Steam Community :: Guide :: Silencing "Foreman Dan Hernandez": removing/replacing the in-cab radio

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Silencing "Foreman Dan Hernandez": removing/replacing the in-cab radio

By Ewo

Updated 25 June 2015. A short guide on how you can silence the in-cab radio on various US locomotives, so you no longer hear people constantly mention "Foreman Dan Hernandez". You can then tune into web streams of actual live railroad radio for the area you drive in.

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Created by

Ewo
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Category: Modding or Configuration, Walkthroughs

Languages: English

Posted

Updated

23 Jan, 2015 @ 7:48pm

12 Jul, 2023 @ 7:52am

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Guide Index

Overview

Introduction

What you need to do

Known radio file locations

Replacement radio

Have fun

Comments

Introduction

If you're driving an EMD F7, or ES44AC, you'll notice a cab radio going on with drivers and dispatchers talking. This audio will loop and after a while you'll be able to pick out the repeated messages:

... Foreman Dan Hernandez ...
... <phone sounds> ...
... Foreman Dan Hernandez ...
... roger. roger. ...
... Foreman Dan Hernandez ...
... will have to drive through the peas-field (or whatever) ...
... Foreman Dan Hernandez ...
... <high pitched> Ha-hah! ...
... Foreman Dan Hernandez informs me ...
... Foreman Dan Hernandez. Foreman Dan Hernandez. Foreman Dan Hernandez. Foreman Dan Hernandez. Foreman Dan Hernandez. ...

If you find this is starting to drive you mad, there's a way to silence the radio by removing or renaming the right file. You can then also tune into a web stream of actual railroad radio, possibly even for the area of the game you're in.

As always when messing with files, be careful and make backups before doing anything. If you get things wrong, you can break your game. I can't help you to fix that. Verifying the integrity of the game cache will probably fix it, but also reset all modifications to Train Sim DLC you bought on Steam. Hence, make backups!

What you need to do

What you need to do is rename or delete the file with the audio loop in it. Find the appropriate folder with the locomotive in question. For example, this is the folder for the black Pennsylvania Railroad F7 that comes with the Horseshoe Curve route:

C:\Program Files\steam\steamapps\common\railworks\Assets\RSC\HorseshoeCurve\Audio\RailVehicles\Diesel\F7\Cab

The above path should all be on a single line.

If you have steam installed in a different folder than C:\Program Files\, the beginning of this path will obviously be different. If you want to edit another F7 that is not the one provided with the Horseshoe Curve route, then the part that goes RSC\HorseshoeCurve will be different. But the final part will always be Audio\RailVehicles\Diesel\F7\Cab

Find the file

T_Cab_Radio.dav

and rename it to

T_Cab_Radio.disabled

Or just delete the file completely, if you like to live dangerously. You've made a backup like I told you, right?

Known radio file locations

I can only tell you the locations for trains I personally own. Folders are relative to your Train Simulator installation folder.

Some of these .dav audio files are inside .ap files. .ap files are actually .zip files, so you can use a zip file manager to open them and remove the file from inside the .ap file. If you didn't understand that, you should stop reading now and not attempt to modify the game.

Make backups first before doing anything.

Horseshoe Curve: Assets\RSC\HorseshoeCurve\Audio\RailVehicles\Diesel\F7\Cab\T_Cab_Radio.dav
Sherman Hill: Assets\RSC\ShermanHill\Audio\RailVehicles\Diesel\F7\Cab\T_Cab_Radio.dav
various liveries from the Classic US Assets: Assets\Kuju\RailSimulatorUS\RailsimulatorUSAssets.ap and inside that file it's Audio\RailVehicles\Diesel\F7\Cab\T_Cab_Radio.dav
Donner Pass: Assets\RSC\DonnerPass\DonnerPassAssets.ap and inside that file it's Audio\RailVehicles\Diesel\F7\Cab\T_Cab_Radio.dav

ES44

Sherman Hill: Assets\RSC\ShermanHill\Audio\RailVehicles\Diesel\ES44\Cab\T_ES44_Cab_Radio.dav
various liveries from the Classic US Assets: Assets\Kuju\RailSimulatorUS\RailsimulatorUSAssets.ap and inside that file it's Audio\RailVehicles\Diesel\ES44\Cab\T_ES44_Cab_Radio.dav

SD70

No mentions of Foreman Dan Hernandez in this one, but if you want to silence it anyway, you can.

Train Sim Academy: Assets\DTG\Academy\AcademyAssets\Audio\RailVehicles\SD70MAC\Diesel\SD70MAC\Cab\T_SD70_Cab_Radio.dav
Sherman Hill: Assets\RSC\ShermanHill\Audio\RailVehicles\Diesel\SD70M\Cab\T_SD70_Cab_Radio.dav
SD70M Southern Pacific: Assets\RSC\SD70MSPPack01\SD70MSPAssets.ap and inside that file it's Audio\RailVehicles\Diesel\SD70M\Cab\T_SD70_Cab_Radio.dav

Replacement radio

If you miss the chatter now that you've silenced the in-game's radio loop, you can tune in to a web stream of actual live railroad radio traffic.

