This version adds two new features and corrects one bug.
New Features:
1. Heatmaps: These provide a way to illustrate how data are distributed within an area. The data can be anything, they don’t have to represent heat. RailOS provides two maps, one for track element lengths and one for track element speed limits. When the ‘Set lengths and speed limits’ button is clicked two new buttons appear, one for each type of heatmap. Clicking one of these buttons brings up the appropriate map, as well as a spectrum diagram. The colours use a rainbow spectrum where (on first load) red represents the shortest lengths and lowest speed limits, with increasing values in both cases progressing through orange, yellow, green, cyan, blue and finally violet. These colours can be reversed if preferred, as described below.
The maps are useful for checking quickly whether lengths and speed limits are set appropriately – station areas and sidings generally have short lengths and low speed limits, whereas sections of track between stations have longer lengths and higher speed limits. Similarly the diverging track of points generally has a lower speed limit than the straight track. The heatmap quickly shows up any elements that have inconsistent values.
Some people prefer the shortest lengths and lowest speed limits to be represented by violet, with increasing values progressing through all the colours to red. To reverse the colours open the ‘Mode’ menu before any railway is loaded, and click ‘Heatmaps: Set Red to Represent High Values’. This preference is stored in the configuration file Config.txt when the program closes and is automatically selected on each subsequent opening of the program. The menu item acts as a toggle so that when the reversed colours are selected the option changes to ‘Heatmaps: Set Red to Represent Low Values’.
Heatmaps show up best against a black background.
2. Display of long service references: Trains in the UK are identified by headcodes consisting of four characters, and during RailOS operation a train appears on screen with these four characters shown. However additional characters are often required in order to allow for longer headcodes in other countries, and to identify uniquely in the timetable trains with the same headcode. Up to eight characters are permitted in all, with the last four in all cases shown on the train itself. Trains with more than four characters can now be shown using a new option under the ‘Information’ tab. This is ‘Show Long Service References’ (or keyboard shortcut ‘Shift+ Ctrl+ L’) which shows the full (up to eight characters) train identifier on screen above the train. The long service references (train names if you prefer) only show if they exceed four characters, because four characters are already shown by the train itself. They show up best against a dark background and for trains moving horizontally. The other ‘Information’ options have been simplified so they are all listed together.
Bug correction: This was reported by fitzburger96 via discord on 26/02/25. If a blue route is followed by a red or green route, and a single segment of the blue route truncated, the signal at the end of the blue route changed to red instead of being set by the next signal state ahead of it. It happened because an internal flag used for the truncation of the mid-route segment was set so the signals rearwards of the truncation point would be set correctly, but should have been reset before the front section of route was re-instated. This has now been reset and seems to work ok. Thanks are due to fitzburger96 for bringing this to my attention.
Download it here