I've just been gifted the Blackpool route and whilst the route itself is very good I find it is let down by a couple of things 1. Passengers, This is weird. You look at the train from outside and the train is full of passengers. You move the camera to a different angle and they all disappear. 2. The god forsaken AI timetable. need I say more on this, but arriving at a station at 30 seconds past is plain silly. I also fail to see the point in driving a light loco to Blackpool south into a dead end empty station!
There’s no AI timetable. Being timetabled to arrive at xx:30 and depart at xx:00 is completely accurate or arrive at xx:00 and depart xx:30.
2. Read the description of the light loco runs - they are driver's training runs, which is quite cool
Is that why the speed limit is 60mph even though the line speed is 70mph. Just tried OZ05 (In Journey mode) There is no way I can get to blackpool south in 10 mins. The description mentions nothing of being driver training runs
The description will tell you on the menu screen, where you select the service there is a description box stating so.
I think there is a mixture of training/route learning runs and operationally required light loco moves. If you don't like those services there are plenty of other services which are on 'normal' passenger services which have a 'point' to them.
There is a known issue, which I hope gets fixed, where any service that runs through the token exchange has its subsequent timings column-slipped, i.e. the token-exchange time was mistakenly repeated for the next station stop, and you're necessarily running behind the rest of the way.
The biggest issues are the Ormskirk branch where you aren't given enough time to reach Preston/ the token exchange, so you are then late to every stop. But not sure if that is still in or has been fized
I think the reason the light locos are capped at 60mph is because back then, that was the max speed they were allowed to go (apparently due to stability and not having a full train's worth of brakes). No idea if that still applies to modern traction though.
Light engine speeds still apply today with max speed being 75mph. You obey the permissible line speed up to 60mph and above that, you remain at 60mph up to the permissible line speed of 85mph. If the permissible line speed is 90mph+, you can reach 75mph.
Traffic volume. A token system works so long as you only have one train on the branch at a time. If passenger demand requires more than that, tokens don't work.
The passengers disappearing is bug what I first noticed in tsw4. Depending on the camera angle the disapeare. It's on all passenger trains.
I think you may be referring to the thing TSW does where it removes what you can’t see to reduce memory usage, it can do it quite close for a few things, this being one of them.
DTG has never done animations of passengers sitting down or standing up. Instead, they walk into the train doors and teleport into their seats
I think they do it for station seats but yea not trains. edit: though I would like to see the passengers do it on the 150 and 465, that being the 465 seems to have really tight passage between the 3 by 2 seats to the point I’m not convinced they are to scale like that, and similarly the 150 seats have always seemed weirdly small from the camera’s perspective.
RE: Timings. I've put a lot of hours in to Blackpool, and I don't have any issue keeping to the timetables now I'm used to the Pacer. The first few runs can slip a little, but you soon work out how to gain a bit of time if you get a delay.
Many single track routes around the UK employ different methods of protection even in the same general area. You can go from full track circuit block, through traditional token or staff working (either exchanged with the signaller or on many rural routes by the driver in a token hut connected to the signalbox - NSTR), tokenless block or RETB. Much depends on traffic levels, priority for investment in newer systems etc. Even close to London, the Maidenhead to Marlow branch uses TCB from Maidenhead to Bourne End, but Bourne End to Marlow requires the driver to obtain a one train working staff from the machine at Bourne End, before proceeding to Marlow.
The speed limit is 60mph because a light loco Class 47 has a maximum speed of 60mph because of its braking ability not being as good as it would be if it was pulling a train.
Anyone else think it's funny doing the shunting jobs at Blackpool North and Preston , passengers don't get off the coaches so you have passengers sat patiently in the sidings.
