Metrosim Simulator (Netherlands)

When you start the activity, you appear in a train cab. You can first press `Ctrl + F4` to "switch on" the cab. Right-click and drag to rotate your point-of-view to also include the "speed limit indicator" and other indicator lights. Now you should see 35 in green, and the red indicator on the speedometer also shows 35. Since you may not know the control yet and you will not want the train to delay, press `C` to enable the AI driver at the moment. At the bottom you will see "<AI>" indicating that the AI is in control.

At the same time the AI controls the train, let's take a look at the interface. If you move the cursor to the top-right corner you will see a yellow popup. That is the timetable (or whatever) with time, train number and strange station abbreviations, which is useful for telling where the train is for (there are three branches).

Move the cursor to the bottom and you should see a picture of a train formation. Usually, this is the train you're driving. Fortunately in this case it is. Above one of the cab you should see a triangle. That triangle indicates that the cab is on. (Remember that you pressed `Ctrl + F4`?) You can click on a cab to switch to it. Try to teleport to the rear end of the train and teleport back (don't worry, the AI is in control).

Now move the cursor to the left. You should see three buttons. The top two are kind of like "train yard bookings", but let's focus on the bottom button first, which is for the "signalling diagram". Click it and a blue panel should appear on the bottom. Now you see yellow lines, along with thick yellow lines and some red thingy. Much like SimSig, they indicate routes and occupied sections. The timetable (top-right corner) says you're supposed to be driving "7332CP", so try to look for it on the diagram! (Hint: somewhere near SVC2 and KVL)

Now you can close the signalling diagram by pressing the same button on the left again (or you can choose to not close it, but it will leave you with little space) to see the cab). Depending on your reading speed you should reach the second station or even already passed it. At the station you may hear a buzzer and you'll see the blue indicator with a "T" on it lights up, and an emergency brake will be applied some time later. It means you are ahead of schedule and should wait at the station till departure time. The buzzer and brake is, apparently, the deadman device, because you would press `~` to release the brake and it is list as "Confirm deadman". Anyway, it will be released automatically when it is time. Note that there is another case where the buzzer will sound. That is when the train doesn't receive a signal. In this case you will need to constantly press `~` in order to continue driving or else the train will halt.

Spend some time to observe the status at the bottom when the AI is driving. You will notice the "Throttle" item going up and down. It indicates the traction/brake control. Positive means power, negative means brake. To control it, you press `<` and `>` (that's `,` and `.` on a US keyboard).

Now if you want to drive it simply press `C` again to disable the AI driver. Be sure to follow speed limits! When you arrive at stations you should stop at the white rhombus-shaped stop indicator with a "2" on it, or otherwise the one without numbers on it. When you arrive at a station, press `Delete` or `End` to open left/right side door, and then press `D` to close all doors. Drive until you reach a station with overhead lines and note the following.

When you arrive the first station with overhead lines, this is where you are going to branch off to a single-track section with passing loops. You can see it on the signalling diagram. Here you will need to lower the 3rd-rail shoe with `Shift + I` and raise the pantograph with `Ctrl + P`, since the branch only has overhead lines but no 3rd-rail.

Just continue driving until you reach the end of the track. Now, stop and open the door. Be sure to set the throttle to 0 before you switch off the cab with `Shift + F4`. Using the bottom formation bar, teleport to the other end of the train, switch it on, close the doors and drive.

Note that the timetable says you should stop at SDW. It is the station where you just switched traction (switched to overhead lines). At the station you should switch direction again. Remember to lower pantograph with `Shift + P` and raise the 3rd-rail shoe with `Ctrl + I`.

At the next station you are branching off once again. But this time it is a little bit different - you need to switch traction while the train is moving. There are signs to remind you of that. Just drive to the very end - "MLS".

Now if you check the timetable, you should notice that there is a "decouple" instruction. What you should do is to first power off the current cab, then teleport to a cab in the middle of the train. Switch on the cab and press `Shift + O`, you should hear a sound like air pressure being released. Now note the bottom-left where it says "Rij", it basically means "forward". Press `Q` twice and you should see it changes into "Ra", which basically means "backward". Just apply a little power to separate the two trains, then stop it, press `W` twice to change to forward, and switch off the cab.

Now let's check the train formation bar... it is not the train at the departure end! Now what you should do is to press the up/down arrows until you find the train. It's annoying, but this is the only way to do it. Once you find that train, continue driving according to the timetable. Do remember to lower the pantograph or else the footbridge at the station will actually break it and cause the train to lose traction!

On other activities you may encounter events with coupling trains (and even "coupling" to buffer stops). Just go at a not-too-slow speed and when you hear the sound you know that the trains are coupled.

I Have now manage to drive a train, but will need to learn how to set routes and change points. Thank you for all your help. at least i am working it out slowly. Thanks again.

Been tentatively giving this 'simulation' a go lately, and it's quite good really. Good to finally get behind the controls again now that I'm on seemingly now permanently on Windows 7 - which BVE4, which in my opinion was truly a proper simulation, reportedly does not run on.

However, it's a shame that I'm sometimes finding my PC crashing and restarting itself whilst playing this?!! At first, it started whilst playing full screen. I finally found out to how change it to windowed mode once I found the setting to do so, but it seems to still be crashing. Any ideas on this?

Just a question for UK train-sim lovers: is there any RUN8 team in the UK that gather in sessions. It's because it's nearly impossible for any european to join US sessions unless you Wake up at 2am...
Right now I'm going to try metosim simulator, thanks for that post