Genuine question, as the PS4 version can't turn the HUD off fully (we need to have the speedometer permanently on) So my question is, what, in the game world do you look for to determine when a station is coming up, especially one you need to stop for? How does this work in the real world? What do drivers look for, or how do they know when they need to stop for an upcoming station? What information does the game provide? ( I have to leave the top left info panel on showing distance to next station, otherwise, how would you know?)
In the real world, you'll typically test over a route dozens of times, learning each and every curve, as well as every station and grade crossing. By the time you qualify, you'll be able to remember every spot like your morning commute. As for knowing how to stop for a station, it really just comes down to practice.
Just checking that it does actually come down to route knowledge and not a feature DTG have left out of the game
Surprised that (like motorways) there are no signs way before the stations on a route, to warn you which station is next
Oh and when I said, knowing when to stop at a station, I mean't as in the service you are running, in GWR, some trains didn't stop at every station, so how would you know where and when to stop, or just to continue if there are no signposts telling you what the next station is?
There are also kilometer / mile signs which give you orientation aswell. Drivers probably know based on those where exactly they are and where the next station / signal and stuff is. If you look at this on Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruhr–Sieg_railway, on the right side, you see where the stations are. Its for the RSN route and they match the games markers quite well.
Although driver's are required to have knowlege of a given route, the driver will also have a Buchfahrplan, which is a book that has the various routes with timetables and details about them. For example this is for train E 2839 Paderborn Hbf to Altona: Column 1 gives the Kilometer distance from the start/end of the route. Column 2 is is the speedlimit on that stretch of track, so from approx 106km to 47km the speedlimit is 90kph. Column 3a is the feature, which may be a signal or a station, 3b is the precise location, e.g. Paderborn Hbf is at 128km 300m. Column 4 is the arrival time, Column 5 is the departure time, so the train will be booked to arrive at Altenbeken at 0608 and depart at 0609. If there is only a departure time then the train doesn't have to stop, although it may be stopped by the signalman if it's running ahead of schedule for example. On older locomotives it's an actual book, but on modern locomotives it's displayed on one of the screens: Here's an older locomotive, you can see the books in the middle of the driver's desk:
I really hope that we get over time in a core update those screens for the "Fahrtenbuch" working. But the list of those additional features is long and sadly i havent seen much core game features added. (Like the destination boards finally and such stuff). But it would be a nice addition
It's the low resolution too that the console versions suffer from don't help, I can't believe we never even got the zoom feature as the fixed internal camera options, while good, don't really work when travelling at speed
I listen to railroad communication frequently with my scanner, the Amtrak engineers that run through here are always the same 4-5 people, I can recognize their voice easily, has been that way for at least a few years. They run back and forth between St. Louis and Kansas City, Missouri twice a day, every day. I imagine they know this route quite well, and that is how it works, at least here. You are only allowed to run routes that you are qualified for and know very well.
I must thank you all for the insight into how it works in real life. As long as I now understand that it's 50% signals and in cab alarms, and 50% actually 'learning' the route manually through run after run. In all honesty this makes perfect sense now, and even more of the reason I enjoy simulators in the first place. No hand holding, just the basics to operate the train, then get out there and 'qualify' yourself on the route. Now I've got that under my belt (a printout of the RSN manual) and a better understanding of where the PZB triggers are, I've had a couple of nice and successful runs back and forth in the DR 143 (and the 767) This is the beauty of TSW, once you get the hang of the loco's, then the flow of the route, everything drops into place and you suddenly feel more in control of the situation. You start to relax and in turn start noticing more signs and become familiar with the geography. At the start of the week I was like a fish out of water on the German/Austrian signalling system as I've pretty much stuck with the 2 UK routes for obvious reasons. I'm even used to quickly swapping into cursor mode to catch the PZB acknowledgements in the DR 143 (until they hopefully fix the controller bug) A few more runs at different times then I'm going to play around with different weather settings
being an x British Rail driver we were given timetables to work from every week. i.e. what trains we was diving, what trains we was second-manning. what train to catch to get us to destinations to pick up trains to drive or to take them out of service for cleaning or maintenance.. I worked mostly on freight trains on the southern region and in the shunt yards but i also did some passenger services
I'd been wondering the same thing myself gotta admit this game has given me a new found respect for trains and train drivers!
How does the driver know when the entire train has passed the speed limit sign? Some locomotives have a feature for this, but not all, and for example on the RSN I do not know when the speed limit rises.
I must admit when i was driving trains it was in the days before computers and mobile phones. so if a controller wanted to contact us they would leave messages at stations for us by notes or we had to ring them. if a route was changed whilst driving they would put a red signal on so then we would have to get out of the cab and ring the signal man cos they had phones on the signals as well, the signalman would then tell us if the route had been diverted or if we had to make extra stops or not to call at stations
The only way I use is watching the red bug on the HUD speedo, you'll see that change automatically, plus you can start to learn the speed changes once you see and pass a speed post, it becomes second nature to 'feel' when the rear of the train should reach that very same speed post you've just past
It's for the most part experience if you don't have any other systems available. The important thing to be aware of is the length of your train, either overall or in cars, and the speed in a useful format. If you have 25 x 60ft freight cars and you're travelling at 40mph, that's 58feet per second, so it'll take roughly 30 seconds for the train to pass into speed restriction.