On at least two runs I have done now, letting AFB and LZB control the train, have ended up arriving at Fulda 10 minutes early. Surely that can't be right? Are the trains timed that slackly in real life or are there other factors at play? Either there are trains missing that you would normally catch up, or maybe the trains are performing better than their real life counterparts. As we cannot speed up time or jump forward in TSW it makes for a rather boring 10 minutes twiddling your thumbs and if you leave the cab to walk around the station you get pestered by the relinquish train message.
I believe, but am no expert, that the schedule is typically not with the line max speed, on this stretch rather with a conservative 230-ish, so that delayed trains can make up time. Going at that speed, the wait for me is typically only a couple of minutes which is realistic, they typically stay one to two minutes at a station.
Yes I think I will try driving manually or set the AFB lower. It nearly caught me out anyway with the signal already cleared through and permitted speed through Fulda of 100km/h it wasn't going to stop until I intervened.
You shouldn’t be letting AFB drive the train. AFB should only be a secondary system to stop you going over the max speed in case you don’t initially brake hard enough or something. You should be staying below the max speed and braking well ahead of the braking curves and essentially driving the train yourself. The SKW timetable is good because it allows for gentle acceleration and braking which keeps your passengers happy and there’s no need to ever hug the speed limits.
Interesting point of view as the "official" LZB tutorial in the game indicates otherwise, in that you whack AFB up to full speed and let the train systems manage it - maintaining supervision and intervention as needed, effectively a form of ATO. In fact up until encountering that tutorial I wasn't even using AFB and using my own skill (ha!) on the throttle and brakes. Which I shall now resume to do!
The tutorial is really bad in that regard, AFB is really more a safeguard that you don’t speed, but it shouldn’t be used to brake, and as said before you should brake before the LZB curve goes down and AFB intervenes.
The 101 is particularly enjoyable on SKW. Here is a partial copy of something I posted on another thread: You get to take full advantage of all the improvements cwf.green has made to the 101 (https://forums.dovetailgames.com/threads/tsw3-br101-changelist.58759/) including the fact that you can take over the LZB braking curve by beginning with an application of electric brake only. This "uncoupled" brake application disables the AFB and you become responsible for following the LZB curve. When both the Train Brake and the Electric Brake are released, AFB becomes active again. See number 12 in the lead post of that thread.