My fancy hasn’t been the same since I damaged it falling off a bike in Brittany in 2010. It no longer responds to tickling, and occasionally prompts comments in communal changing rooms. I was thinking of disguising it with a tattoo of a Blackburn Beverley, but couldn’t decide whether the Bev’s clamshell doors should be depicted open or closed.

Fastrak: Metro

The closest thing to a crowd-pleaser in today’s line-up of previously unCornered train games is probably this retro metro sim from Down Under.

Only available in demo form at present (the full game is scheduled to arrive in December) Fastrak: Metro isn’t out to compete with the likes of Train Sim World, but does at least one thing better than Dovetail’s DLC fount.

Apt audio, carefully crafted scenery, and refreshingly busy routes, make journeys through urban and suburban Perth, Melbourne, and Sydney surprisingly evocative. After a while I even found myself forgetting the acute signal shortage.

Poor timekeeping and stopping accuracy will prevent you from winning medals, but has little impact on enjoyment or train operation. One area where Turbocobra Interactive is somewhat strict is speed limits. Excessive velocity causes automatic brake applications so watch that speedo.

The Steam blurb and in-game rolling stock gallery suggests Fastrak owners won’t just get access to various types of modern multiple units. It seems there will also be opportunities to operate trams, imported HSTs, and diesel locos with splendid names.

Gorka 1520

Although hump shunting in Britain ceased thirty-odd years ago, in countries such as Russia, China, Germany, and the USA, using small artificial hills to help sort freight wagons is still common practice. Made, with AI assistance, by a chap called timka1996, the impressive Gorka 1520* reveals exactly how hillock-blessed marshalling yards work.

* Also playable in a browser

You can work shifts as the yard dispatcher (the overlord who, switching points from a lofty control tower, determines the destinations of rolling wagons), the ‘conductor’ (the athletic pedestrian who handles uncoupling), or the driver of the shunter who collects arrived trains, pushing them over the hump for sorting.

The latter roles are more demanding than they look. Playing as the ‘conductor’ entails modulating train speed via radioed instructions, and inserting a pole in the right place at the right time (it’s impossible to uncouple when couplings are under tension).

Plausible physics, detailed brake modelling, and regular radioed requests from pole wielders mean the drivers in Gorka 1520’s hump yard must be on the ball too.

Subtransit Drive

What a sad sign of the times. Wagon Software, the makers of the incomparably realistic Subtransit Drive, can’t bring themselves to name the real-world metro line they’ve lovingly recreated. On the Steam page there are references to “a major city” and “an exact copy of a real metro line”. Moscow and the Kalininsko-Solntsevskaya line are not mentioned anywhere.

Although troglodytic train simmers are not short of high-quality options nowadays, to my knowledge nothing currently available can match SD for fidelity and detail. The 81-760 you’re assigned in the demo features an unusually interactive panel and cab (every button, switch, lever and gauge is wired up) and unimpeachable physics.

The seven-station section of line traversable in the trial is modelled and lit with similar fastidiousness and skill. If it wasn’t for some slightly starchy passenger animations, the illusion would be almost perfect.

Happily all that realism doesn’t translate into a steep learning curve. Apart from door controls and safety systems overrides, all of which are demystified by an excellent dynamic help system, the only keys newcomers need to think about are W and S – accelerate and brake.

Even if some of its thunder is pinched by Smart Train Simulator (another upcoming Moscow Metro sim) and a few potential customers are put off by its country of origin, Subtransit Drive looks to have more than enough quality, depth, and character to succeed.

Line Clear

Is Line Clear the first-person British signal box sim I’ve been craving for years. Quite possibly, but unless in-game instruction improves or I buckle down, a firm friendship is unlikely to form.

The brief demo tutorial introduces the brass tacks of operating a small mechanical signal box in the UK in the 1990s then promptly abandons you at the start of your first shift. Fans of PC-Rail’s oeuvre will settle in quickly. Nearly everyone else is going to end-up wishing the developers had provided dynamic hints and mistake warnings.

Promisingly, DannyBz and Kaserick have acknowledged the trial’s instructional inadequacies and plan to overhaul things before the first Early Access build. Assuming they deliver idiot-proof guidance, I may be reduced to griping about sausagey telegraph wires and unsimmed signal box cats in my first-look article.

At Danger

Unless I have a run-in with a spook, UFO, or weresomething during my visit to Lidl this afternoon, it looks like there will be no Halloween tale on THC tomorrow. The best I can do is recommend a free, railway-themed spine-chiller called At Danger.

It’s June 14, 1977, the last day of operation for the Sallow Moor branch line in Yorkshire. You’ve been assigned the final shift at Low Thorn signal box, the very same box your father was working on the night of the terrible Thorn Fell Tunnel Disaster in 1955. I don’t think I’d be giving too much away if I said you’ve a memorable night ahead of you.

Expect to heave levers, ring bells, and take and make telephone calls. Anticipate unease – fear even – and a modicum of bafflement. While Tsukuyom does an excellent job of building tension and exploiting the inherent spookiness of the setting and situation, I confess I ended up a trifle lost.

Of course, railways have a long association with the supernatural. The first spooky signalman story was penned in 1866 by Charles Dickens, and reports of phantom trains have been cropping up in local papers since pre-grouping days. Here’s a recent one from Derbyshire.