Anyone Driven At Night Yet?

[BigVern]

As per the question - so far all the runs I've done have been in broad daylight and if anything things are a little too bright - almost as severe as the unmodded eye adaptation DTG introduced with TSW3.

But TSW3 also suffers from pitch black nights with little ambient light or light pollution in built up areas. That combined with ineffective headlights makes night driving rather tedious.

Hopefully SimRail will do it better.

[Thistle Whistle]

I've found driving at night a very pleasurable experience.  The servers appear to be in summertime so it doesn't get fully dark until very late, around 11pm / midnight.  It wasn't pitch black (quite far from it actually) and maybe it gets a bit darker even beyond midnight.

The light from trackside/station lighting is beautiful. As you pass towns/villages there are lots of lights on in the buildings, plus car lights.

Would be nice if moonlight is variable/dependant on weather. Light nights are a thing, but so are dark.

Currently there are some oddities with reflections on the cab windows, but they are documented and hopefully will be remedied.

Try some of the servers with a time offset to get some night time driving.

[hyzwar]

PL servers are now after sunset eg.

[TheShotte]

I love it.

Edited December 13, 2022 by TheShotte

[TheShotte]

Here are some shots of train lights. The exterior shots are of the ELF EN96, whilst the in-cab shots are from an E186 TRAXX. Each loco has a shot with Low and High beams. The ELF does have slightly better lights than the TRAXX, but both are absolutely adequate for lighting up your way at night.

 

Edited December 13, 2022 by TheShotte

[hyzwar]

I really like the effect of the lights of other trains in the distance, nicely blurred, very realistic.

[SurvivorSean]

Yeah I drove a bit at night.  Of course I'm in the signal boxes the most.  For those not aware you CAN turn the lights off in the box to see trains better.  Though on boxes that use the big board and not the comuter you'll need a light to read certain things on the board.  Light status is also visible from outside at night which is cool for passing trains.

Thanks

Sean