Am I missing something?

[Stinky Butthole]

I was doing a route on the main spessart bahn, 25 minutes in and I have all green signals. Going 75mph and then out of the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ blue I have a red signal in 0.6 miles. With 15 cars being towed, I immediately use the emergency brake but its not enough, I blow through the red signal at 45mph and it fails the mission.

Am I missing something? How am I supposed to know a red signal is coming up when the prior one isn't yellow. Im sure I am missing something, theres no way that it's just a surprise stop in half a mile going 75mph in a huge cargo train.

[Metallos]

First: The Main Spessart Bahn is metric so use metric units.
(In opposite I play US and UK routes with imperial units)

0.6 mi should be around 1000 m which is the typical distance of the pre signal before the main signal. For passenger trains with max 160 km/h and freight trains with max 100 km/h it's possible to come to stop before the red main signal with "normal" braking (no emergency or full brake) -> driving on PZB rules. Trains with higher speeds (not implemented in TSW) must use LZB or ETCS because those in cab signalings "look" more far ahead and (to prevent confusing) the track signals are mostly turned off for you.
75 mi/h (mph is not an unit!) is much more than your allowed 100 km/h for freight, it's around 120 km/h. 60 mi/h should be nearly 100 km/h.

In USA the signaling is different, you'll be slowed down two signals before (there are no pre signals), example from 75 mi/h to 40 mi/h at first (blinking yellow, "advance approach"), then to 30 mi/h (yellow, "approach") and then you have to watch for the red signal (it could also have changed its state).
(I took Run8, a train simulator for US freight, as example but made it simplier)

[Stinky Butthole]

Originally posted by Metallos:

First: The Main Spessart Bahn is metric so use metric units.
(In opposite I play US and UK routes with imperial units)

0.6 mi should be around 1000 m which is the typical distance of the pre signal before the main signal. For passenger trains with max 160 km/h and freight trains with max 100 km/h it's possible to come to stop before the red main signal with "normal" braking (no emergency or full brake) -> driving on PZB rules. Trains with higher speeds (not implemented in TSW) must use LZB or ETCS because those in cab signalings "look" more far ahead and (to prevent confusing) the track signals are mostly turned off for you.
75 mi/h (mph is not an unit!) is much more than your allowed 100 km/h for freight, it's around 120 km/h. 60 mi/h should be nearly 100 km/h.

In USA the signaling is different, you'll be slowed down two signals before (there are no pre signals), example from 75 mi/h to 40 mi/h at first (blinking yellow, "advance approach"), then to 30 mi/h (yellow, "approach") and then you have to watch for the red signal (it could also have changed its state).
(I took Run8, a train simulator for US freight, as example but made it simplier)

Ahh, I never really understood what the PZB was or what the signals where trying to say. Very new to TSW and trains in general, I appreciate the answer it's helped a lot!

[Stinky Butthole]

Update, went and learnt all the DE signalling. Made the game so much more fun