One of our customers recently sent us an email with a small complaint and a suggestion, which we don't want to hold back from our forum community, since we appreciate all of them - well almost all of them: we won't accept spam or other offensive stuff.
Here we go:
If I understood this correctly...
when a train stopped at a red signal calls you, you can enter a time to tell the crew the approximate time they will have to wait. While playing the BNSF Alliance East I told the crew to wait for 25 minutes. However, I then changed my mind and cleared a signal for their train after only five minutes had elapsed. The crew chose to wait for the remaining 20 minutes or so before plodding along their merry way. I have personally never witnessed a behaviour like this. In general, the crews are alert and will react to signal change (sometimes slower than usually, but in general all of them will not be napping since the rules require that at least one of them is awake at all times).
If the behaviour I witnessed is intented, I believe it should be changed. I think the time entered should be only a "call me back after __ minutes" advice. A certain amount of random delay (maybe 3-5 minutes at most) before the train starts might be in order, but not a full time.
This is our response:
Our virtual train crew sometimes have their own minds ...
Seriously, the wait time was introduced to get the caller off your back for a while. It is like saying, leave me alone, don't call me every 3 minutes. Take a break!
What do the crews do? Read a book, play cards? For all intense and purpose they could take a nap. If the rules say at least one should be awake, doesn't mean watching the signal all the time, does it?
If I remember correctly, a green signal does not always give a train permission to proceed - although in our simulator it does to make it simple.
In CTC 3.19 we're going to introduce the capability for you to make a call, e.g. to send a maintenance crew to check and fix switches and tracks (they won't do it automatically for you anymore) along with changes in block maintenance and slow orders. This will also open the possibility for you to call a train crew, for instance to stop a train right away, or to resume at regular speed when it is traveling right now under caution and the next signal is still far away.
One possible option would be to call a crew and tell them, hey, I know I told you to wait for 30 minutes, but the situation has changed and you may proceed right now per signal indication, pass the red signal under caution, or reverse the train.
Now, for the possible responses for a call to you re train stopped at signal, we can add an additional option saying, wait for xx minutes, but keep watching for a signal change - so somebody of the crew will look at the signal (maybe less frequent) as per your suggestion. And maybe keep the existing option "take a nap" and don't count the duration against the crew time (we haven't implemented crew time yet, that's for the future). This may not be according to the rules - I'm sure it is not -, so think of it as an incentive for the game player.
