Gazz292

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.

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,