Console/PC Games -- Train Simulator

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Console/PC Games -- Train Simulator

1gilroy
tammikuu 27, 2021, 5:53 am

I've updated my console recently and discovered I have access to the game Train Simulator. This puts you in the chair to run an actual train. With all its simplistic complexity. Or you can just ride the train.

Anyone else tried any of these simulator type train games? What did you think?

2John5918
Muokkaaja: tammikuu 27, 2021, 6:42 am

Not really answering your question but I have driven the simulator at the South African national railway college, which is where I did my training to operate steam locomotives on the main line nearly twenty years ago. If I recall correctly, on the simulator I was driving a 2,000 ton freight train headed by a pair of class 10E electric locomotives, as it didn't have any steam locos. All went well until I saw a red signal ahead. Dynamic braking, train air brakes, finally the locomotive brake, and it felt like the bloody train was never going to slow down. Seemingly at the last moment it started to slow and I finally managed to stop it just short of the signal. It would have been rather embarrassing to pass a signal at danger, even on a simulator. But it had some interesting features such as screens showing you the gradient for each part of your train (ie the front of the train might be going downhill while the rear was still going uphill) and the load on each individual coupling throughout the train.

3thorold
tammikuu 27, 2021, 12:19 pm

I was quite an addict twenty years ago, when MSTS first came out, and I got quite involved with several other simulators of different kinds — Jan Bochmann's Bahn, Mark Goodspeed's Rail3D, Eisenbahn.exe, etc. But I got fed up with the way the hardware requirements of the sims were always creeping one or two steps ahead of whatever computer I actually had. Also I started building an N-gauge layout and I discovered YouTube cab videos, where you don't have to bother with the driving bit but still get to enjoy what's going on...

Driving a professional simulator (>2 John5918:) must be much more interesting, not only because of the instructor looking over your shoulder, but also they usually reproduce the actual instruments and controls rather than cramming all your visual cues onto one small screen.

Signalbox sims often interested me rather more than the driving ones, but I've rather lost track of those in the last few years as well.