Railroads Online

TLDR-Not recommended without bug fixes. I have logged more than a few hours on this one. It was a fun game on and off through early access. However, the finished product lacks advertised features and polish. That was forgivable for a work in progress but it isn't for a ‘finished’ product. The released version features a collection of locomotives that are interesting, but the performance and modeling is inconsistent and incongruous. Also, the big 2-6-6-2 that should be the big reward for slogging through the ranked XP system is disappointingly glitchy and borderline unusable. Two features that are advertised are completely missing. As of 6/23/2026 the store page on steam still shows that you can “upgrade and customize your existing locomotives”. This is not true without using third party save file editing software. Also, your are supposed to be able to manage your company, but there are no game mechanics that allow you to manage anything related to finance, billing, ownership of track or industries, nothing! All you get is the most basic reward for delivering cargo that you can use to expand your collection of trains. There is no risk involved in wrecking and no penalty other than the time commitment required to put the pieces back on track. The steam simulation is grossly inadequate, cutoff does not work properly, there is no injector or crosshead pump modeled, but you have to fill the firebox with fuel so you wind up filling half of the fireman’s role. It’s a bad compromise, either give me all the controls or none when it comes to firing and I will be much happier. Trains are capped at a laughably low speed that is historically inaccurate for many (not necessarily all) of the locomotives depicted. Curves can be laid hilariously sharp for no good reason other than to make it possible to navigate the maps which can be very cramped with huge elevation changes making everything difficult without building some ridiculous loops and switchbacks (maybe that’s the point?). Then there is no provision for train brake simulation, despite multiple locomotives and cars having all the necessary airbrake components plainly visible. On an insane mountain railroad this is just unacceptable. Train brakes were common on the narrow gage in the era depicted by this game; there is no excuse for them not being included. Multiplayer is not good, the in game chat feature is cumbersome, there is only one character model with zero customization possible and rubber banding is so visually distracting that it ruins the experience altogether. For a game that has ‘online’ in the title this is not acceptable. Then there’s the community. To be clear, I have no qualms with the player base, it has ups and downs, there are some real passionate players out there that have found ways to enjoy this game warts and all. I think that's great for them. Personally, I'm done until the bugs get straightened out. I've decided not to include what I think of the community moderators in this review, take from that what you will.

This game is severely underbaked and riddled with bugs. On top of that, the last update was over 1 and a half year ago, there hasn't been any communication anymore, making this a yanky piece of abandonware.

still busted, still jank, music still bad, controls worse... just wait for century of steam from studio 346.

My main issue is with the building of tracks. I'm mainly comparing this game to an amazing game similar to this one, Overfreight!. In Overfreight the builder for tracks is far better and easier to use, both starting out and more down the road. Overfreight's builder will auto place ground/ballast/bridges of your choice under the track you are placing rather than you having to keep swapping track types. Another thing it's builder does is, automatically fitting the grade of the track during turns, intersections, and straights, this means you don't need to fiddle with the track to get it to keep a grade. Second to last, the builder allows you delete parts of a track spline. Rather than having to make a bunch of small increments to a curve or straight, in order to later be able to edit the track spline without having to delete it and start from square one again. lastly, and honestly THE best feature, the builder allows you place track switches and intersections anywhere along the track that is already built, ntm you can customize the curve, grade, and length of the detour/additional track. This game lacks all of those basic necessities when building a track, and therefore causes the building of track to be a lot more tedious, and frustrating. You have to pre-plan everything for your track building, and therefore it takes a lot more effort to produce the same result in this game compared to a FREE game like Overfreight, which is also being developed by a singular person. I'm not trying to say this is a bad game, it's just one of the main points to this game is being a sandbox builder that builds mainly rails. Therefore the building of said rails should be as streamlined and freeform as possible. Also I knew of this game from kAN Gaming on YouTube.

[h1]Dead Abandonware[/h1] As of writing this review the last update was back in 2024 and there are only 95 people playing this game... I think that says everything you need to know about the game. Don't get me wrong, it's an alright game to play that I may pop in here and there. But it's riddled with bugs and it's kinda meh compared to others like Derail Valley and Railroader. The only unique feature is you BUILD your railway, which don't get me wrong; is a really cool feature. But it's a bit janky and the overall mechanics of the game could use some serious work. However; since the last update was over two years ago... i don't think that will ever happen. Thankfully, we have Century of Steam to look forward to... If it will ever release lol [h2]TL;DR: Should you get it?[/h2] Ultimately that is up to you. I personally don't recommend it just because of it's janky mechanics and lackluster gameplay. BUT if you love trains that much, and me personally, I would recommend if you have at least one friend to play with - And you don't mind the price tag... Sure, why not. Go for it. But if I could go back... Yeah this game ain't worth $30 for me.

Fun game, gets better midgame. Just DO NOT start with the SHAY.

Seit zwei Jahren keine Updates mehr, Entwickler schweigt seit bestimmt einem halben Jahr. Es ist extremst verbuggt, die Spieltiefe ist höchstens Ausreichend. Grafik ist soweit schön anzuschauen. Spiel ist quasi tot.

This was fun for a while, but it has been abandoned. There's another game like this that is coming out eventually, it called Century of Steam. Check it out and when it comes out, I doubt it will get dropped.

ПАРАВОЗИКИ

The graphics are absolutley amazing, i love that you get to build your own railroad, thogh the tutorials are a little long, its an amazing game!