As a kid, I have always been fascinated by trains, well I think most of us were. Beyond that childhood fantasy and riding trains for travel, I never really got interested in trains as a grown up, until now. Fortunately, we now have SimRail - The Railway Simulator as a brand new addition to the list of growing video game train simulators, the caveat: it’s still in Early Access.

SimRail - The Railway Simulator promises a new era of advanced railway simulation, complete with modern graphics and real-life scenery based on real geodetic data. Right now, the current build only features two 200+ km of routes, both set in Poland. There are no other countries as of the moment and the current focus is to finish Poland first.

The current build also features five types of intricately modeled trains to drive. Down to the small minute details and system controls are present in the game. Forget toy trains, Whole “real” trains are yours to tinker around with. As for the technology, it plans to feature steam, diesel, and electric vehicles to its roster of trains, and allow you to travel back in the 80s train industry up to the present time.

When it comes to its simulation of trains and railways. SimRail - The Railway Simulator does not hold back or skip stuff. The interiors are highly interactable, from the doors to all the little buttons in the cabin, wipers, headlight controls, all are interactable. Not only will you drive a train from point A to point B, you will also learn how to operate one. From even the most trivial tasks like opening a panel cover, to immersive flavorful interactions like communicating on the radio or just the flicking of a button, a lot of things are included in the simulation.

Since I’m not a train expert or professional — My educated guess is it’s probably a convincing representation of what appears in their real-life train counterparts. With all the effort shown in including the smallest detail, it must be.

The tutorial is a nicely made guided experience, complete with voice acting, with highlights to the things that you need to activate and check before to run and eventually –- operate the train. It’s not currently available for all trains though, but when its there, it is perfect for newcomers and newbies to the craft, making it a great educational tool as well.

The train physics; the inertial feeling of acceleration and braking, including the typically underappreciated sound design are all properly executed, giving you a highly immersive in-train experience. The sounds are realistic enough, the background radio chatter, the deafeningly loud horns, alarms, and beeps all do their job well of providing believable immersion.

One feature that differentiates this from many Train Sims is the multiplayer aspect, wherein you can play the role of a train dispatcher and control the traffic from your signal cabin, and play with other players in a cooperative multiplayer mode.

SimRail - The Railway Simulator is a promising train and railway sim that is still in its Early Access form. Content wise it is very limited at the moment, but it has all the foundations in place with its highly detailed train simulation, real-life based railway scenery, and cooperative multiplayer aspirations.

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You can learn more about Trains in this game | SimRail - The Railway Simulator - First Impressions

As a kid, I have always been fascinated by trains, well I think most of us were. Beyond that childhood fantasy and riding trains for travel, I never really got interested in trains as a grown up, until now. Fortunately, we now have SimRail - The Railway Simulator as a brand new addition to the list of growing video game train simulators, the caveat: it’s still in Early Access.