I'm not entirely sure if this is the most appropriate place for this but I couldn't really see a more suitable location for it so here goes.
I'm sure many of us have enjoyed creating and/or playing scenario's exploiting Kevin Newbouy's "Very Foggy Weather Patterns", I know I have. There's something about driving in the fog that really brings out the all-important immersion factor, all the more so if you're struggling to control a kettle while trying to keep an eye out for signals.
A while ago I was taking the 8F for a run along the Woodhead route, behind a stopping passenger AI in a thick morning haze. Between managing the boiler, trying to remember the gradient profile (I always play hud free) and concentrating on keeping my trains speed under control I managed to miss a distant, get confused as to where I was and found myself overrunning the next home signal to the extent that I could glimpse the AI's tail-light through the fog ahead of me when I finally juddered to a halt. A close shave! If only that distant had been fogged, I found myself thinking. I quickly laughed the thought off. I mean, Railworks doesn't have detonators, let alone the ability to have them interact with signals, does it. It doesn't of course, but that might not be the same thing as couldn't. Which brings me to the purpose of this post.
I'd like to ask those with more knowledge and experience in these things if it wouldn't be possible to create a detonator for use in Railworks? I'm envisioning an asset that would be placeable within the scenario editor. Visually it would be minimal but when a train passed over it you would hear a suitably loud bang. If such an asset was indeed a possibility my next question would be this, could it be made to interact with a signal in a similar manner to an AWS magnet?
Now maybe I'm just dreaming here, maybe I'm alone in seeking a bit more in the way of operational realism, maybe I'm hoping for too much and the whole thing is a technical impossibility, I don't know. But it would be nice to be able, some day, to drive into a thick fog sure in the knowledge that no matter how busy the footplate got I'd never miss a distant signal in the on position again.
Regards,
Derek