All of the speed limit signs on the routes seem to apply to passenger services. The HUD tells me what my speed should be as a freight driver, but how would I know from the route itself? The signal speeds are obviously correct, but how do I know how much under line speed I'm allowed to go when running freight? I'm also a little confused about LZB on freight trains. I'm driving the BR 185 on Kassel-Würzburg, and LZB is keeping me at 120 km/h, but the loco's posted max speed is 140 -- why isn't LZB allowing me to do that? I'm also curious about some sections of some routes where the line speed changes (usually to some higher speed) but there's no signage indicating this. Is this just route knowledge? I don't know how I'd know these things without the HUD.
This is a complicated topic but very rewarding to engage with. In real life, you’d be handed a timetable that tells you how fast you can go. How you can do the calculations that serve as a basis for this yourself (or at least approximate them), I have summarised in this post: https://forums.dovetailgames.com/th...trains-realistically.44532/page-7#post-433834 Again, it seems like a mountain of theory at first but gets a lot easier and more transparent when you do the maths yourself a few times. Other forum members have made Excel-based calculators as well but I don’t have a link at hand now. Should be easy to find when looking for “freight calculator” or similar though. A loco’s top speed is rarely the restricting factors. In your case, it’s the cars behind you. There are no freight cars in TSW with a maximum permitted speed higher than 120km/h. In fact, most are usually restricted to 100km/h.
Ah, thanks. So without the HUD it'd be pretty difficult to work this out without a bunch of prior calculations for the service you're doing? Fair enough, I guess. I'm trying to work on not "playing the HUD" so much as driving the train. I definitely have a lot of work to do.
Some countries have multiple types of speed signals for different types of trains, Germany relies on this information being written in driver's timetable, with necessary lowering where the particular train would not be able to brake fast enough in danger. This is unfortunately not implemented in TSW in any way, generally the game HUD will only tell you the maximum track speed (which is almost always higher than freights are allowed), only on few services also slapping more or less random maximum consist speed over it. If you want to know the real maximum speed of freight, use the calculator in my signature, you only enter your loco, wagons and route and it calculates everything for you. Then you realise that freights are generally allowed not only much less than track speed, but also much less than PZB mode speed. And you will no longer have troubles to brake in time LZB can raise the allowed speed for freights in some cases (because it sees ahead and ensures there is nothing you would have to brake for), but then you will still be limited by the wagons' structural maximum speed, which is generally 100-120 km/h, as Lamplight said. Have fun without HUD!
That's probably the jump back up to line speed after the end of a signal speed limit. These are not signposted. Speed limits imposed by signals apply from a station entry signal or intermediate signal within a station: until the next signal from a station exit signal: until the last set of points in your train's path (that's until the rear of the train has passed those points)
Hi, As mentioned above there are a number of factors that determine what speed a train is allowed to do. If you just want to get in game and drive though, a simple way of getting a general idea of tour trains maximum speed is to look at the wagons behind you. If the name ends with a single s (Tankwagon Zacns for example) it is permitted in trains up to 100 km/h If the name ends with double s (Containerwagon Sggmrss for example) it is permitted in trains up to 120 km/h A wagon that has no s at the end is usually permitted in trains up to 80 km/h, but I'm not sure if there are any such wagons in the game today. There is of course much more to it than this, but it is an easy start anyway If anyone is interested in what the different wagon-names actually mean you can decipher them using the following site: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UIC_classification_of_goods_wagons
