Wrong Headlight Settings On German Loco Tutorials

Has anybody noticed or is aware that in almost every tutorial for german locos the use of bright headlights is specified.

This is wrong. This setting corresponds to "Fernlicht" (High Beams) which is almost never used in RL. Due to the dense infrastructure, it would permanently blind oncoming trains and nearby road traffic. As the driver needs to see signals not the track, high beams are hardly ever used.

For example, the standard lights setting on the ICE 1 corresponds to "Signal Lights - Normal".

Source: Wikipedia


And if you look at the forum's background image, the SKW promo image, it also has the wrong settings, as the top light is off - this is not realistic

 

What about trains like the 628, where the choice is between "normal" and "reduced"?

 

At least it’s not as worse as the 187 with the entire headlights being wrong

 

It's the first thing I noticed since the RSN route released and its carried on ever since in every German route.

 

People were talking about this on Discord a few days ago. A RL driver said reduced it's almost always used. Normal during the night and fog, but high beams never.

 

Except maybe after passing a Hp0+Zs7 (Red signal with three additional yellow lights in a 'V' shape), when you have to drive on sight "Fahren auf Sicht" at nighttime. (max 40 km/h)

 

I’ve raised this so many times that I just can’t be bothered anymore. DTG’s tutorials/scenarios get it wrong consistently but no one at DTG seems to care about it.

 

I stopped hoping this will be accurate one day like 4-5 years ago :-D

 

Oh, I thought that was correct, that's how we do it in Sweden.

 

In any case, I wanted to make players aware of this. So if they prefer realistic operation they can set correct low beams / dimmed headlights.

 

And thank you for doing so. Didn’t want to sound dismissive if that’s how I came across.

No, in Germany, we only use marker/signal lights during the day and high-beams at night as long as there are no other trains or stations in sight (that’s my experience on my local line at least in regards to high-beams during the night).
Fun fact: If you look at older pictures, you’ll actually see a lot of German trains driving around without any lights on. Before the mid to late 90s if I recall correctly, lights were not obligatory during the day if visibility conditions were good.

 

I must admit once I put the headlights on bright and trigger the acknowledgement I always put it to normal or reduced.

 

You are correct but it's a different story for American Trains here's the quote about that

For some locomotives like 155 143 DR Baureihe 250 & 243 it only has White head lights no Reduced & Normal settings. EMU Elektrisch Triebwagen 442 & 425 does it have the reduced setting or not? otherwise you are forced to follow the tutorial Bright lights when running a service that uses them