I have notice that there's no track detectors and no high wide shifted load detectors, dragging equipment detectors, hot box detectors and other track side safety devices and that's highly unrealistic, those are mainly 20 miles apart and usually in one area, secondly, there's no Distance signals,or interlocking signals, no flashing red (restricted speed) 15 miles an hour, flashing yellow (advanced approach) 40 mph for freight trains, and other signal aspects and indicators, all I see is red, yellow, and green signals, not going to happen, you are going to get a flashing yellow before you hit a solid yellow because after that signal is going to be a red and to start slowing down, and usually you have to stop 400 feet short of the signal, not right on top of it, I have been a conductor for the UP and I have never seen it that way, thirdly, no train information, weight or train length, in the real world we use train length see if we are going to fit into a siding or not, and that's in your timetable, because anyone knows anything about it and lives it on a daily basis such as myself knows that all sidings a different lengths, I been on trains that's close to two miles long, and we use weight to determine if we need to start slowing down sooner and we also use tonnage and length to determine where we need to put a DPU helper and for some other reasons and the other reason we use train length is so we know we can resume speed through a permanent speed restriction, or going through a work zones, so yes that's very unrealistic. And there are yellow flags and yellow/red flags and red flags and usually in the middle of rail, But there's other trian information we use, Fourth, no train dispatch communication, I seen some comments about that and that's very realistic and bring it back because that does add some realism to it, the people that was shooting that request down doesn't know anything about train operations, if I didn't talk to a train dispatcher I would be running the risk of hurting people and getting fired, Fifth, no connecting up air hoses or replacing couplers, no tieing hand brakes (and other reason we use train information), no random break downs like the train going into emergency for some unknown reason, loss of power, hot wheel or journal detected, or your train snaps in half for some reason, weeds and foliage growing in highly traveled tracks or weeds growing around switches, not going to happen, I never operated a switch where there's weeds and foliage growing around it blocking the view of it....not going to happen. Foamers lol. You wanna know what's it's like to drive a train that's part of it, and much more, there's much more to driving a train then putting the reversal in forward and throttling up.
Presumably you're talking about Heavy Haul? Any chance of splitting it into sections as it's just a wall of text at present and pretty unreadable.
It is great to hear the perspective of someone that actually works/worked on the railroad, and I for one am glad to hear your input as this is supposed to be a "simulation" of what it is really like in the real world, please keep the good information coming. Also as already noted, it makes your post much easier to read if you break the various points up with some spacing.
Frankly I don't care if anyone doesn't like what I said, basically about both games about how unrealistic it is on a lot of things. But DTG can improve on both on (TSW and Heavy Haul) if they so choose. Then you and others are not missing out on and if not then what's the point of playing a train simulator?? Like I said there's more to driving a train then going forward or backwards. But I do understand that I should have spaced it out more so it wouldn't be a massive wall and unreadable, which was noted above. So my apologies I just got off a train that I was on for more than 12 hours so I was little tired. So anyhow with that done, here's where DTG can add a lot of realization on both train simulators TSW and Heavy Haul. Just from what I seen....(just for the U.S) 1. Signaling system: besides having just solid red, yellow, and green lights. Add flashing red, yellow, green, and an even (lunar lights for restricting). Each flashing light means something different, (for an example flashing yellow means advanced opproach that's slowing down a freight train to 40 mph and no more then that) Preceed and be prepared to stop at second signal. And there's always an (advanced approach) before a solid yellow signal (approach signal) distance between (signal blocks) (depends on track speed and if there is a cross over) (There's more I can get into with that but I won't at this point) 2. Add train information and track information: weight, length of train, and tonnage... give track lengths are used for (sidings, spur tracks, ready tracks, except main line). It's kinda hard to put a train that's 18,000 feet long into a siding that's only 11,000 feet long.. add Track bulletins, basically tells you if there's any heat restrictions, cold restrictions, any work zones and other important information. That you need to slow down for OR even stop for. Would add some realism. DTG games can also add yellow, yellow/red, red flags, and green flags, to either reduce speed to a restricted speed or stop trains completely. (There's more I can add to it) 3. Remove the weeds away from switches, and other unrealistic spots. It's kinda hard for weeds to grow where there just rock (ballast) and heavily traveled tracks.... Add some derails to the game, not one derail is present in both TSW and Heavy haul. ( Unrealistic). And make it so the player as to sit the derail in the non-derailing position to move the past the derail and sit it back to derailing position ones cleared...Which is realistic. 4. Trains lights on high beams, When I'm on a train, I can see about roughly about half a mile down the track and sometimes a little more, and of course depending on weather conditions. From what I have seen on TSW and heavy haul both of them are like this. 5. Add track detectors (that actually detects something besides sitting there) for example if it's a hot box/wheel detector that detects a hot wheel have that wheel glowing white, but make the player get out and inspect the train...but and then have the train dispatcher tell the player to sit the car out in the nearest siding and you must not exceed 5-10 mph. And if there's no siding you must not move the train for 10 minutes (game time). But have them randomly pick. So you never know what will happen. Which is realistic. 6. Depending on difficulty, bring some realism and put some mechanical break downs, loss of power, and others and make it possible to have the train break in half in random places, because the player took off to fast and broke the knuckle, mostly happens in cold weather. And have the player replace the knuckle and re-connect the train. 7. Work orders: make the player go into a industry and take all cars out of the industry that needs to be taken out and needs to put in the consists, and make the player do some industry switching. There's more I can suggest but I will add those later.
The signalling system should be easy enough to implement. They already have a different system for DE routes, so don't see why US shouldn't have it's own system. Weeds and foliage I can see also being easily rectified and would either be down to the person placing the scenery or some random algorithm. That can be done Train lights are a known issue. In game you see the train and THEN the lights, even in pitch black. I'm sure shunting ops will come. Not sure on the train length bit. How would this be shown on the drive as I don't know if I'd ever do pre-drive planning. Scenario editors may need this and certainly in real life... Detectors, break downs etc may be outside of the licenses with the train ops. Having ANY video of a marked up train broken down, derailed etc could be frowned upon. Other than that, I would be pissed if this happened too often. Realism is fine, but if you just want a good drive and then you get three breakdowns in quick succession... And how many people would find undertaking a 50 point check of the engine, brakes etc as an interesting game play challenge even if in real life it may be 150 points?
Derailer like wedges and split rails would be nice where they are in reality too. It could just trigger a message like a red signal when you drive over an active derailer, since actual derailing is not a thing DTG wants. You would have to stop short of it, disable it, move the train past it and go back to re-enable it. It would also be interesting to see an automatic one behind a signal to move off the rail shortly before the signal clears. Detectors too would be nice, even if they just tell you that everything is in order on normal drives. Would be nice if they where scriptable in a scenario. So you could get the message about a hot axle and get instructed what to do by the dispatcher. This would actually be a reason to use the radio systems.
Not sure what you are going on about with signals. Maybe you have not realized that CSX uses a completely different setup to UP? The signals are working as they should with all CSX appropriate NORAC aspects.
