Derail Valley Simulator Career Mode Beginners Guide

This guide is meant for people who are new to the game and do not have extensive knowledge of trains in general or the game itself.

It should help you get a good start in the career mode of DRV as a casual player. Might also be good for people returning for the Simulator update after a break.

Basics you might want to know

Writer’s Personal Background Disclaimer

First and foremost, I have NO actual knowledge of trains beyond how to buy a ticket to ride one to work. However, I do love train games of all kinds, simulators as well as strategy games.

Lacking any technical knowledge whatsoever, getting into this game was a bit of a hassle for me, but it was totally worth it!

Any and all information in this guide is just my personal knowledge gained through playing the game and figuring out stuff on the go, so not everything might be right, most of it might not be “the best way to do it” but overall it works for me and seems to work for the simulator career mod.

Game VS Reality

I have no idea how accurate any of the trains or physics are. What you need to know is, that it is NOT an arcade-style game (hence the name of it) which means that some knowledge of operations is needed to play and play successfully. I’ll do my best to sum that knowledge up for all newcomers and train-game fans.

VR required?

The game does feature VR mode, which is absolutely awesome, but you can play very comfortably in desktop mode as well, it works perfectly fine in either way!

Fast Travel

When in desktop mode, you can fast travel by pulling out your map, pressing ALT once to get a mouse cursor and then just clicking on a yellow town blip on the map.

Fast travel costs money based on distance
Locomotives at your target location seem to be random, so by save-scumming you can shoot for a specific loco to be at your target (and thus save money)

Missing features

Some features that are on the nice chart they made in their update post are not yet in game. This is not an oversight, it is actually stated right on that chart!
Things like the S060 loco are printed in red and with a little star, indicating that it is not yet in game. Read before you complain!
The vehicle catalog is also one of the things not yet implemented (2.7.2023)

Starting out

First Steps / Tutorial

You can probably skip the tutorial as a returning user, as the game now also has integrated tutorials (when you first enter a loco) which should be enough. However you might want to check out this guide to not get your loco kicked in its taillights by the changes in Simulator.
The option to skip the tutorial can be chosen when creating a new career session in the main menu, there’s a checkbox to tick.

Day 1: The Steel Yard

Whether you do the tutorial or chose to skip it, you will be at or near the steel yard, which is roughly in the middle of the map.

What on earth are you supposed to do now?

Hop into the nearest train
Drive into a random railcar
Explode
???
Profit

Well, that was what I did at least, back when I started playing this game a year ago. With simulator, quite some things are different now. What you need to know is, that you have only one locomotive available at the start and it is the DE2 “Shunter”.

The shunter is called a shunter because its main purpose is for… well, shunting jobs. Previously, you could easily run delivery jobs with it across the map, this is no longer the case!

The maximum train weight it can pull got reduced quite a bit and it is now actually mostly usable for in-yard jobs. Fear not, as there are plenty of those at all stations (shunting jobs and DE2’s). So the first thing you need to do is walk over to the station building and buy the shunting license, which should be cheap and affordable.

You can still do some hauling jobs with the DE2, but in order to correctly guess which ones those are, you’ll need some additional knowledge which we will get to shortly.

Let the sparks fly / Unimmersive Insurance

One thing simulator added (I believe) was nice explosion effects and electrical sparks which show you how badly you messed up. If you follow correct procedures, you can spare yourself the pain though.

One important thing to know: Not all is lost when you derail / explode / crash!
Early on, you have something called insurance and unlike real life insurance, the one in the game actually pays when you need it to.

How much you have to pay yourself is based on how many licenses you have bought which increase your copay amount. This essentially means that early on you pay 100€/$ max, which you can easily afford.
(Yes that also applies to destroying an entire train by dumping it into a lake!)

How much a license increases your copay by is stated on the license information paper you can get by hitting “print” instead of paying for a selected license.

Early on, re-railing your trains and cars is also free (by using the radio) and it’s real cost gets added only after you buy the license which states that those services are no longer free.

