I have some personal enthusiasm for trains, and last years part of that has been playing Train Simulator on PC. That is the game that used to be called Railworks and that currently is named Train Simulator 2019. While I have spent much time with it I also have mixed feelings.

In 2019 there are two alternatives to TS2019 that I have tested and that I will write about: Train Sim World and Trainz Railroad Simulator 2019.

My experience with Dovetail Train Simulator (2019)

I got Train Simulator because I wanted to try to drive trains. The game has developed over the years but there are some annoyances.

The game has some quirks and bugs. The physics, engines, wagons, signals, AI and scenario conditions sometimes don’t work in a way you would expect.

The game is also rather unforgiving. One little mistake can ruin a scenario so you can’t even continue. If that was passing a red light, ok. But sometimes I am just a little late, a little early, I connected or disconnected the wrong wagon, I went into the wrong siding or something like that.

The combination of bugs and being unforgiving is rather frustrating. When there is a little inperfection in the game I can perhaps accept the lack of good simulation experience, but if it ruins the scenario completely, it is worse.

The game has a competitive aspect (it is a game) where you drive scenarios and get scores. This is particularly unforgiving. Decouple a wagon and for some reason (bug?) I get “operational error”, being penalised with -750 points (1000 is max), and I have no choice but aborting the scenario. Also, speeding is penalised heavily. This is annoying for two reasons: first the time table is often ridiculously tight, second it is not uncommon that maximum allowed speed changes unexpectedly.

You can read about the outdated graphics of TS2019 and that is true, but it does not ruin my experience. You can read about all the expensive DLC, but that is your choice (I bought some, but most everything on sales). What I find more annoying is that I buy a nice piece of DLC and it comes with very few scenarios. That is where the (Steam) workshop comes in and there are quite many scenarios (of varying quality) do download.

I found that creating scenarios was often more fun than driving myself and I have contributed some 44 scenarios on Steam Workshop. If driving is quirky, creating scenarios is kind of black magic (the problem is I need to test it, and when it fails after 40 minutes, I need to guess whats wrong and drive again for 40 minutes until I know if it works – a horrible development and debugging experience).

It seems to me it would be very possible to deliver a better Train Simulator game!

On Realism

It is easy to talk about realism. But is it really what we want. My experience…

• Some routes allow for long eventless sessions. That is the realistic truth about driving a train, but how entertaining is it?
• A real challenge when driving a train is breaking and planning your breaking. The weight and length of the train matters, as long as other factors. In the real world a train engineer makes calculations about breaking distances. They are not going to be driving a new train, with unknown weight, on a new track on a tight time schedule. Yet in a train simulator this is what we do, because we want (much) variation (it is a somewhat boring game anyways).
• A real engineer knows the line well, and has special physical documentation about the line available. And he has studied this before. You don’t do that in a train simulator.
• A real engineer spends much time checking things like breaks and wheels. And there is much waiting.
• You can have a realistic “regulator”, that you can operate in the locomotive cab. That will look realistic in one way. But a real engineer would not point and look at it with a mouse, he just happens to have his hand there in the first place. User-friendly, where man-machine becomes one, is good simulation to me.
• Real(istic) timetables are good, but not when it is almost impossible to arrive on time in the simulator.

My point is that I don’t want a realistic simulator. I want a simulator that gives me the feeling I am driving a train. And I want the time I spend with my computer to be more eventful, entertaining and challenging that the average work hour of a train engineer. And also somewhat more forgiving and I want support with things that are easier in the real world.

Train Sim World

Train Sim World is produced by the same company (Dovetail) as Train Simulator 2019. It appears they thought of it as a replacement for Train Simulator 2019, but it also appears that for now the games exist side by side. It is not clear that Train Sim World will ever replace, or even survive, Train Simulator 2019.

The good:

• It looks (the graphics) better than the alternatives.
• It may be the most “polished” option (also available for Playstation and Xbox, which gives you a hint).
• If you get a “package” at discounted price on Steam (EUR25 for 4 routes) it is quite good value.

The bad:

• It does not look that good; it is still computer graphics with obvious artifacts and problems. Also, the sound is not too convincing and the surroundings are pretty dead.
• Walking around (in the scenarios) does not appeal to me, and it is not well made enough to add to the realism of the game.
• Menus are a bit messy.
• Quite limited number of scenarios, but plenty of “services”, but I think that contributes to (even) less events, action and storytelling.
• The routes seem small, and very little action or room outside the mainline (like very linear).
• Occational glitches like “what do I do now”, “what happens next” or “how do I do that”? (driving a service, I was done, told to get off, the train drove away by itself with no visible driver or no comments, and then nothing… had to just quit).
• It lacks something. Like its not a bit dirty, noisy and rough… but just too smooth and clean.
• So far, no possibility for user generated content. It is promised, and it will be based on Unreal, so it seems to be very technically demanding. I myself would prefer to be able to make scenarios with a story easily, without changing anything about the route or the other assets at all.
• Unreal (which is to thank for the better graphics) seems to be a more complex (expensive) development environment, and perhaps this will limit in the future the availability or routes and assets, and make the price high (pure speculation).

