Do you have the same issue if you follow the OP’s steps to reproduce it?
• No, simrate appears to be working fine.
Provide extra information to complete the original description of the issue:
• Using simrate on long legs of autopilot flying is preferable to just skipping the entire cruise, as you still have to monitor the aircraft and get to enjoy the scenery. There are flights that I hand fly the entire way in real time, and others that I “Fast Forward”, but even on those I am monitoring the weather, fuel state, controlled airspaces ahead of me, etc. Additionally, since nobody has to use the simrate feature in or out of Career mode, and it is a single player mode, I don’t see any harm in it.