Railroad Corporation

It's fine. By that I mean it's really not bad, but it's not particularly great at anything it does.
The graphics are austere, the minimum acceptable for a 2019 game, even for a train tycoon game, the UI is outdated but does the job, even though it can take up the whole screen when you select a train with a complex route for instance.
The tracks layout tool works pretty well and is satisfying, even though snapping to stations is clunky in the way it makes them move around according to a pretty random detection of the direction of your mouse.
Tutorial is basically non-existent, but the campaign does a pretty good job at progressively unlocking new possibilities and complexities to you. That being said, the game is not very deep and is extremely simple and basic: town produces a resource, other town needs it, connect them with rail, put a locomotive, and you're good to go. That's pretty much it. There are some production chains but they are very basic too and don't really add anything to the game's overall strategy.
All these railroad/resources management games seem to have the same game loop problem, because it's not the first time I encounter it: You spend 80% of your time waiting. They all follow the same formula, that is Connect point A to point B, Put a mean of transportation in between, Wait for a while until you made enough money to connect another point and Repeat the process. Railroad Corporation adds some other layers like HR department, R&D, buying factories and lands, etc. But all of them are pretty simplistic and don't add any real depth to the core loop.
Still, in all it simplicity and austerity, I think Railroad Corporation is one of the better ones of the genre, and that's why I'll still recommend it for enthusiasts. I had a good time during the few hours I played it. But I just ultimately got bored, and that's coming from someone that enjoys management games. I'm sure one day, someone or some studio, will figure out a way to make games like this more interesting in between the fun parts that are laying out tracks and creating a satisfying network.

Just finished all the basic missions. I liked the game. Its simple and sometimes repetitive, but I enjoyed it. It has a meditative quality to it. Really relaxing and still challenging enough to be fun. I recommend the game.

I bought it on sale, and decided to not bother with the 20+ DLCs until I checked out more.

It scratches an itch, but it becomes clear very quickly that "resource balancing" isn't necessary. Raw resources spawn near infinitely, processing factories are just as fast, and even cities barely "fill up" on their needed items.
You make too much money transporting mail and passengers.
Hiring two employees that reduce wages by 50% and 70% actually stack so you pay 15% original, instead of 300/month they cost like 45/month.
Campaign Mission 7 introduces competitor, but again it comes down to quickly expanding and exploiting the same unguarded features explained above.

Still, the first 6 missions was a fun 60 hours, so I gotta recommend it for the value. (But I'm not buying any DLCs)

My first train-theme business management game.
Let's start off with some negative:
- The achievements was bugged during my first run and didn't pop after the initial Tutorial achievement.. a problem that has been noted by people, but thankfully, once I reset my game, it finally register my progress.
- Another negative is that the main campaign is split into 2 Chapters of 6 missions each, 12 in total. I managed to max out the research type of trains "skill" tree during Chapter One. So when entering Chapter 2, all of my progress reset to zero is very a kick to the heart.
The meh:
- The property auction war gameplay in Chapter 2 felt tacked on and serve barely any meaning. I could be missing something but I don't see it's fun for it to pop up randomly breaking the gameplay flow.
Now the positives!
The resources management, the railroad roadmap building, and the transportation of the resources to build even more resources. Those are the highlight of the game and the essential part of the gameplay. The game nailed it perfectly. And that's all the game needed to be honest. This one positive outweight the others (which are more of a nitpick than anything) cause they done it so well.
Either way, I enjoy my time with Railroad Corporation!

It’s fine-to-good. If you’re experiencing a logistics management craving, or having a ‘tism flare-up like I was, this will scratch the itch pretty good. I was hooked on it for about 20 or 30 hours but ultimately stopped before finishing the campaign because it just got a bit too repetitive.
It can seem a little complicated at first, but it’s actually pretty simple and won’t really challenge you. Just casual ‘tism fun.

The economics are very strange. Your railroad doesn't charge fees for transport. It buys the products (including passengers) and then sells them when they are delivered. The amount of money made on such transactions is absurdly high and the only real restrictions are that you start with insufficient money & borrowing is absurdly expensive.
Sometimes trains go off to stations that are not on their route.
The items available to be picked-up or in demand to be delivered change and that can mean that trains stay in a station unable to unload or load. It isn't obvious when this has happened, but can be impossible to solve if there is no where else that demands the cargo. It can also cause severe delays that cause something to run out and fail the challenge.
Another funny thing is that industry is located in the middle of nowhere, not near the raw materials & not near the cities. It is as if they have been placed in the worst locations so that there can be long railroad lines needed to connect them.
Also your railroad is often headquartered in a tiny location that makes no sense. Not near a city and not near any exploitable demand/supply.
Nevertheless I have played it 100 hours so far, and will probably continue until I have completed all the challenges. This is just the introductory part of the game.

You know, I have had this game in my Steam library for about 2 years, and played it only once when I first bought it. At first, I thought it was mediocre. BUT... Boy was I wrong! I was bored this weekend, and thought I would give this game a serious go. And wow! I have to say I am impressed.
I'm a big fan of train games... from the old Transport Tycoon to the new Transport Fever series and so many others in between. But RC beats them all for its powerful simplicity. What I mean by "powerful simplicity" is that the devs made everything so simple, it is just amazing. And yet, despite such simplicity, it has powerful background mechanics, from research, to station improvements, to character development (you have a character you can develop in skills and experience and knowledge), to corporate accounting. In RC, you're not just running trains and moving cargo, you're managing a transportation company. You can buy land and industries as well.
By simplicity, of course, I mean it's super easy to do what you want to do. Track building is super simple. Setting cargo types is also super simple. And setting the direction of the track is the easiest I have ever seen! You don't need to fiddle around with switches, lights, and stops when controling the trains. You set the direction of a track simply by clicking on it until the green arrows point in the direction you want for that track. Simple. Easy. Wow!
Installing track switches is super easy too. Just put your mouse on the spot on the track where you want the trains to exit. Your pointer will turn into a green dot. When you left click, you can already see the new track segment extending from that point as you move your mouse around. Then click on the spot where you want the switch to end.
Also, to allow more trains to use the same track, make sure to build the track in short segments. When you lay down track, every time you click the mouse you create a new segment of track. A new semaphore is automatically inserted on the track every time you click your mouse. So if you build a long track with 2 clicks of the mouse, you get 2 segments of track with 2 semaphores. Here, only 2 trains can run at the same time, one in front of the other. But if you build the track with 6 clicks of the mouse, you get 6 segments of track with 6 semaphores. In this case, 6 trains can use the track, one after the other. Trains will not enter the next segment unless it is completely vacant of trains. So the more segments you have, the more trains will use that track at the same time. You can see the semaphores if you zoom in close. Or, if zommed out, you will see yellow dots where the semaphores are when you are in track building mode.
Another thing I find really handy is how the products that a town produces and needs are displayed right by the town's name. When you hover your mouse over the product icons, you see the price, and the time it takes for the town to consume or produce one unit of that product. So you can determine how many railcars you need of each cargo type to ensure you deliver enough to keep the town growing. It is such a convenient feedback to help us run our trains more efficiently.
It's like the devs sat down and said, "Let's make a train game that is super easy to play, and yet super powerful to keep the player engaged... like forever!" And they pulled it off just fine.
Devs, I'm sorry it took me this long to play the game and write a review. But you guys and gals deserve a round of applause. You really showed the other guys that a challenging train game does not have to be hard to play. You kept the challenge and the power, and made it super easy to play. Well done!