Oh and to make it even more unrealistic, this insurance also covers your maintenance fees, so no matter how badly worn you return your DE2, you will only pay 100Eurodollars for everything, until you increase your copay with additional licenses.

Starting a train

Diesel Trains

It is actually simple and mostly the same with every diesel train.

Find the breakers / electric switches, turn all of them on (order does not seem to matter)
Press / hold the starter button (train starts to make noises, RPM gauge springs to life)
Release the handbrake (Usually a wheel, the little red marker needs to be on the bottom left)
Set the reverser to forward or backward, depending on where you want to go
Make sure all train brakes are released (the handlebars, pull towards you).
Set lights as you see fit (no impact on how hard the train explodes)
Apply throttle (see next section for details)
Crash

This should work with pretty much all diesel trains, the only difference is the location or form of the above objects. Sometimes brakes are placed differently, some trains have different electric switches (like in a switchbox).

Notable exception: The ever-exploding beast of the DM3. This one has gears to shift (apparently that exists?) I lovehate it so much it will get its own section later on.

So many buttons…

What is actually relevant for the casual player?
While pressure gauges are cool and make a lot of sense to people who can read them and utilize their information, I am not one such individual. I rely on a few other things:

Wheel slip makes a lot of noise, some trains have warning whistles and warning lights. When it happens, reduce throttle/brake. If you are going uphill and it suddenly starts, it is time to apply sand! The surefire way to detect it: Your wheels are sparking orange beneath your feet!
Heat is important. You have a gauge for engine or oil temperature which is conveniently colored yellow (you might have to think about doing something, reduce throttle maybe?) and red (ye, now is the time to weigh alternative plans of action).
Good to know: Your loco is air-cooled from the front, so driving backwards means less cooling power. Consider that when arranging your train for a haul!
For the DE2: You have an Ammmeter, which has something to do with the motors (enlighten me, train enthusiasts) but in essence it means: When in the red, reduce throttle otherwise the fuse blows!
Fuel and Oil gauge should be pretty self-explanatory. Do not run out of either.

Steam trains

Never got to them, as they cost a LOT in license and maintenance fees. I will add that once I figure them out, in the meantime, try to scrape together some info from other guides or videos.

Proper procedures and unwritten rules

Speed

You do not need to drive exactly at the speed limit all the time to make the time bonus. Especially early on you should be good of your average is aove 30 km/h somewhere.

Be careful with speeding! You don’t get fines, instead your train just derails and everyone in a 20 km radius dies in a nuclear explosion.
Well, not the last part, but you still derail. In the beginning, fixing that is free, later on you can incur massive debt by being careless, so train your anticipation and your workflow early on!

Shunting and coupling

There is a general 50 km/h limit in train yards. When you are just moving a loco, feel free to use that power but consider that every acceleration and deceleration cost you money.

When you want to couple something, I would recommend around 5 km/h to not damage the loco or carts.
It takes some practice to get efficient in shunting, do net get discouraged by some bumps. Once again, early on your insurance pays for everything anyway!

Economic driving

You want to save money, like everyone else in this world. In the world of trains, saving money is synonymous with not using the throttle lever.
What exactly does that mean?

Keep acceleration time as short as possible, by applying as much throttle power as possible without causing wheel-slip!

Brake in a way that allows you to reach your target without having to speed up again. The initial acceleration is always the most cost-intensive part of your ride (actually also applies to driving your car).

Trains are built to coast. That means the whole idea of trains is that, once you reached your target speed, you set your throttle to 0 and just coast towards your target. This is train heaven.
Of course uphill travel doesn’t allow that, hence it is train hell.
When travelling uphill, try to apply and release the throttle periodically to semi-hold your target speed. Additionally, since hell is hot, you have to watch out for overheating when constantly applying throttle power.

Pick your poison, I mean jobs…

Job Types

Shunting <- Start with this
Hauling <- Doable with strings attached, read on later sections
Logistics <- Same as Hauling, just with empty stuff, ignore for now

As per the simulator update, the safest and fastest way to make some early game money is to grab a DE2 and do some shunting jobs. The loco is perfect for that and the jobs are usually not as long as other kind of jobs.

