This game represents the pinnacle of railroad simulation. I have been slaving away at university work for two years and change, and desperately craving some kind of work I could consider personally fulfilling. When I first started playing, it was like finding an oasis in the desert, and after a couple sessions I found myself logging upwards of six to eight hours a play session.

Kind of like Factorio, the game has a very long, slow, and rewarding progression loop that captures your attention like a steel trap, all the while really making you feel like you're getting somewhere. On top of that, the gameplay itself is fairly adaptable: you can take a more grounded, individual approach and just drive your trains around, you can focus on management and letting your trains run under CPU control, and you can bring your friends along to run the railroad cooperatively. Additionally, the "difficulty", mostly controlled by time scaling, can be freely adjusted to give you more or less time to play through each day.

The game, currently, is fairly primitive, all things considered. Most buildings are either absent or textureless boxes, captive service as a mechanic is significantly underdeveloped, etc. But that doesn't hold the concept back, and the game is incredibly fun regardless... that is, if you're already a big nerd for trains. Sadly, there just isn't much in the way of gameplay intrigue or story that would interest a casual audience, so if this is your first introduction to railroading, I can't say I'd recommend. But for the majority of the game's current audience, I couldn't recommend this game more.