How do I know when approaching a station?

Hello,

I tried a Finland route and a Japanese Shinkansen route. They are very different but I had the same problem on both.

Namely: how do I know when I am approaching a station?

With a slow Finland route it is often possible to notice the platform and stop the train. But with Shinkansen at 300 kph it is unrealistic - if I apply the emergency brake when I see the platform, the train flies right by the platform.

The timetable at Ctrl+T does not have distances, so no luck there either.

So apart from driving the route enough times to memorize the circumstances for stations, how do I know when to begin the stopping process?

Exactly this and nothing else - route knowledge.
For some routes there are working timetables available with distances etc., but in many countries these aren't very helpful (or common at all), and many route devs ignore the topic (and the necessity of readable kilometriation/mileage posts) altogether.

You can press F8 which will load up a map of the route showing the stations you need to stop at and it’ll give you a rough indication of how far away you are. It’ll also show you which stations you don’t need to stop at. But it’s only a rough guide. It’s pretty much up to practice. Since this isn’t real life you could play the same route a few times to familiarise yourself with where the train stops