Via user Limmin, in a Steam Forums discussion, I found the site http://www.railroadradio.net. You can find radio streams for various US subdivisions, so you can even find one appropriate for the route you're currently driving.

Here's a few I've found for the routes that I own:

Cajon Pass, San Bernardino, I think this one: http://www.railroadradio.net/content/view/179/216/
Donner Pass, Truckee, California: http://www.railroadradio.net/content/view/216/262/ and West Sacramento, California: http://www.railroadradio.net/content/view/38/230/
Horseshoe Curve: couldn't find this one, so have Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania instead: http://www.railroadradio.net/content/view/250/297/
New York-New Haven: Couldn't find this
Maria's Pass, Whitefish, Montana: http://www.railroadradio.net/content/view/189/228/
Pacific Surfliner, parts of it near LA Union Station at least: http://www.railroadradio.net/content/view/17/145/
Sherman Hill: Couldn't find this
Steven's Pass: Couldn't find this

Have fun

Now restart Train Simulator and the cab radio for the train you've modified should be silent. The game won't show you any error messages.

Updates to the game may restore this file, as does verifying the integrity of the game cache. You'll just need to repeat these steps if that happens.

Have fun driving with the radio off!

This text is licensed as Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)[creativecommons.org].

This guide is not licensed for training an AI or to be minted as NFT.

Feel free to link to this guide.

If you have any feedback, additions, corrections, suggestions, etc., please leave a comment below and help make this guide even better.

19 Comments

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Smokey Joe 18 Feb, 2021 @ 1:21pm

am i the only on creeped out my the laughing

Faelandaea 25 Jun, 2018 @ 12:03pm

Yeah I have gone in and looked for anything named cab_radio or radio ... nada. The files i am seeing here are for alarm, brake, buttons, doors, wind, emer. brake, hiss, horn, lever, plunger, reversers, bells, switches, visors, windows, wipers, and the last two files say something about proxybin and proxyxml.

The crazy part was, for a time I did indeed have the radio disabled. And then last night I cleaned out my assets folder by nuking a bunch of add-ons I never use any more to clean up space, and bam! The radio is back O.o

I am unsure if there is a legit way for me to let someone look at these audio files without sharing the train (I do not want to breach any protocols, but am desperate to get rid of the awful sounds).

To be honest, it really would not be so bad if it wasn;t the same few files playing literally every 30 seconds, which is making my last two live streams along the 4-hour Canadian Passes trip a living hell.

Ewo [author] 25 Jun, 2018 @ 4:31am

@faelandaea I don't have that train so I can't find out which file it is, but it's likely a .dav file in a folder called "Cab", as was the case with all the other trains I've mentioned in my guide.

Faelandaea 24 Jun, 2018 @ 11:05am

Anyone driving the CSX AC6000 by any chance? I have these annoying sounds and all information on the internet for deleting/renaming all files named anything with "radio" does nothing to get rid of this annoyance. Even live streaming as we speak recording everything I did and we could not ditch these annoying radio sounds. Checked ALL files within the AC6000 and NOTHING seems to point at any radio chatter, yet ... here I am ... getting annoyed and can;t even continue my stream because I can;t listen to this crap for 15 minutes let alone a 4 hour route.

Ewo [author] 11 Jun, 2018 @ 4:32am

@Mech_Gato What I did is remove/rename the files in question from inside the .ap file. .ap files are just .zip files after all.

There was no need to extract any files from the .ap

Mech_Gato 10 Jun, 2018 @ 9:03am

NOTICE ALERT NOTICE ALERT - IMPORTANT STEP NOT MENTIONED - You must delete or move the AP file AFTER unpacking it. Otherwise the game will continue to use the AP file and ignore the unpacked files you edited. Just add a new folder named ORG AP which stands for Original AP and move the AP file into it. The Game will not recognize the new path and will not access the AP file.

badwebdiver 21 May, 2018 @ 8:03am

On a side note, I really like the music in the Horseshoe Curve Passenger dining car! THAT I can listen to for ages!

Ewo [author] 22 Jul, 2017 @ 7:28am

That's a neat trick, using the search tool. I tried it with Windows 7, I could find the files but not rename them all at once.

65#&ZHWa 22 Jul, 2017 @ 12:51am

Yes, yes a very good advice General Wo! Silence the whole in game radio chatter like this: search *radio.dav with Windows search tool ( Win 10 ), then you can rename all files found without leaving the search window. Then look for railroad radio chatter from youtube, whole playlists are best. Play it on background. I play also general railroading sounds playlists on a second tab of browser.

peter749 22 Apr, 2017 @ 10:20am

An alternative way to find the sound files is use the Search in Windows and look in your Railworks directory for "Cab_Radio.dav" without the quotes

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