When was the last time that you arrived on time in a public server when you had to drive on the mainline? I suspected that it’s basically impossible, so I decided to put some research into it. And oh did I research. In this article I’ll discuss what I found out, my thought’s about the state of delays in SCR, and I’ll also look into what other people are thinking about this.
Before you continue though, just remember that the results I have fully depend on the traffic in the server. All of these were conducted in a full, 75 player server to ensure that the results showed the way that the developers intended and so that the comparisons were fair. Furthermore, I followed all driving restrictions strictly that might’ve affected delays, such as slowing down to 45mph before a caution signal, and entering stations below 30mph.
Delays on a Connect mainline route
For this test, I used a 385 (Max 100mph) on Connect and drove from Stepford Central to Hampton Hargate.
A part of my theory was that the timetables were just designed poorly, forcing drivers to get to stations in usually just a minute or two.
This was proven to me when I drove this route with essentially no traffic up until Morganstown, with each stop getting progressively more and more delayed.
Overall, I finished the route on time, as the final stretch from Morganstown to Hampton Hargate gives a lot of time to spare.
Overall, this proves that the route timings can be inconsistent but in general they end up being reliable when compared between the start and end stations – however the stations in between tend to get heavily out of sync with the timetable.
Delays on an Express route
For this one, I drove a Voyager (Max 125mph) on Express from Llyn-by-the-Sea to Rayleigh Bay.
Here the main goal was to test how points where the track thins affects the delay. I found a lot regarding this, as the Llyn-Leighton City section of track has tons of these areas.
Where I first started seeing problems was Westercoast. The section of tunnel was heavily clogged with Connect trains.
Additionally, this problem continued by Edgemead where the track thins again. Slower services kept cutting in front of me!
In conclusion, the timetable did not predict any of these fairly expected and standard disruptions on the mainline. I ended up being 9 minutes delayed after the expected arrival time.
It would be really nice to see the developers eventually update the way that the timetable functions, using predictions instead. This could be implemented based on server traffic, taking into consideration when trains will be passing what locations.
Places like Edgemead and Westercoast often become bottlenecks in fuller servers, so it wouldn’t be hard to predict these disruptions.
It would be quite a lot to implement though, and at the current development rate it feels like it might be a tad bit much to ask for right now.
Delays with a guard compared to without one
To finish off my experiments, I drove a Metro class 555 (Max 50mph) from Willowfield to Barton via Angel Pass without a guard, and then with one.
On both of the services, I got stuck at the infamous Beechley Triangle. This heavily slowed me down, and is basically guaranteed to happen in larger servers.
This again links to my earlier point of how the scheduling system should take other factors into account, and not just focus on the time it takes to get from A to B without any disruptions!
In regards to how a guard affects the delays, here’s what I noticed: It does. Significantly. The closing and opening of doors is in no way represented in the schedule. Having a guard on board is essentially waving goodbye to the green “on time” text at the end of your route.
With a guard, I ended up being 7 minutes later than expected. This is a huge time difference to what was expected.
Without a guard, I was only 2 minutes delayed, still bad but this proves that the game doesn’t take guarding into account.
What does the community think?
“yeah it does expect you to get to places too fast sometimes, but it wouldn’t be realistic if it calculated the schedule based on traffic as that isn’t how it works in real life”
-micro_ross
I agree with this, however what I mean by saying that the game should take traffic into consideration is that the traffic in SCR keeps changing, unlike traffic in real life. Schedules in real life are predictable, as traffic stays mostly the same.
“the timetable is stupid, because it doesn’t go off actually accel and deaccel”
-Basil_owo
I didn’t even consider that, that could be the case!
So, what do you think? Do people just suck at driving in SCR or are the timetables just messed up? Let us know!
By Cazot, 27.06.2026
