Railworks America

Is it my imagination, or does Train Simulator provide a disincentive to proper train handling? I'm referring to timed station stops (such as are on the London/Brighton line). No mater weather conditions, stop signals, etc., the standard scenarios still appear to fail various station stops by enforcing a schedule that is difficult to maintain even in perfect conditions. I'm primarily referring to wet rails (which seems to have been taken into account with appropriate dynamics), poor visibility (when the signal aspect cannot be read until you're practically on top of it), and so forth. These are all conditions that an engineer should take into account when handling his/her train, and they should not be penalized for such delays beyond their control. When the authors of various scenarios set them up, they really need to alter what time constitutes a failed stop.

Does anybody else see this, or am I just blowing smoke?

You are right, and you correctly identify scenario writers as responsible for this.
The game itself is not.

You're correct in your findings. I also find it difficult to finish any scenarios on London to Brighton or the NEC without slamming it into emergency at the last second and the going straight to full throttle from a dead stop.

Me thinks the passengers are having a hard time drinking their coffee when it's all over their laps.

Yea, this is why I hate time table scenarios, because it doesn't let you operate to real world standards. I tend to avoid them like the plague.

Opening a timetable-controlled scenario for editing often reveals precisely the fault being discussed here: a passenger stop, for example, that includes a timetable schedule will be clearly labeled as impossible to complete, usually rendering all later timetabled passenger pickups impossible as well. Scenario writers, including those who work for or with RSC, are apparently unaware of this simple way of checking the validity and possibility of a timetabled scenario's instructions.

Furthermore, the same thing is presumably true of career scenarios, in this case rendering them impossible to complete successfully and thus lowering the scores of those who play them. After attempting one of the earliest career scenarios, I swore off of them permanently, but they are obviously attractive to some players, who should realize that the deck is stacked against them not because of "real-world" simulations, but because of careless scenario writing.

Caveat emptor, as always.

As you say, you have to "slam into emergency". Not a good thing in the real world, unless you like flat wheels! I also don't like the fact that brakes can be released from emergency in the same time-frame as a normal full application. Not knowing too much about the simulator internals, are brake dynamics controlled by the scenario, locomotive, or some other aspect of design?

Brake dynamics are controlled by the core game engine, which implements algorithms or formulae.

Parameters or variables used by these formulae are set for each piece of rolling stock. You can see them in engine and wagon blueprints, which are documented in RSC's developer docs. These parameter are set by the creator of each asset and can be easily modified by anyone.

Physics, including brake dynamics, are known to be lacking realism in RW.

In some cases, this is caused by incorrect parameters in blueprints, which is easily fixable by users.

In other cases, careful adjustments of parameters can't compensate for the limitations of the game engine.
Only RSC could fix this, but so far they haven't done much of that for reasons we can only guess at.