On the Selhurst Depot Arrival track, just south of Selhurst station: This makes the 313 service 5B90 (Part 3) unplayable, since the Dispatcher, understandably, returns "no route available."
This is a protection switch that also exists in real life. It lets you derail to avoid that you accidentally enter the main line without permission. Protection switches are always set to derail and are only set correctly whenever a train has the permission to enter the line and after the train has passed it will be set to derail again. This scenario tells you to wait until 15:52, but because there is so much traffic on the line you have to wait until 15:58 and the protection switch will automatically set for you. Except that you can't get a gold medal without going back and forth a few times, 5B90 has no issues.
That's very interesting, thanks for explaining. Why though not just have a standard System that sets the E-Brakes? Wouldn't deliberately derailing be a bit costly?
You're supposed to be going so slowly at that point that derailing would involve moving a few meters beyond the points In the UK driver knowledge is relied upon rather than systems and signals. Even the systems that ARE there are explicitly not expected to remove responsibility from the driver, who should be in control at all times
You learn something new every day. Although the game is a bit misleading telling you "Wait until 1552" when you aren't going to get cleared until at least 1600, with no suggestion what is going on.
I believe this is fairly true to life. You may be scheduled to join the line in an ECS or Freight at 15:52, but you may have to wait for traffic on the line to clear a path first. Not really "misleading", but not bang on timetable either
Quite so, but within the game context I think it should tell you "wait for traffic to clear," or at least get the slightly comforting "wait for the signal to change" from the dispatcher instead of the you are screwed response "No route available."
Yeah, maybe that can be tweaked to "route not set, please wait" or something a bit more soothing than "haha, sucks to be you, dunnit?"
I would call this realism. These protection switches are there because the consequences of a crash are much more serious in real life. It looks a bit primitive, but it can be very effective in situations where speeds are still low.
It's a safe derailment of trains. This device mainly prevents the train, or part of it, from entering the main line.
