What's a driver in training to do when the users' manual and the tutorial do not agree? I gave the tutorial a try before locating the manual, but found the early instructions ridiculous, not to mention physically impossible. The driver is first told to enter the cab and sit in the chair. So far, so good, but the next step is to use the battery switch located high on the cab's back wall. What?!? That poster boy in the suit doesn't look like an orangutan to me! The manual prescribes the correct sequence of events, and from there on the process is the same in both manual and tutorial, except that the latter never mentions the engine's safety systems. One more comment about the manual (and this includes those for CSX and GWE): why are they not downloaded as part of the installation and why are they located in obscure corners of the WEB that can be discovered only by digging through various introductory articles that appear on Train Simulator? Granted, the manuals are not much to be proud of, but many of us would like to consult them.
I think that "sit in the chair" mentioned first because before that consist in TSW usually is in dormant state and not fully simulated.
What you're calling a "dormant state" (not a bad term for it, by the way) occurs in most scenarios. It allows the sim to provide instructions while keeping the player from tinkering with controls in the mean time. However, it seems to me that it could equally well be used to provide this partial sequence of instructions: 1. enter the cab; 2. engage the battery switch [sorry, I can't recall the exact term], 3. sit in the driver's seat. This sequence would call for a logical, sensible, and possible sequence of events rather than the physical impossibility currently in place.
There is certainly one annoyance with the original and all DLC so far. There is usually some tutorial involving the start-up of the train from a cold and dark status, but then they never supply scenarios or services which actually involve initially cold and dark trains.
Clear Cut has you starting up a GP38-2. Its there, but should have been in a tutorial. At least GWE and RT cover starting a dead unit in the tutorials.
Yup, I forgot about that one, but generally it's a very underused function. I would assume that many players would want to spawn at or travel to a depot, find the cold and dark train, prepare it, and take it to it's starting station, ready for it's first service (which you might want to do also). The same goes for ending a service at the depot .i.e a shutdown and/or some shunting, readying it for the next time it's going to exit the depot. That sort of thing.
There are a couple of GWE scenarios that involve passenger-related shunting, including a very plausible "rescue". Plus the very first scenario, which begins with a driver in a frustrating search among soon-to-depart trains. That one, while somewhat entertaining, strikes me as completely implausible.