Fantastic thread - I look forward to having the chance to run the above mentioned services. We need more of these types of threads where people share what they like about this simulation. While pointing out areas for improvements is fine, many times it devolves into a b^5ch session seemingly to see who can top the other posters on pointing out flaws. Back in the 60s when I was being raised, my Mom always made us come up with two good things to say about a person if we were caught saying something derogatory so I guess I look for the good. This thread definitely does that.... thanks to all for sharing.
Agree, I feel a bit bad for my rant about the 10:09 MSB service... But also it came to mind this morning that another set of good services are the ones starting from Leipzig-Connetwitz on Rapid Transit where you closely follow another train in the Leipzing tunnel After that you and that train get separated (just because you run slower under PZB), but you will catch back to him on the 160 km/h section if you are fast enough and one last time on the 120 km/h section.
The banking services on MSB are clustered into 5 groups of 5-6 hill "turns" allowing you to start in the banking locomotive and make a group of trips up and down the hill to Heigenbrucken. It is about a 25 minute round trip and services are every 30-35 minutes. The clusters start with the service coupling the helper to the rear of the train: 89137 at 00:46 89101 at 04:50 89109 at 09:50 89119 at 14:51 89129 at 20:31 I ran the 14:51 cluster and the AI traffic was insane, particularly at the start of the run back down the hill while waiting on a tunnel slot at Heigenbrucken: These runs are for the 185 only. Don't forget the Banking Comm button on the push uphill; the button is at the upper left corner of the far left screen. Since I was running the rear engine, I did not use PZB while driving as a helper; I am not sure how it would have worked. I did use the 3 camera to see what was ahead. This worked well until I got to the tunnel and was forced back into the rear cab. Ease off your speed as you approach the tunnel and then slow down to 30 or so kph as you emerge from the tunnel in the rear loco. You should then immediately go to the front view because your lead engine will be near the red signal. Don't rely on the countdown distance on the HUD, it is measured from the loco you are driving and will push you into a SPAD. I was able to pretty much stay on time. It will be interesting to have a delay and lose your slot which should create some havoc with the rest of the timetable. This may create the holy grail of chaos and some element of randomness since being late on one service bleeds into the next. Every run could be quite different. I assume that if you are more than 30 minutes late, the trains you are supposed to help will start to stack up at Laufach. If you run late, please post your experience!
DB 80213 16:10 Hagen - Finnentrop (RSN - I’d forgotten what a great route this is!) Just playing this in journey mode and it’s a fantastic mix of freight, red and yellow signals with a good spattering of other traffic too. Turn on PZB and be on your guard!
A great run indeed! I keep coming back to RSN. It is the perfect mix of speed, variety, changing terrain, and challenge for me. I am glad it got a revival from DTG with the 363 services.
Same, just I bought the 155 instead... still waiting for a sale for the 363, some really great services there.
Tried this one last night and yes it works out the box, unlike the 80209 referenced earlier. Constant succession of signal checks, decided to run in snowy conditions for the extra challenge. With only 1km braking distance between sighting the advance signal and the stop signal some white knuckle moments, not to mention a bit of delay getting going again while the brake system recharges.
There's a cool service or two that involves driving a BR 422 from Düren to Aachen depot in an ECS move. Here it is at Aachen.
Wow never noticed that... are those in timetable or do we need to spawn on foot and "hijack" the train
Just done the 4:00 service myself, while it was pretty "flat" from the traffic and signals perspective just the fact of driving a 422 from Aachen all the way to Düren on tracks we don't usually use was very cool, it's a bit of a shame you then have to wait ~20 minutes at Düren before starting towards Köln but it is what it is... Done it in Summer Clear to make sure there was some light and I wouldn't have to rely on the headlights, really enjoyed it, thanks for the great suggestion. Also finally "Nicht Einsteigen" is the correct PIS indication
if ya'll do the night one to aachen then you will need to wait for a damn freight train for around 15 mins or less
I decided to run the 20:00 out of Koln to see if it would continue as the 20:43 from Duren to Aachen. The 20:43 must be a continuation of the 19:00 out of Koln; I wound up at a red light just outside of Duren waiting for that service to depart at 20:43. I pulled in and got the service to resume at 21:03. When departing Duren, I had a red and got a "Proceed at Restricted Speed " from the dispatcher. The signal was still red when I passed it on PZB override. Yet, I still got a SPAD and service over. I will spawn at Duren and give the 20:43 a try. Thanks for finding this!
