to wait longer at the layover stop is not really on (tho we could say that maybe the loco had a fault and can't go any faster, but it'd be switched into the nearest siding and a new loco ordered then in reality)

Maybe the 'track issue' was the dispatchers agreeing in advance to do that? i've read about them doing this on some servers to change things about a little... it's something that would happen in real life.

To me, SimRail is a realistic simulator, a public release of one used to train real train drivers, with the multiplayer bit added in so people can be the dispatcher or driver, and work together to make the virtual railway run smoothly. I know there's a lot more to starting up a train that turning the battery on, raising the panto, flipping a few more switches and away you go.. but some things need to be omitted as there have been cases in the past where people have tried to go 'joyriding' in a train after thinking they know it all from playing a train driving game. i want SimRail to be a hard core simulator, where you have to learn your 'job' to progress, but i do take things further than some people at times... with my building of driving desks or the bus cab i'm (still) making for omsi / lotus. But a lot of people are expecting SimRail to be a replacement for tsw, an arcade like game where you move a lever forwards to go, and pull it back to stop. I remember one of tsw's 'tutorials' where they said they'd show you how to regain control after an emergency brake application, i was expecting a passenger emergency brake application, or to be told to use the emergency brake button in the cab... then stuff like 'reset the main contactor, put the brake lever to a certain position, press the brake release button until a certain pressure shows, reset the power lever lockout and so on' What did i have to do.... move the brake lever to emergency position, wait for the train to stop, then push the brake lever back to off, apply power and drive off!

i'll be buying SimRail as soon as it's released, even if the price tag is around £100... there's just so much to it that the dev's have worked so hard for over the past few years. They could setup a donation page, to pay for the enjoyment people have had on the playtests over the past couple of weeks, and i'd send them £30 instantly. My steam activity page shows i've almost driven longer in SimRail over the past 3 weeks than i have in tsw for over a year! i've read on discord people asking how much SimRail will be when released, some people say it's listed at $30, and people are saying 'no way, that's far too expensive'!!! For that you can get tsw3 in a sale with just the high speed line, their longest line yet... all 186Km of it, which you zoom along at ~280km/h and get through it in about 40 minutes! After a couple of runs you get to know the scripted elements, you know what signal you'll get slowed down at, that train which will wait before crossing in front of you as you approach, even if you are an hour late, that you'll be held for 5 minutes at a station even if you are running 20 minutes late, etc etc. With SimRail you'll get ~500km of lines, and a 5+ hour drive if you chose to do the longer services. And with multiplayer no 2 runs will ever be the same, I've been held at red lights for ~10 minutes, but there was a reason, a load of other trains were being sent through the junction to clear up a backlog, that's all part of being a train driver, especially if you drive freights or the slow 'unimportant' passenger trains where the high speed trains have priority due to the passengers having paid more for their tickets. I've been driving on European servers, and only seen the trolls 2 or 3 times, from what i hear it's mostly the American and Polish servers that attracted the most trolls, ok EN1.. a beginners server is often clogged up around Lazy, but thats newbies making mistakes i thought.

Oh NO, i've been getting into SimRail because i like to build controllers to drive trains with, i also have the real driving deask from a German BR111 loco, and i want to be able to connect them to the computer as joystick axis and buttons, and control the trains. i was trying to do this in tsw, but they only offer raildriver support, and that requiered hacking code to allow a joystick to pretend to be a raildriver, but raildrivers are so limited, they are aimed at american trains, so i find mine horrible to use on european trains... not to mention it's so tiny in my hands, hence why i like building bigger controllers that actually look like the european trains i love to drive : But having joystick support means people can drive the trains using throttle quadrants like these :

i've been 'moaning' that we need more keybinds for the trains, as not everyone can use a mouse easily. I've discovered that the mouses scroll wheel (if you have one) will move the controls when you have them selected with the left mouse button, this can be a nice way to drive the ELF and TRAXX loco's i found. But it's sometimes awkward to position the mouse to operate some switches... like in the EU07, if you have the train brake handle in a braking position, it's very very hard to get at the wiper switch, the mouse keeps jumping to control the brake lever, the drivers side washer button is hidden behind the brake pedestal, so you just guess where it is with the mouse... thankfully it finds it... as you need to use the washers a fair bit to clean the dead flies off the screen... a feature i love. Unfortunately there seems to be an issue with using modifier keys with SimRail, So where other train games would use say 'V' for turning the wipers on, and 'Shift + V' to turn them off, this can't be done in SimRail, it would need a second key to turn the switch off, and having only the ~58 keys you can use without modifier keys on a standard keyboard, you'll soon run out of keys to assign controls to. I also worry about the global control scheme regarding keybinds, this is where tsw fell down hard, as you get more and more trains released, especially from different countries with different safety systems and control, you quickly run out of global keybinds, The way train simulator classic and zusi did it was each loco/train had it's own keybind / control settings, they were loaded in as the train was being loaded for you, So say key 'B', this is used for 'Battery' in Simrail, But what if you have an american loco, you'd want 'B' to be for the Bell, Also driving a diesel, you can't use 'F' or 'R' as thats set for the pantograph raise switches... in a loco that dosent have them 😞

I had this happen to me last night, I stopped with the front quarter of my EU07 loco past the stop board / end of platform. All the coaches were in the station, and people were happily getting on and off. But as others noted, the warning for having gone too far came up, and there was no countdown to the time to leave this station, when i left the station, the 'distance to next stop / post' didnt change from the station name that i over ran slightly, and the distance would bounce between 1 and 3 km away... even tho it was behind me. Eventually i got a 'lost points for not stopping at a station' message, and then the distance to next post / stop thing started displaying correctly again.

a few weeks ago at the beginning of the playtest, my session ended for Signal Passed At Danger (SPAD) it was changed infront of me tho. a message was put across the screen telling me i'd passed a red light, the session ended and i was kicked to the screen you get with the graph of your driving, where you exit back to the drive selection screen. But since then, i SPAD'd the first time i was driving a heavy freight train, my fault for not treating the brakes with respect. and it teleported the train back to before the red light, It sure would be annoying if you'd just done a 5 hour run in multiplayer, and someone messing about in a signal box near the end of the line puts the signal to red infront of you and you can't stop in time. and thats it, simulation session over, kicked back to the server select screen and try again. Of course you'd expect punishment for SPAD'ing, but you'd also expect to be able to mitigate it, like 'i was doing 120km/h, all green lights, then suddenly when signal xxxx was 50 meters away it was changed to red, no way i could have stopped in time' As opposed to 'i was doing 40km/h and the next signal was red, but i was picking my nose and got distracted, so i applied the brakes too late to stop' I know that in real life, SPAD'ing would get you removed from your position as a driver.... but what if you SPAD'd a signal out in the middle of nowhere, are you to park your train up, tell the passengers there will be a long delay, and wait for a replacement driver to walk to you? Or would you be told to drive to the next station (when it's safe to do so) and change over there?

Is the DnD button the blue/gray one to the right of the main power button... on the radio in the EU07? On that same radio, there are 3 rotary knobs, left hand one is the Chanel selector, middle one i think is volume? and that right hand one clicks between 3 positions, but i havent worked out what that's for. I think it says 'Nasłuch' below that 3 position knob.. that translates to 'listening' Could the 'Nasłuch' knob be volume? 3 settings, low, mid and loud, And the middle know is squelch?