Honestly one of my favorite train games. To me it's a good balance between a true simulator and a casual game. The game setting is interesting, you run over a section Southern Railway's Murphy Branch, which includes Red Marble Grade (one of the steepest grades in North America).
Railroader has a decent selection of locomotives and rolling stock. Though based on a Southern Railway branch, you're not limited to only SOU equipment. I was rather surprised to see L&N's "Big Emma" 2-8-4 as one of the playable engines, you don't often see those represented, even in model railroading. And Of course there are some famous engines like Strasburg 90 and 475, and even Illinois Central 382 of Casey Jones fame. For the purists, there are SOU engines, Ps-4 included.
Controls are pretty simple. It's kind of arcade-like, just throttle, direction control, and brakes.
Not too much negatives I can think of. It is still in development, so there's not a lot of scenery other than trees and mountains. Towns are sparsely modelled, but again it is still in development so things get added or updated as developers get to them. Not a huge dealbreaker for me, the mechanics still work, you just got to have a bit of imagination for some industries. Referring to mods again, there are mods that add buildings and industry details.
If you don't find the "vanilla" content to be acceptable, there is a huge modding community with plenty of addons. I will admit that I do play modded with only a few base locomotives on roster. With mods, you can pretty much play anything from early 1900's up to the modern era.
Anyways, I do recommend this game, faults and all. It's not perfect, but as I mentioned it is in development so things may improve over time. If you're worried about whether your computer can support it, I play on an HP laptop with very little problems. Give it a try at least, is all I can say.