Can I just say this is one of my favourite threads of all time? Fascinating to see you finding all these characteristics of the timetable mode, and even better to see the dynamic nature of the despatcher apparent in how some of you see different behaviours. The way it works is that signals are only allocated in front of you as far as is needed to get a green (if possible) for you - consider it like a bow wave in front of the train. What this means is that beyond that bow wave, it's a wild "unallocated" world and if another trains bow wave gets in front of yours at a key moment, they'll get the path you'll have to wait (or vice versa ofcourse). What this means is that if you drive at different speeds, depending on how close some of the interactions are, you can experience things in slightly different ways - so don't be afraid to drive a bit faster or slower than normal if re-doing a run and see if it makes any difference, often it won't, but some times it will have some very enjoyable changes to service patterns. I will keep a watch on this thread! Matt.
I'll have to try that! Thanks for this comment, I really appreciate it, also very interesting to see explained how some aspect of the game work, It's great having some insight "behind the scenes" let's say...
Ok so - simplifying it a bit... To get you a green light assuming nothing is in front of you and on a three aspect UK system, you'd need Green for your next signal, green for the next one, then yellow, and then red. So you'd need to be able to allocate and clear 4 blocks ahead of the train. That's your "bow wave". Every time you go through a signal it's advancing your route - you always see a green because it allocates two, but beyond that it's not. So, in the block BEYOND that red signal four blocks ahead of you there's nothing allocated, not even you. That means another train coming in from a branch line for example could get to it - if ITS "bow wave" of four blocks ahead of you means it allocates that section before you. If it does, then you cant get any more blocks and will be brought down to the red light and then allowed back to speed as the train that's now in front moves away from you. In another case, let's say you're going faster this time, your bow wave means that you request the signal at the junction first this time which means the other train will get held up and wait for you to go by. Whereas TS1 pre-calculates all these things and there's no way to change the orderings - if in its calculations as the scenario starts you are to go in front, then other train will wait for you no matter how slow you go, TSW actually works in a more real-time fashion much like MSTS did to some extent, where it's doing only what it needs to and making decisions on the fly - which allows for situations like these re-orderings to take place and therefore, you'll find your speed adherence *can* potentially change the experience of a scenario or service mode. Hope that helps
So it is basically, like which train comes first it will have the green light. So no matters which type of train is, it will always serve first to come. So if freight comes first it will have a green light. Are there some plans to make signalling more complex? For starter to label trains by priority, so that the signals always clears based on the priority, and if same priority than by which comes first?
Was driving some of the freight services on HRR today, and especially the ones towards Bochum are very enjoyable, had to wait quite a bit (something like 4-6 trains passing) before I could get going, and then following a RE which means some reds every now and then, I don't like freight a lot but those were super enjoyable!
There is a dependency system, so you can say that train X shouldn't proceed beyond this point until train Y has gone through - that's done at definition time of the timetable. There is also a priority system however that isn't as effective as you might hope since really it only resolves conflicts at a single moment - i.e. if two trains both request the route atr the same time, priority order will determine the winner. The reality is that freight train X is requesting a line and there's no reason not to give it, so it gets the route. If they come together, the passenger train can be determined to get priority, and if you want to manually ensure this happens then you can wire in a dependency - but then the dependency is absolute, so if train B is set to make sure train A goes through a junction before it does, then that is what will happen regardless of whether train A is 1 minute or 100 minutes behind schedule. Cramnor when we did the freight on HRR we specifically left in delays and made the services feel utterly second class - freight in reality is only really present on that route as a backup so it felt right to really make that freight have lots of waits and so forth in it. It's not to everyone's taste but it was certainly a different to the usual
What I meant was that for example if freight train comes toward a section where it need to cross paths with passenger one that it should get red light before that junction. So that the passenger train which entered the previous block can pass. So freight train should wait at the red signal only if passenger train is near, ie one block behind. This system would also be first step toward diverging of trains with lower priority levels to the sidings, or parallel station tracks, so that the higher priority trains could pass.
I did the 20:23 ECS move from Duren to Aachen and it was spectacular. I had a lengthy wait at Duren to let some freight traffic go through, but that gave me time to explore and watch the freights barrel through. I also saw the 20:00 departure out of Koln that I had driven previously. It pulled up just short of Duren and had to wait for me to get off the platform which meant it arrived late. Once I finally got clearance for the ECS, there was a substantial amount of PZB action on the way into Aachen. This included two Yellow aspects that didn't seem to have an active magnet and a few restrictions that I was able to clear before hitting the 250 meter magnet. An excellent run on a route that is very pretty at night!