I did give Train Sim World a first try, wrote a very negative review, refunded it, but after a few weeks I gave it a new try, and now I have a more balanced opinion about it.

Trainz Railroad Simulator 2019

Years ago I obviously did research and opted for Train Simulator rather than Trainz. Now that I was a bit disappointed with Train Simulator and rather disappointed with Train Sim World I felt I had to give Trainz 2019 a try.

My expectations based on marketing and what I read was:

• Better graphics than Train Simulator, but perhaps not as good as Train Sim World.
• More creator-, community- and sharing oriented (which appealed to my preference to making scenarios).
• It’s a railroad simulator, rather than a train driver simulator.

I must say right away that I am quite disappointed. I ended up paying EUR 70 for Trainz, and EUR 25 for Train Sim World, and that does not reflect the value of what I got.

Download Station

Trainz comes with “its own Steam Workshop, Download Station”. This is the worst part of it. Hundreds of assests, organised alphabetically, with virtually no filtering and no community/feedback/rating function. Unless I completely missed something, this is shit. My use case is that I want to see if someone created a nice 30 min session for one of the premium routes that came with my purchase (and that has no extra dependencies). Trainz seems to live in the world where people download zip-files from ftp-servers and spend the effort of maintaining their virtual asset library like the stock portfolio. I am tempted to make a few sessions myself, and sharing them here, on my blog, but why?

Graphics

There is something idyllic, picturesque, beautiful and friendly about Trainz that is missing in Train Simulator and Train Sim World. There are gorgeous screenshots from Trainz out there. But when it comes to actual game performance on my actual computer (a NUC Hades Canyon) Trainz is the worst. I have been spending not so little time optimizing my graphics settings (and there are many settings to play with).

Quality

To my disappointment the routes come with quite few sessions. The beatiful route from Edinburg to Aberdeen (perhaps just to Dundee) has two sessions: a passenger service with the same Deltic locomotive going both ways. These two scenarios both take 1h30min each to drive. And the one I did try did not work in CAB (realistic) drive mode, because for some reason the Deltic can not pull those wagons with any speed whatsoever. Isn’t it reasonable to expect when a new EUR 70 release is made after 7 years, that the sessions are tested at least once, and working?

Then there was another beautiful session on the Cornish mainline where a 2MT steam locomotive pulls ~25 freight wagons and it just can’t make it up the grades. I asked in the forum and I had managed to get further than most people, but the suggestion was to just try another locomotive (edit the session). Why release a session with the wrong locomotive in the first place?

If driving steam locomotives in realistic mode can be a challenge in Train Simulator (often a frustrating one), in Trainz it feels… not realistic. Perhaps I need more practice, but it is very… unsmooth.

Other things

There is no support for a Gamepad (although I found a little software called AntiMicro) which works decently well for my purposes.

I really miss the look-out-throw-the-side-window camera view.

I appreciate that I can see the status of the next signal in the HUD.

When I have completed a session it does not remember (marked as completed) so I made my own list

A good thing about Trainz is that it is more forgiving than Train Simulator. I ran out of boiler pressure, but then I could switch to simple driving mode and at least complete the session.

I get the feeling that for people who already own and love the old Trainz this is an upgrade. But for a new player it is a rough experience.

Conclusion and recommendation

Unfortunately I think none of the games I have written about live up to the expections you should allow yourself to have in 2019. And I am not aware of a better game in the genre.

Clearly this genre appeals to enthusiasts who want to make their own assets and modify the game, and clearly Train Simulator and Trainz are based on old technology that have not aged too well (and people are reluctant to abandon their assets). Train Sim World, being based on Unreal, has not been able to deliver a workshop- or sharing-experience at all, yet.

If you are curious about how it is to drive a train, get Train Sim World (and an Xbox controller if you get it on PC, I know nothing about the Playstation/Xbox experience). Sit comfortably, turn up the volume, have some coffee (or whatever you drink) and do your best to enjoy the experience. Spend time with the tutorials and dont get too frustrated if you get stuck.

If you want to have your own digital train layout, and play with it (dispatch and control multiple trains), get Trainz, and make sure to have a powerful enough computer.

If you think that Steam workshop is a nice idea where you can share scenarios (and other assets) and communicate with other people about them get Train Simulator 2019. Cost/price aside, there are very many routes (and extra locomotives) available for Train Simulator 2019.

Train Simulator 2019 now supports 64-bit mode. Technically its not… hot… but it is being improved. Train Sim World looks better, but it is not that much better. Honestly, folks who make a living reviewing computer games say: “TS2019 looks so old, but TSW is built on Unreal like all the other cool games, much better.” But for your total train simulation experience, the difference is… marginal.

I would not be too surprised if the Train Sim World Editor never happens. If it is released I would not be surprised if it is too complex and a critical portion of contributors and enthusiasts never switch. The advice to enthusiasts to “Download the UE4 Editor from Epic and start learning”, I am sceptical about it. I doubt I will contribute scenarios if I have to get into a real 3D studio to place some trains and make some timetables/rules.

I would hope that Trainz gets a real workshop experience where you can easily share assets in a social way and where you don’t need to worry too much about dependencies. And I would hope that Trainz manages to polish their game, test it properly, and provide a solid graphics experience.