Train Simulator Keyboard Shortcuts
Zee Palmer
As with any PC simulator game (with or without arcade elements), there are many times countless keyboard shortcuts that can help with the operation of the game object (car/train/boat/plane/...) you are in charge of. Often, these shortcuts are the alternative to whipping the mouse around all the time to reach virtual levers and handles that do the same but take longer to operate and in turn, that additional time spent can lead to accidents.
Today I curated a short (not that short actually) list with some explanatory text and images in between which keyboard shortcuts are interesting for the player and apply to most or all of the locomotives in the game (even the DLC packs). This, on top of informing you about relevant shortcuts, has the added benefit that you can have this list open next to you on a separate monitor or your phone / tablet for quick access while you pilot your train.
Please note that this list was written based on the in-game defaults with a QWERTZ keyboard layout, players with a QWERTY or other key arrangement structure can encounter variations in the listed combinations.
If you notice any of these variations and want me to add them to this cheat sheet for others to benefit from, hop into the comments and let me know.
This cheat sheet is also not aiming to replace the in-game tutorials & trainings about how you should handle the different locomotives and trains. It should be seen as an addition to that and also an easy-to-access knowledge base.
Some shortcut names will include the supplement "/ Toggle". This means that the denoted key first toggles the function into the ON state (e.g. AFB Off to AFB On) before going ahead and increasing the function value (e.g. AFB 10 KPH to AFB 20 KPH) each time the key is pressed after that.
When using the keyboard shortcuts in TSW2, the game will always inform you if a button press was successful and also what it triggered. You can see one example of such an information here (this picture shows the top right edge of your screen while in the drivers seat):
Below the AP, next sign and speed limit, it says Wiper Intermittent in the bottom right to confirm that you pressed the Wiper Increase shortcut in a DB ICE3 two times to get to that setting value.
This shortcut triggers an HUD overlay quick menu where you can Contact the Signaller and also lock & unlock the left, right or both passenger door sides. The shortcut will react to one press to display the menu and another press to hide it again. The button doesn't have to be held down to keep the menu up on screen.
The menu looks like this:
Because I had difficulty finding a list of keyboard shortcuts for TSW3 to keep on my second monitor as a reference, I produced this listing by hand. Here are the Train Sim World 3 Locomotives PC Keyboard Shortcuts. I hope you find them helpful.
The key that allows us to write in chat can now be set (before it wouldn't allow us to bind a key to that function)... but i haven't got that to work yet.... i assume it should be like mouse clicking in the chat window, but a key to press that activates the chat writing bit.
And i also noted that in the EU07, the combo of SHIFT and power wheel up and down keys (usually + and -)
before it just rapid moved the wheel between notch 28 and to zero, and if in notch 43, it would rapid move to zero.
We still need a way to turn switches off via the keyboard, as ATM we can only flip toggle switches on, i know the dev's said a toggle switch changing state with each key press can't be done, but there must be a way.. say 'SHIFT + the key' to flip it off? as that would count as a separate key press event?? as that works with the EU07 rapid power wheel movement.
i mostly drive the EU07, and another key bind that would be handy is the traction motor overload button, as i am still tripping the overload occasionally, and have to use the mouse to pan the view then press the reset button.
A big thankyou to the SimRail team for listening to their customers and implementing things people ask for.
Hopefully they will enable the modifier keys....
obviously it's not a game breaking thing, more important stuff to work on atm, but it's a 'would be nice' feature...
There are people out there who don't like using the mouse to click and drag controls, and even some people who can't use a mouse and rely on keyboard alone.
When assigning controls to keyboard keys, if we just use the letter keys alone, we have 26 of them, but add the SHIFT modifier, and that's now 52 keys available, add in CONTROL and its 78, ALT makes for 104 ... and each modifier has a left and right one you can have ... 208 keys to assign to controls.. plus the number pad and so on.
We'd likely need separate key maps for each different train, that's where games like tsw fall down, trying to have just one universal key set that covers all trains (and that horrible thing they do where how far a control moves depends on how long you hold a key / game controller button down for)
train simulator (classic) has a key map for each loco, and we know a lot of tsw is just 'tarting up' past tsc content and reselling it to us over and over again ?
I agree, it's hard to get at the wiper switch, the washer switch is totally hidden by the brake lever stanchion, and when the brake lever is in 'initial' position, i find i can't operate the wipers switch, as the brake controls are popping up all the time.
Okay, so I noticed a bit of an issue with the new controls. You can turn all the stuff on (cabin light, console light, etc) using the keyboard controls, but you can't turn any of it off. I'm gonna post this in the Bug section.
oh yeah, a few people have been asking for keybinds to turn toggle switches off too... there was a post where the devs said they can't set a single key to trigger a control in the opposite direction (flip flop style) , i.e. press say 'k' for cab lights once and the switch turns on, press 'k' again and it turns off.
This is so it's comfortable for me to rest my hands each side of the laptops keyboard and have all the most used controls at my fingertips, only needing to move my hands to operate the horn, the door switch in the EMU's, or turn the cab or instrument lights on (but not off ?
If you play on a laptop with an arthritic condition, maybe consider getting yourself an external wireless keyboard. I think in your case it wouldn't be a bad idea to get one without a numberpad and with a touchpad. They make some of them light and small. Would probably beat playing on built-in laptop keyboard.
Hopefully i can resurrect it next year, and get it working with SimRail (with a more EU07 set of controls)
as to get it working with tsw needed a lot of hackery and even then half the controls would be dead, so i've given up with that game.
Cough * TSW * cough... That's a nice concept. I reckon something like that would need some Arduino controller(s) as a backend for interfacing with your PC (if you would want everything to work mechanically the way you designed it). I was doing some research on something like the above a while back. Wanted to see how difficult it would be to put together.
oh it was pretty much all working electronically,
the levers have mechanical notches (that can be changed to suit different trains) and they turn potentiometers to send the position 'signal' and all the switches work similar to the real things.
i was running it on an arduino due, which was seen by the computer as a multi axis joystick,
I even had a colour oled in the controller that showed the train selected (as i had to do all the control changes onboard, as tsw only has one global set of control for all trains via the raildriver hack)
I cannot use my keyboard to type in the simulator. The toggle is on. I also cant make the inputs active when I click with my mouse. When I turn the toggle off, everything works, but I have to type using the simulator keyboard, which isn't really ideal.
Note except for Steam Loco Driving, the so called keyboard leftside cross (W, S, X, A and E) comprise the most often used Driver keys, being those used for throttle control and the brakes. The Steam locomotive also heavily use F and R just to the right of the cross to operate the 'Collective', and train locomotives equipped with dynamic brakes use the C toggle.
We defer covering Driving/Operations keys for the common mode keys and Driver general game controls, placing the more complicated CAB mode down the bottom, whilst giving you the Table of Contents at right to get to it quick if you want.
Config.txt files are endemic and ever present in Trainz assets, for no asset can be defined without this type of Computer Science container. The keyword-value_of_key pairing must always be kept in mind in editing or creating Trainz content. The TrainzBaseSpec contains values and containers which are most common in asset defining config.txt files.
In the tutorial, you are given a booklet with the most commonly needed controls.Many additional controls can be defined (see footer of the keyboard controls manual). The file name is GamePreferences.ini. In there you can also find additional controls to define.
The train controls currently ignore the limits set by the levers. This means you can set the throttle between two notches using F1 and F2, which gives you much more fine grained control over the engine. This can be a powerful tool, especially when operating a locomotive at its recommended weight limit.This may appear a bit like cheating to some people, but keep in mind that the remote will do the same thing when operated via VR or the mouse.
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