I really enjoyed it, it was a quite realistic feeling, needing to wait for all the passenger trains to pass. And having some not-all-green runs is especially nice for freight services as they get boring easily otherwise (for my personal taste) And thanks a lot for the insights on the dispatcher! I hope some features such as freight trains moving out of the way for faster ones to overtake (like it would be possible on SKA) can be implemented in the future as well, it sounds like that should be possible and will definitively make the game even more enjoyable
Please add that to the other routes as well. Will make them more interesting for sure and more realistic.
RRO 09:53 Petroleum train from Wuppertal Steinbeck to Hagen. There is very busy traffic near Wuppertal and you have a long waiting time before departure.
In general there are quite busy rails on RRO between Wuppertal Hbf and Schwelm, where the route splits. Did a service on Saturday eastbound with the 422 and Wuppertal Hbf was really busy. 2 Dostos regional services and an incoming S-Bahn all while you load passengers. Following that you have a little race with the dosto that goes to Hagen, here you overtake each other a few times until you lose sight of it at Schwelm. I especially like these chases, same on HRR. Unfortunately I don't recall service number or time, I need to check that again.
Who volonteers to create a nice tabelaric (route, service#, start-time, description) view of all those nice services mentioned in this thread? ;-) That's why I enjoyed freight on that route suprisingly a lot IMHO By chance I did a freight run on HRR just yesterday without reading your post prior to that and came here to post just that Thanks for pointing out why it's not just a feeling but kind of sleazy coded to TrainSim-Matt
Thank you so much guys- I usually avoid timetable mode and just make my own scenarios so I can have some adverse signals. But this is tedious with the clunky editor. I tried all of your suggestions and I have to say they were probably the most enjoyable drives I’ve done so thank you. Please keep the suggestions coming!
First, I ran DB87202, the WB Mixed Freight with the 182. Lots of AI traffic and plenty of 1000 and 500hz magnets. The service ended at Mulheim, but I returned to Free Roam and waited for the next service for that train to resume. When it did, I got a green and, despite explicit instructions to Alight Here and Exit the Vehicle, I continued on and drove off the West end of the map - so satisfying! I came back East with the 182 on DB87207. I had a long, but enjoyable trainwatching delay at the start; there were several mainlines to cross to get to my EB track. A tremendous amount of AI and reasonable amount of adverse signals. I ran it in the fall and the lighting was really nice. Just like the last run, I also continued this one after a short wait at the end, ignored my orders to leave the vehicle, and got some bonus action on my way to leaving the map. Great runs! I really enjoyed revisiting HRR; thanks for the recommendation.
You may like the RE using the control car starting in Augsburg at 06:39. Several red aspects on the way, you definitely will get delayed ...
I have to thank all who have contributed to this thread again. I need to extract all the suggestions to spreadsheet or something so I can create my “ToDo” list. That way when I sit down for a session it would be easy to refer to the list to choose an interesting run. IF I get around to such an effort - what information would one suggest to be included other than route, locomotive and timetable session?
Maybe a small description or point out if it worked out differently for different people (like the 1009 Lohr-Gemunden), also the need to spawn on foot or if it can be found on the timetable selection screen. (Like the S19 behind another train)
Thank you lead catcher! This is the best thing in I can remember seeing in the forum, and you've just made it better!!!
Hopefully I can get it accomplished around the hub-bub of getting set for the holidays and grandkids coming in...
Ok - just a quick little workbook - I have only populated the first page of the forums - let me know if this is useful and if I should continue or not. https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/wpph...ces.xlsx?dl=0&rlkey=4l5d1le58ejv7wus4mu6s0cq0
That is fantastic! Thank you so much for doing it. Do you mind if I link it at the top of the thread with an edit to the original post?
No problem, I will try and add the rest tomorrow and will continue to put new ones on the list as they are posted if people find it helpful ...
I put the link on the lead post. Many thanks for putting this together! Enjoy the Holidays with your Grandkids!
Just looked at the sheet, it is amazing! The short descriptions for each service are really useful, let's all contribute further to your list of awesome timetable runs!
I hate to say, but haven’t played with the Google Docs much, But if takes Excel files directly or with some minor conversions then no problem. Will look into later after I finish entering the rest of services in the forum. Glad many find this useful, to be fair, was getting tired of reading all the negative comments on a variety of topics in the forums and wanted to do something to give back to the community.
Ok - the import was easy - here is the link https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1sgD_TrrH1biix0m4TdfmPwqk0_ZTtdHXInhiGQvFW4s/edit?usp=sharing For the community - please let me know which workbook is better for me to maintain - I am leaning toward the Google Docs - sheet vice maintain it on my Dropbox - but whatever is more convenient