SimSig:Sessions

SimSig Sessions
On Our Lines plays SimSig
Upcoming Sessions
4 - Saturday 28 December 2024 Christmas Session - North Wales and Borders 5 - Saturday 1 February 2025 TBC 6 - Saturday 8 March 2025 TBC

SimSig Sessions are weekly events where members of the On Our Lines community get together to work a panel or panels collaboratively in the game SimSig. They cater for a wide range of abilities and interests and will take place across the spectrum of simulations offered by the software. There will always be at least one free simulation included in multiplayer events, which often include multiple locations 'chained' together to allow operation of a large stretch of railway. Of course, this also means that any delays and issues experienced can propagate across all areas, quickly giving every signaller something to do!

Sessions are usually held on a Saturday evening, with signups opening on the preceding Tuesday. Workstations will generally be allocated on a first-come-first-served basis, but this will be subject to confirmation until the afternoon before the session begins. If you wish to work a particular panel let us know when signing up - we can't always guarantee this, but the hosts will try their best. Those not wanting to take part will be able to watch by tuning into the On Our Lines Discord server. A report will also be added to Bradshaw after a Session to keep a record of the event, as well as to facilitate a handover when a simulation is played over multiple Sessions.

Sessions are bound by our etiquette guidelines. These are in place to ensure that everyone, no matter what their experience level, can enjoy the game, and to ensure that we can always deliver the promised Session. The hosts will enforce these as necessary, and breaching them may result in an individual being barred from taking part in a future Session or Sessions.

Adhoc games also take place depending on the number of people who are around and interested at any one time. You are more than welcome to host your own SimSig game in the on-our-simsig Discord channel, and to keep details of the game on Bradshaw, but it is up to you to make clear any 'house rules' for those taking part, and you should ensure that the games cannot be confused with a Session.

Disruption Management

Main page: SimSig:Disruption Management

Incident Level

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During our SimSig Sessions a number of different faults, failures and other incidents may occur - just like on the real railway. All of these events can have a negative impact on the train service. In order to manage incidents effectively, we use a disruption management and messaging format based on that used by Network Rail and Train Operating Companies to enable our Service Controller to manage disruption on their networks. This is used extensively in our Saturday Sessions and to a lesser extent in ad hoc simulations.

Railway Operations Centre

Main page: SimSig:Railway Operations Centre

Throughout our formal SimSig Sessions we use a web app called Railway Operations Centre, or R.O.C., which simulates a real life telephone concentration system. ROC aims to add further realism to our Sessions by allowing players to make and receive phone calls to other signallers, rail staff and more. Use of ROC requires you to join the On Our Lines Discord server and claim the @SimSig role, granting access to the relevant voice channels.

Upcoming Sessions

Upcoming Sessions will be posted here once their locations are confirmed. Locations denoted with an asterisk (*) are paid-for simulations; when signing up please indicate if you have or are interested in purchasing this simulation.

• 3 - East Coast Mainline (King's Cross, Royston and Peterborough) - 23 November 2024
• 4 - North Wales and Borders (North Wales Coast and Sandhills*) - Christmas Session - 28 December 2024
• 5 - TBA - 1 February 2025
• 6 - TBA - 8 March 2025
• 7 - TBA - 5 April 2025
• 8 - TBA - 3 May 2025
• 9 - TBA - 7 June 2025
• 10 - TBA - 5 July 2025

Previous Sessions

Sessions prior to 2024 have been archived, and can be found here.

• 1 - North Wales (Chester* and North Wales Coast) - 2 March 2024
• 2 - Birmingham area (Birmingham New Street*, Saltley and Aston) - 7 September 2024

Community

Main page: SimSig:Community

All are welcome to take part in our SimSig Sessions, irrespective of experience, budget or ability level. Our formal Sessions will always be accessible to everyone, and we try to ensure that most community members are able to join adhoc games too. However, we do recognise that some of our members may also want to use some of their payware sims so cannot guarantee that informal games will have panels for all.

If you would like to be notified of when Sessions signups open make sure you have the @SimSig role on our Discord server. You can also add yourself to our Community page, including any payware sims that you own and a self-assessed ability level, and we will endeavour to notify you of a new Sessions sign up on your chat page.

You can also indicate on this page whether you are interested in either hosting simulations or coaching beginners. Hosts and Coaches for formal games are usually appointed by invitation based on their contributions to previous simulations and after demonstrating a suitable level of ability.