If there’s a more contented species of gamer around at present than the Lesser Spotted Train Simmer, then please point them out to me.
The blessed residents of Derail Valley are still beaming and pinching themselves after receiving a free Centennial-sized update on November 21. As the above video illustrates, ‘B99’ enriched and improved in many areas. Additional steeds and remote switching, more industrial locations and cargo types, better steam engine and brake simulation, new loco customisation and restoration options… as is their habit, admirable Altfuture pulled out all the stops.
On November 26 Just Trains delivered a strong candidate for Train Sim World’s best ever add-on.
I started exploring West Coast Main Line: Preston – Carlisle over the weekend and to say I’m impressed by the quality of the one-hundred-mile-long route and the four included motive power classes would be an understatement.
While anticipating the imminent arrival of timetables, Railroader fans are looking back at twelve months of solid progress and vigorous polishing. Since its Early Access launch a year ago, Giraffe Lab’s unusually holistic ‘short line’ sim has gained several new loco types, much smarter AI drivers, and a host of realism and UI boosts.
Owners of Rolling Line received a truly stupendous early Christmas present late last month. The Gorre & Daphetid Railroad is a community map project that would make Rod Stewart swoon. Jawdropping in it size, complexity, and artistry, the free US-themed layout is inspired by a real HO masterpiece destroyed by fire in 1973.
Even SimRail’s patch-starved user base may soon have reasons for moderate whooping and low-key hat hurling. The Polish rail shiner is set to leave Early Access this Friday, and judging by this Instagram post and these weekly news updates (the devs seldom share news via Steam) v1.00 will incorporate several long-awaited attractions.
I will never understand how there are so many train sims and more train DLC than one could possibly fathom anyone ever needing, but I’m glad the fans are happy!
Heh, I was reading this update and thinking broadly the same thing. Total mystery yet clearly many happy simmers.
I guess it beats standing on a wet platform on a cold morning in February waiting for your chance to spot the 5.22 from Durham.
It’s one of those genres of games that I don’t understand, but I am happy it exists. The sheer amount of passion just oozes out of these games, heartwarming to behold.
I began doing a lot of Train simming since July, and I ended up staying with OpenRails. It is really difficult to get all the mods running the way you want, as some websites are gone, others use installers etc. But it is worth the effort. Would love to see some covering of the old UKTrainsim routes they offered on CDs, like the Dorset Coast v3(which can be updated to V6 using the downloads from Internet Archive). It could be interesting to see Tim cover the old routes released on DVD cases like London South Coast from EB or the Irish lines from MT.
And adding a few settings into the openrails folder to override the default .trk makes a difference in sound. Like super elevation and track switch sounds.