Beyond bells and whistles!

[OldProf]

Thanks to RSC for my laugh (guffaw, actually) of the day, provided by this promotional description of the next engine coming down the chute:

"Available from 15 March! One of the most distinctive UK diesel locomotive designs of all time, the Class 70 is coming to Train Simulator 2012. The Class 70 owes its unique appearance to in-built safety measures, which aim to protect train crews in the event of a collision, and its North American ancestry (the type was designed and built by General Electric in Pennsylvania) which gives the cab a distinctly US flavour.

"The TS2012 Class 70 is highly detailed and includes many working features and readouts in the driver’s cab, including moveable sun blinds and swivelling seat, cab lighting, independent wiper settings, and dynamic display screens with readouts for reverser position, parking brake on, sander on, wheel slip, brake pressure, engine rpm, tractive force and speed."

What got me was the "swivelling (British spelling, naturally) seat" ... just what we all need in a locomotive! With all that stuff to look at, who will have time to drive? And what? No fully functional GPS? How about a DVD player, so we can watch our favorite train films during those long hauls? Cruise control, anyone?

Something I have noticed lately is that in some locos that don't have an actual bell, pressing the "b" key or clicking on the F4 HUD's bell symbol turns on the cab interior light. This can be seen and enjoyed in the Class 08 shunter included with the Woodhead Line, for example.

Let's all warm up our fingers and mice for the Class 70!

[Chacal]

How about a DVD player, so we can watch our favorite train films during those long hauls?

I'd rather have a laptop in the cab, so I could run Railworks on it during the long hauls.

[buzz456]

Brit Kits last several loco's have swinging bells.

[Kali]

There's none of that stuff in any RSC euro DLC either.

[Machinist]

According to this thread's shots (viewtopic.php?f=6&t=4699&hilit=erie#p45533), they forgot to mention that the .... brake pressure, engine rpm, tractive force and speed gauges are unreadable (4th shot) even zooming (6th shot), as usual. Engineers trainsimmers will have to wait a bit more to ride a really functional cab (I mean with readable gauges). Maybe, and hopefully, the upcoming huge DDX-40 will come with news...

[ArcticCatZRT]

This past week I got Trainz TS12 pretty cheap and a download pack from Jointed Rails. The one thing I like about the game(other than how much content is available) is the fact that the SD80MACs I got had almost fully functional cab(ei. train length, weight, tractive force, etc) all working on the monitors. The one thing though is that in my opinion, RW3 is much more pleasing to the eye. I wish I could somehow merge the two games to get a truly awesome simulator, but alias, just dreams