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 14
Oh, it is so addictive. It might not be accurate down to the last detail, but as some reviewers on youtube have mentioned, they got the VIBE. They got the vibe down enough that I think even rivet counters can enjoy themselves. Plenty of camera view options. It feels nicer than any train sim I have yet played.
The game itself is stable. Even though it's early access, it feels pretty complete, save for some minor details, but hey! Early access! The gameplay is smooth and enjoyable. The ability to switch between sandbox and company modes on the fly is fantastic. The early game could be a little grindy, but because of that flexibility to switch those modes on the fly, you never HAVE to grind to get your big fancy locomotives if you really don't want to. I think the devs have a solid understanding of what makes their game fun. It is very clear a lot of time and effort went to making the gameplay enjoyable. I was satisfied with the game on day one, but it just keeps getting better with each update. I mean, I've put in 681 hours, according to Steam, so if I was going to get sick of it, I think I would have already!
Oh! Also worth noting, you can just drop what you are doing immediately and save your game. Like, there is no waiting for a scenario to end or anything. There is no time jump when you hop back in. The save system is super smooth and takes no time at all. I've been playing single player this whole time, so I can't speak to the multiplayer functionality... HOWEVER, if I need to do something else urgently, I'm in and out of the game quickly and smoothly, even on my potato of a laptop - which is more than I can say for pretty much every other train sim I've ever played. I have no regrets. Even in its early access-ness, the game is plenty of fun, and I've been enjoying the crap out of it!
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
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!
Steam User 10
Day One purchase. While I've had my fair share of bugs, the dev team has been wonderful in replying, and subsequently fixing / making note of said issues.
At the time of this review, I have almost 703 hours of near constant playtime. That's almost a month of my life stuck staring at virtual rolling stock.
The game is worth the price tag.
Also, Southern Railwayisms.