Good Railway Game?

Just to double confirm something: this allows you to essentially build your own tracks, yes? It's not just pre-done layouts?

Edit: Actually, TMR17 looks to be more what I'm after. I think...

Yep, surveyor is another of the strong points of Trainz.

[video=youtube_share;FuvX72HNK8c]https://youtu.be/FuvX72HNK8c[/video]
 
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My understanding is that TMR is a repackaged version of Trainz: A New Era with model style routes.

Ok, thank you. They seem to have a lot of overlap on products, although that might just be my impression. TMR2017 still looks to be ahead for me.

Thank you very much for your time, by the way. Appreciated.
 
Hiya. Just wondering if anyone could recommend a good train set simulator? The sort of thing that would allow me to construct a large virtual Hornby setup.

I'd mainly be interested in UK trains and kit. I'm not looking for scenarios or cash making, just a virtual train set.

Many thanks.

I used to do that with actual trains build scenary extra

[video=youtube;h8gPMI1DNlc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=122&v=h8gPMI1DNlc[/video]
 
My understanding is that TMR is a repackaged version of Trainz: A New Era with model style routes.

Just as a quick update: I ended up buying TMR2017, and it looks to be exactly what I was after. Thank you very much for your help.

I also bought the iPad app (it's a fiver) and that's a surprisingly capable wee thing. Good for taking on holiday..!
 

Goose4291

Banned
Well, I can see they’re trying to go for the ‘trains + firearms’ market :)



Is surveyor just with TMR?

Hey, how else are you going to get 3rd Reich trains laden with war winnung research being destroyed by steeley-eyed maroon beret wearing heroes firing sten guns from the hip? :D
 
I used to do that with actual trains build scenary extra

Nice! I recently made a "Timesaver" layout for a nephew.
Not an actual photo but a switching / shunting puzzle, along lines of;

jim-timesaver-1024x768.jpg
 
If building model railways in a virtual environment is your "thing" take a look at Trainz by N3V Games. You've got a choice of the latest main version Trainz A New Era (aka TANE) or Trainz Model Railroads. The latter is effectively the same game engine as TANE but with content more geared to the model genre. There is a busy official support forum and N3V also hold a utility called the Download Station where there are teens of thousands of assets and routes that can be downloaded (you do need a subscription so get good speeds and bandwidth. Trainz has an excellent sandbox route/world editor called Surveyor which is relatively easy to master.

See the Trainz forum (use Google as I don't think a link is allowed) for more information on Trainz Model Railroading:

(Link removed to avoid breaching CoC).

The other main player in town is the DTG game, formerly Railworks now known as TS20xx (currently TS2018). Now this is more of a prototype sim and while the graphics and other features are generally better than Trainz, it is primarily aimed at selling routes to customers rather than encouraging them to make their own. The value of total accumulated payware for the title on Steam is eye watering. People can and do build routes but it is a more technical and involved process.

Then there is the old (as in 2001 old) Microsoft Train Simulator. Amazingly if you have the right hardware and a bit of patience this can still be coaxed to run but while it was ground breaking in the day, it's really ancient compared to more recent titles. A group of people have got together to make a more up to date sim called Open Rails which will run MSTS content and eventually be a sim in its own right, but both MSTS and OR are very "techy" and not ideal for beginners. MSTS also deoesn't readily support closed loop or balloon curves which are a necessary function on a model railway.

When I'm not busy in ED or some other game of the moment, I can usually be fond plodding away in one of the train sim editors trying to craft yet another route!
 
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Give Railroad Empire a try, maybe you'll like it.

The UI is very smooth, it's got the best and friendliest track-building I ever saw in a railroad game, laying tracks, tunnels, bridges, stations, supply towers, signals is just a breeze. Creating trains and routes is also very sleek.

What ended up killing it for me is the lack of long-term gameplay. The game, even in free mode, is far too fast-paced (for my taste), plus you cannot progress through the various eras, you choose a starting era and you're stuck with it to the end of the game. The economy/management side is also poor... After you have a couple of routes the money just starts pouring in and it becomes just a free building game, invalidating / rendering completely pointless all the supply/demand, train crews, special wagon types, stock market, etc mechanics.

There is a tech tree, but it's mostly just for show, techs don't make much sense and they 're just ways to give arbitrary buffs that barely have anything to do with the tech itself.
 
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