Been a wee while since I made a thread on here, hello again! I've noticed some pretty consistent (or rather inconsistent) oddities with the speed limits and I'm curious about other people's experiences with this. It seems to me that the game is relatively strict about hitting a lower speed zone; i.e. you had better be slowed to within the new limit as soon as you reach it if you want to avoid going into the yellow or red. This makes perfect realistic sense, especially on the approach to terminus stations. Meanwhile, the game seems unusually sluggish about updating to an increase in the speed limit despite what the track monitor and line-side notices are telling you. This is especially noticeable when you are bringing trains out of depots to the station and you are desperate to finally be allowed to move more than 5mph (especially on a gradient). I haven't done any proper measuring yet but I swear you sometimes have to go multiple train lengths past the point where the change is meant to occur. Very minor in the grand scheme of things, it's never cost me a run or anything, but I'm curious if other people have noticed the same thing.
In the railway world the full length of the train has to pass the speed Board before you can go faster. The only exception to this would be the London Underground. The track monitor speed limit disappears after you’ve passed the speed board because it’s only showing you what’s happening in front of the train, not behind.
Goint at 5MPH it can take quite a while for your whole train to pass the speed limit change, so it makes sense that it feels awfully long to you. But the game works fine in this regard, the speed limit display on the speedometer changes instantly when the rear of your train passes the speed limit change.
Didn't expect to learn something new about real-world railway workings from the thread! Fantastic, always delighted to learn more technical stuff about how our trains operate. Thanks both for the info! That logic makes total sense now I know it's tied to the length of the train!
However it's different on London Underground lines and the Bakerloo lines replicates it brilliantly. The Underground lines from Elephant and Castle to Queens Park are LU so as the speed increases occur as soon as the front of the train passes the sign, but from Queens Park to Harrow and Wealdstone it's National Rail so it's only when the rear of the train passes the sign
No, passenger drivers should know how long their train is and would use their route knowledge to judge whether they’ve passed the speed board, some trains have train length reminders like the Electrostars and Class 700, some fright trains also have them like the Vectron.
The LU can do this because every train on a given line is of a fixed length, so the position of the speed board can be calculated to allow for that distance.
Why not do it like highways, when you get to the speed sign you can acelerate to the new speed, or have to slow to the new speed, much simpler, and less prone mistake
Because a car is four meters long and is fully past the sign in a fraction of a second. Speed signs on railways are there because the track in that section is unsafe to traverse at faster than X speed, whether because of points, curve radius or something else- that is, it's unsafe for every car in the consist. That can be hundreds of meters; in the US or Australia it could be over a mile. And none of those cars can safely traverse that section higher than posted speed.
…although there are exceptions, where the speed limit in fact does apply only to the front of the train. These are typically where the speed limit is imposed to allow for prompt reactions in limited sighting conditions, such as at certain open level crossings. In these cases, you must slow down when approaching the crossing, but may speed up again as soon as the driving cab is past the crossing. There are also cases where a speed limit is imposed for a heavy locomotive, but not for the much lighter passenger carriages it might be hauling. This is the case for steam-hauled operations on the Esk Valley line (which has a junction with the NYMR) at underbridges of a certain design and age. So the train must slow to approach the bridge and when the locomotive is crossing it, but may speed up before the last carriage is across. The more usual passenger trains on the line are lightweight DMUs which do not have this limit imposed. In most other cases, the speed limit applies to the entire train, and applies when any part of it is within the restriction.
Where is the train length button on the Electrostar? I had no idea this was a thing, and would be very useful in-game!
even if the locomotive start to acelerate at the speed sign, the back will probably not even start going faster until it is very lose to the speed sign anyway
For a short train like a locomotive, yes. However, short trains like the locomotive also share track with long trains like a BR185 pulling 30 freight wagons (such as in Riesa-Dresden) so you need a way to tell trains of any length what the speed limit is. Instead of putting signs at every possible length of train (note that not all wagons are the same length) they simply have the driver wait until the rear of their train passes. The use of distance measuring equipment on trains can help with this.
Right, what the Electrostar has is not something that beeps after proceeding forward by a train-length. It's just a reminder of how many cars the train is made up of. One of the things this is used for is stopping at the correct marker at stations. What freight locomotives often have these days is something that beeps after proceeding forward by a train-length. You have to enter the length of the train into the onboard computer - and this is something that the Guard (or train preparer) would routinely provide to the driver as part of the train's documentation.
The reason for this: If you are driving an 8 coach train, and crossing a junction with a speed limit of 20mph, even though the first four coaches are now past that speed limit, the remaining four are not. Increasing the speed here could lead to serious incidents such as derailment.
Yes; not to mention that fact that different trains also use the same tracks, it simply isn't a one size fits all line like the Tube.
I noticed on Bremen Oldenburg that a lot of speed changes are ± 10m in front of behind the actual in-game speed board. And on Maintalbahn that the speed limit already goes higher only if half of the train passed it instead of your whole train.
