Railroader
Railroader reproduces the on-the-running-board experience of the engineers, the conductors, the brakemen – the railroaders: moving freight and passengers in transition era Appalachia.
First Person Railroading
Be on the ground with your trains: walk the train to connect the brake line. Get a little elevation by climbing into the cab where immersive 3D throttle, reverser, brake stand, and whistle cord await. Ride the pilot to the next couple, or settle into the caboose cupola until the next town. Railfan your train with a flying/tracking camera as it rolls down the line, or get a bird’s eye view of your switching work.
Multiplayer & Singleplayer
Run your railroad solo, or cooperatively with friends.
Realistic Running
Slack action, brake lines, gladhands, anglecocks. Dimmable forward and reverse headlights, configurable class lights and marker lights. All of the critical elements for realistic railroading.
Dynamic Gameplay
Run a timetable passenger train, switch industries on the local, or classify cars in the yard. These aren’t scenarios: your shortline has a lot of work to get done, and how it gets done is up to your train crew — or crews!
A Gorgeous Mountain Railroad
Tree-covered mountain vistas line your winding Appalachian shortline’s right-of-way as it follows the river between towns. On the ground to connect a cut as night falls, you’ll be thankful you brought your lantern to light your hike back to the cab. But the train is already rolling — guess the engineer decided you’re riding in the caboose. No matter, you need to study the switch list anyway. The lantern lights the sides of cars as they rumble past. Before long the marker lights of the caboose are drawing near. You climb aboard as the train starts to pick up speed, watching the track disappear into the distance.
Game Discussion
Steam User 92
Honestly, it ticks all the right boxes for me. I do have the "I like trains" autism, but not the "I like driving trains" kind. I just like watching them, and telling them where to go, and what to do. I like seeing trains move up and down tracks and solving logistical puzzles and shunting things where they're supposed to go.
The sounds are fantastic, very satisfying "chugga" and "choo-choo", great job. The gameplay loop is pretty mentally stimulating and fun for me, and it allows you to play at your pace and style. If you like driving the trains yourself you absolutely can, and if you just want an up close and personal, small-scale version of Transport Fever like I do, you can have that too. The Engineer AI (or auto-drive) is honestly quite intelligent and self-sufficient most of the time; it will flip switches as it needs to without your input and they have so far not crashed into each other.
The multiplayer feels stable and very fun; I tend to take the role of dispatch and look at the big picture while others man the trains and handle their own individual tasks, makes for a fun dynamic.
The visuals are nothing particularly impressive and quite lightweight which has it's advantages, and I'd like to see more models for differently loaded goods in the carriages for immersive purposes, along with a use for the caboose (which I believe is one of the next items on the list).
The world itself is also extremely dead, nothing happens in the map that does not have to do with the players. There's no vehicles or other trains going about their business, the places you deliver to make no sounds and have no people, and even the passenger lines have no visible passengers, they're just represented by numbers without any visuals. I do not know to what extent they have these things planned, but I know that before the title can be considered complete, the world needs a lot more life in it, rather than just feeling like a personal little sandbox for my company to play around in.
For an early access title it's relatively stable, I experienced a few small bugs but nothing game breaking, and a handful of crashes but the game saves pretty frequently so nothing serious was lost other than less than 5 minutes of progress.
I have high hopes for this title in the long run; it's satisfying, well-crafted and fun, I'm looking forward to more features and content!
Steam User 27
Fun game....does not hold your hand whatsoever (i still have no idea how to do jobs apart from passengers) ....switching can be annoying.....but its still a great game
(Edit: Literally the day after writing this review they updated the tutorial and it is 1000000000000000% better THANK YOU DEVS!)
Steam User 18
Best train sim i've played. I am so done with train sims charging insane prices for individual locomotives. Railroader has tons of locomotives IN EARLY ACCESS! Plenty of mods to choose from as well.
Not to mention the awesome company mode which is what really sets this sim apart. You can start your own railway and build it from the ground up. That's awesome.
Only negatives are the relatively plain terrain and lack of building but as I understand it, that will come eventually.
Steam User 13
I think it's safe to say that I like trains.
This is about to become my most played Steam game by hour count, which has taken me by surprise. It's early access so it's not because it has some kind of magic sauce.. although it's an awesome game already. The gameplay loop involves some company management, train management, making deliveries and earning money to handle more and tougher contracts. I love the freedom of opting in and out of contracts because some of them are frustrating to micromanage with having multiple spots on the same track to have different drop offs, forcing you to play musical railcars to get them in the right order.. so I just cancel those ones and pick the ones I like.
This is also a great game when you're doing remote work, watching videos, or anything where you occasionally take your attention off the trains. The AI system is smart enough to prevent most collisions, so depending on how many contracts you take and how you choose to run your trains (manual/auto), you can customize your playstyle and intensity. This game has lots of options for that and I love having options!
I haven't played much multiplayer but I can see it having tons of potential to give a sim feeling, where people dispatch the trains and players make their deliveries. I plan to join in a server that does this soon. But it's also great solo which is what I've done mostly.
The game itself runs really smooth, have yet to have a technical issue. I'm not sure if it will stay in full release (hopefully it does) but they have console command cheats which is something I miss having in games overall. Also if you don't like the pace of the campaign, there is sandbox mode.
The devs seem really chill and their discord is a good place to be. Lots of good people and you can contribute genuine quality feedback, find modders for more trains or post nice screenshots etc.
I highly recommend this game.
Steam User 17
Nice game to relax after work to, you can't build tracks, but you can build premade tracks, 126 hours and i haven't opened the whole map yet, today i had my longest train at 64 cars, some of my smaller locomotives couldn't even charge the air line, the dev's are responsive, But, MU two together and it could move it, I work in a locomotive shop in real life, and at least i can control this one.
Steam User 12
As a little kid, I remember seeing gameplay for Microsoft Train Simulator and Train Simulator 2012 (now TS Classic) and dreaming of having a game like 18 wheels of steel/euro truck simulator but for trains, running freight around the map and making big money and expanding your company. Only to be severely disappointed by the scenario based gameplay and not the open-ended gameplay like MSFS 2002/FSX
Railroader scratches that itch for me on a very personal level. My chief complaint was not enough diesel power (I know I know, time period and such) but the increasingly prevalent modding community has added iconic diesel power that is simulated arguably better than what MSTS or even TS Classic could achieve that makes this game pure bliss for me. Just wish I had more friends to play it with.
10/10 - If you love trains, this one is a no brainer
Steam User 12
This is the railroading game I’ve been waiting years to play. As it stands now, even in the Early Access state, Railroader has so much to offer and a lot to do. Its primary aim is to simulate railroad logistics in the Transitional Period, covering everything from yard switching and freight to passenger service as well. Don’t go into this expecting in-depth operation of locomotives—the controls are simplified in order to make the overall task of running a short line much more approachable to a wider player base. And that’s completely fine by me, as this is a video game at the end of the day.
When it comes to the equipment itself, there are a wide variety of steam locomotives to choose from, as well as a couple of diesel engines that serve as more of an “end game” acquisition. While I enjoy operating the different steam engines, I’m certainly looking forward to using more diesel down the line (I’m a diesel guy after all).
Highly recommend picking this up if you’re a railroad nerd!