On the BR112.1 the headlight is so dark that you cannot see the rails from the driver's cab. I also can't see signs in the dark. When I look in front of the locomotive, the 3 headlights are on, but much too dark. How do you make the headlights brighter so that you can see something on the track? Björn
Nearly all the routes have poor headlights except for a few locos and newer routes. So nights will be really dark and headlights don't project far. Has always been the case since tsw first released. The issue is creating headlights that are bright at night and don't light up the track and oversaturate the world during the morning which is especially true for American freight locos. In simple terms, they haven't yet overcome the challenge of making it bright at night but nonemissive during the day. And in the uk and Germany at least, headlights are there for other drivers to see you than for you to see the track.
^ This. Headlights only need to illuminate track side signage up to a few meters in front of you (just far enough ahead so you can read them while you whizz by them). No need to see the track or very far up ahead. Signals do need to be spotted earlier on, but they emit light of their own. Head lights are mainly there so others can see you coming (or going). Newer locos and trains have much brighter head lights because drivers do in fact like to see beyond 7 meters in front of them.
In real life, the signs would also be reflective and we would still be able to see signs from a distance away cuz we don't want to be seeing it last minute. The problem with the headlights in tsw is that you can't read a sign until you are right next to it or the signs aren't reflective, so you don't get to be warned in advance what is coming up. Riesa Dresden is a good example of how bright headlights should be and reflective signage. Although I said headlights are not for lighting up the track, I would still expect it to be brighter in real life so you can at least read the signs from further away
That was traditional European thinking; in the USA, though, the need to see obstructions well in advance led to the development of train headlights which are practically antiaircraft searchlights: blindingly intense.
They're implementing brighter head lights here for a while now; but they're not upgrading older stock as it's not really a necessity. They're mainly doing it because the drivers requested it (and with the legalisation of Xenon and then LED head lights for railway use in newer stock, the tech is now cheap enough to give the drivers want they want). But even the brightest headlights can not shine far enough to enable a driver to act fast enough upon seeing an obstruction on the track: the train will crash into it nonetheless. A stronger safety cage that protects the driver is much more useful then stronger head lights. In risk areas, DBNetz fences off the tracks. In the Netherlands, the "risk areas" cumulate to pretty much the entire network. I think the German and Dutch railways are the largest buyers of fences in the world In the end though, removing level crossings (by grade separation) is the only real solution. And that's what's been going on for the last 25 years or so in Germany and the Netherlands.
Entirely logical - when affordable. But the US has some 140,000 miles (225,000 km) of rail line, most of it through rural areas and wilderness. A drive along the Sherman Hill route conveys the essence of it, and the costs involved with fencing and bridging it all.
