Many years ago, when my son was very young,(he's 28 now), I began to build a ridiculously huge HO train layout in our basement.My wife still swears the layout was for me,not my son. Now that I see this thread, it kind of piques my interest in trains again. Do you feel that Railworks is a decent train simulator and worth the money?

Many years ago, when my son was very young,(he's 28 now), I began to build a ridiculously huge HO train layout in our basement.My wife still swears the layout was for me,not my son. Now that I see this thread, it kind of piques my interest in trains again. Do you feel that Railworks is a decent train simulator and worth the money?

I consider it a decent rail simulator, although i dont really like to free roam I really like the missions included, And there are quite a few to keep you busy. I would definetly recommend it, I prefer it over microsofts train sim. I have both but only use railworks.

Well, as I noted above, for 24 quid with an add-on thrown in for good measure, you can't really go wrong, a half-decent meal in a restaurant for two people is more than that.But to answer the question more directly, yes I do think it is a good product if you like railways and are curious about how to drive trains properly. Since it has UK, US and mainland European tracks and trains thrown in by default, with some very nice add-ons kicking about for it too, there is the potential for many hours of entertainment.The manual could perhaps be a bit better than it is, however, in common with most other sims, the community at large have mostly stepped up to the plate to address that issue, so it's not really a big deal. Just as well that you can find out which signals you should stop at when you can do 140 mph in the dinky little Pendolino add-on LOLAl

Gerry and Al, Thanks for your responses. I'm going to take a closer look and try to broaden my horizons.(And maybe recapture a little of my youth!) :(

Gerry and Al, Thanks for your responses. I'm going to take a closer look and try to broaden my horizons.(And maybe recapture a little of my youth!) :(

No problem MikeP.S If you do end up splurging, let us know what you think of it.

Gerry, I took the plunge.(downloading as we speak) Do you have any suggestions of Avsim like sites for a novice engineer,such as myself?

I have Railworks also and am getting used to it. There are some websites for it, some UScentric others UKcentric etc.In the US there is:Railworks America, 3d Trains and TrainSim.Com (though they tend to be more MSTS oriented and appear to be run by some of the same who run FlightSim.com).There are more and they can be found at the RailSimulator website.

Might want to take a look here, where you will find a lot of links to interesting sites (including some freebie stuff), although make sure you are looking at the right sections, as many of them are for several railway sims: http://www.railserve.com/Computers/Rail_Simulator/Quite a few of those sites have tutorials on stuff related to driving the locomotives and following the signals properly. All that stuff is in the manuals of course, but some third party explanations are a little better if you aren't sure about which brakes to use and such, although you can learn a lot of it by simply cranking the thing up, opening the throttle and trying stuff out.There is a lot of stuff on the way for Railworks incidentally, and quite a lot of good stuff out there already, but as it comes there is probably enough stuff in there to keep you busy for a while anyway.Al

UPDATEBought Railworks,and it's not too bad. The graphics are pretty good and the scenarios add a purpose to what you are doing. It's kind of like belonging to a VA. Two things I'd like to see implemented: 1. Track IR compatibility, 2.Ability to use my Saitek throttle quadrant.All in all,I like it. Heck, I even bought an addon already.(Waiting on the PMDG 737NGX, the Aerosoft Airbus, and the IFLY 737.)

Sounds like you are having fun if you are buying add-ons for it LOL. Might wanna check out Trainz 2010 as well by the way, which is of course about the same price as an add-on but would give you a lot more variety than simply one add-on for Railworks. I like both Railworks and Trainz, Railworks has better graphics than Trainz, but not by much, for example, the ex-Chinese GE locomotive that features in a lot of the default Trainz scenarios looks spectacularly realistic in my opinion, so they both have their charm, and of course Trainz 2010 is a lot of bang for your buck considering all the locomotives and utilities you get with it.For the complete train nerd, there are actually one or two train throttles available for PCs, they ain't cheap, and you'd need a big desk too, but I suspect they'd certainly do a good job. You can find one here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Contact-Sales-Train-Cab-Controller/dp/B00008VIR8150 quid for a toy train throttle is too much for my blood, but then again, you could always make a throttle for about a tenner with the outstandingly cool BUO836 controller, which is one of the best things any PC simmer could ever buy: http://www.leobodnar.com/products/BU0836X/Al

How does that BOU thing work??? I am quite interested in this!!

There are several versions of it, one for more complex switches and a fairly basic version as well. It is a simple circuit board that you can plug things such as switches and potentiometers into, and you attach it via a USB port lead. It auto-configures and you end up with any switches or potentiometers becoming effectively 'joystick switches and controls'. Here's what you see when you plug the simple version in straight out of the box (if there were pots attached, it would be showing those too incidentally):So, you basically build the controller you want (perhaps a replica B727 throttle or a racing car steering wheel or Airbus overhead panel or whatever), use that BUO836 circuit board inside what you build, connect up all the switches and stuff to that circuit board, plug it into a USB port, and Bob's Yer Uncle, you have yourself a custom controller.Really a very cool thing and very simple to use even if you know bugger all about electrics since it is a no brainer. It's especially useful if you are building a simming cockpit but are put off by imagining it would involve a lot of complex knowledge, since it doesn't require anything other than connecting wires to stuff if you use that thing. There is a support forum for it which you can get to via the main product page, where you can see examples of the kind of stuff people have made with it.Al

There are several versions of it, one for more complex switches and a fairly basic version as well. It is a simple circuit board that you can plug things such as switches and potentiometers into, and you attach it via a USB port lead. It auto-configures and you end up with any switches or potentiometers becoming effectively 'joystick switches and controls'. Here's what you see when you plug the simple version in straight out of the box (if there were pots attached, it would be showing those too incidentally):So, you basically build the controller you want (perhaps a replica B727 throttle or a racing car steering wheel or Airbus overhead panel or whatever), use that BUO836 circuit board inside what you build, connect up all the switches and stuff to that circuit board, plug it into a USB port, and Bob's Yer Uncle, you have yourself a custom controller.Really a very cool thing and very simple to use even if you know bugger all about electrics since it is a no brainer. It's especially useful if you are building a simming cockpit but are put off by imagining it would involve a lot of complex knowledge, since it doesn't require anything other than connecting wires to stuff if you use that thing. There is a support forum for it which you can get to via the main product page, where you can see examples of the kind of stuff people have made with it.Thanks for the descriptive reply, I am very intrigued by this, especially because I dont have much knowledge of electronics. I may have to look into this a little further and draw something up.Thanks again.Al