Currently when running freight services there is zero penalty for running slow and I think there should be. Whilst running an 08 shunting service at Preston on Blackpool Branches in the snow and struggling with wheel slip I was acutely aware that Id held up not 1 but 2 main line expresses. But I had zero penalty and ended the run with a near perfect score. Personally I think this is wrong and I'd like to see some sort of penalty for delaying AI services. What I'd suggest would be that everytime AP is awarded this should be halved if an AI service is held at a red light because of my driving, in the same vein that slight overspeeding is penalised. But am I alone in this view or do others care as well?
Passenger services being delayed by freight happens all the time. The driver of the train doesn't get penalised, people just get compensation (if they choose to) from the TOC they're on. The other day, I was on a train that was delayed by nearly an hour due to a freight train in front which stopped moving. No one was penalised for it. So, basically, they don't get penalised in reality (unless it really was the driver's fault or they did it deliberately), and shouldn't be in TSW.
It’s also primarily the job of the signaller and at the next step up Control to ensure correct regulation of trains particularly when late running starts to occur. Aside from that, AP is so generous in TSW a few points deducted here and there are meaningless to the overall score, unlike TSC where you get nuked 1000 points for being two minutes late. DTG seem to have decided long ago that negative AP is a no, no and would upset the more sensitive souls playing the game… Not to mention AP is so skewed that a 40 minute run on Bakerloo can give three times as many points as a 90 minute drive on Clinchfield. In fact I would rather effort went into sorting the save game, so we can persist with chaos on a route jumping from one working to the next and seeing how things pan out during the day.
I think it's a bad idea. Many shunting services last much longer than the game thinks they last because the game doesn't seem to take into account the extra time needed to slowly approach consists and couping/uncoupling, together with the stupid idea that shunting maneuvers should stop exactly at certain points. And if you want to do it realistically and switch cabs often, change headlights everytime you change direction, and walking to uncouple/couple consists and changing switches rather than using the external camera, you are never going to make it within the time limit. The last thing we need is the game penalizing players for driving carefully and realistically.
Yup, I already don’t like the logic that stopping the train in the right place results in some kind of penalty, because whoever designed the service thinks all trains stop right at the end of the platform. I don’t necessarily care about the AP & wouldn’t miss it if the whole system was removed, but I don’t like the idea that there is a way DTG can enforce bad railway operations & standards, in a simulator. If you’re going to basically have a system which exists to tell people they’re doing something right or wrong, you should get the thing right yourself.