Good to know: The game generates all kinds of jobs, even some you can not do due to missing licenses. You can see which license a job requires by the little icons on the bottom right of their paper sheets. If you try to accept one you can not do, the machine also tells you exactly what you are missing.

Why ignore logistics jobs for now? The license is really expensive for not much gain. Personal opinion so decide yourself…

The thing with the hauling jobs…

Prior to the simulator update, you could easily do all kinds of hauling jobs with the DE2. This seems to have changed quite a bit. It was always meant to be a shunter loco and it now pretty much is. Personally I think it is kinda logical for a new engineer to first do shunting jobs and then move on to hauling, but that is just my personal opinion.

You can still do some hauling with the DE2!
However, the previous max train weight was severely reduced by physics, I guess? If you want do so hauling with the DE2, I suggest to know the map your route beforehand, as you will want mostly downhill routes and, if there IS an incline, you’ll want to build up sufficient speed before you reach it!

So when hauling with the DE2 consider:

Train weight shouldn’t be above 200T
Route should be mostly even or downhill
Know the route so you can use momentum without derailing

Visual Aid and Brakes

The handbrake of most locomotives looks like a wheel:

It follows the same rule as all other wheel brakes: The marker needs to be on the bottom left in order to be “released”.

In contrast to that, the same wheel brake when it is set to hold:

Note the red marker. When it is on the bottom right, the brake is set to hold (or whatever you call it when the brake… brakes…)

The brakes inside the loco are not that difficult to understand either, but there are two of them:

There is the upper one, the “small” one, which is called “independent brake”. That just means it is the one in the locomotive itself and as such, of course has less power than when every single waggon of your train applies its own brake.

To do that, you use the “train brake”, which is the “big” one. Fortunately, they are all labeled ingame as well!

If you pull them towards you, you will hear the woosh of the air releasing the brakes, making you ready to go (or roll into something).

If you push them away from you, towards the front of the train, the brakes engage and stop your train. If you push them all the way, both at once, while at 100km/h, you will get lots of weird noises, sparks and squeaks.

Why, one might ask? That part got redone with “Simulator” as well. Before that, using the independent brake was usually enough to stop the train and that is no longer the case. Pushing them to full on 100% stopping mode, also makes your wheels slip and electronics flunk out now.

I usually use the train brake now while on hauling jobs to adjust to speed limits, as it seems to work a lot better than the independent brake now for that purpose. You will need to give yourself some time to get used to how the brakes react and work for your current train configurations.

Breaking that glass ceiling…

…and moving up in the world of engineers, you might want to get another loco license.
Personally, I am very afraid of the steam ones, they arebig, intimidating and I can’t afford them anyway.

Note: The S060 is not yet in the game, although you can buy the license for it. For now that means the license is just wasted money!

Some might then go for the DM3, as it seems logical in terms of price. For casual players and people unfamiliar with this kind of game, I would advise against it.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s a cool loco, but the gearbox system can be very off putting for new players. It takes time to master and it is ridiculously easy to blow up the loco with it.

I saved up for the DH4 and I absolutely love it. It is strong enough for most hauling jobs and it is very easy to use, especially if you got some experience with the DE2 already.
You need two more licenses for that one though, which are both Train Length ones, so it comes up to a total of 80k before you can afford that. It might seem a lot, but it doesn’t take that long with shunting jobs.

If you really want to try the DM3, be sure to check out the gearbox guide on the workshop, linked in the last section of this guide!

License galore, or something like that…

As mentioned, if you want the DH4, you need to get the train length licenses, but if you prefer, you can also go for the Hazmat one to unlock more valuable (and volatile) cargo instead, as some of the most lucrative jobs use those materials AND go downhill!

Any license you buy might increase your copay for insurance (making it harder to turn profit) or add fees to features like re-railing. Be sure to check those conditions before you buy a license to make sure it is something you think you can handle!

Useful resources

All our Derail Valley Guides: https://www.yekbot.com/tag/derail-valley/
DM3 shifting guide: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2996356704
How to Fly Shunt: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2147452556