ONE TRACK MIND
When only a train sim will do.
When I reviewed Mini Motorways in the last magazine, I realised that I’d never given in to the overwhelming, compulsive desire that Mini Metro had created within me; to rediscover old train sims. I think Young Meghann must have been cleverer than me, because these old interfaces are hard to understand. I’ve now played everything from the original Railroad Tycoon to Sid Meier’s Railroads(!). Even just placing tracks has been an adventure. Do not get me started on double tracking. How did we survive before tooltips? Tell me that.
Did I enjoy myself? Yes, I did. My favourite thing about the original Railroad Tycoon was always choosing the best starting point on a randomly generated map; chaining resources, counting city tiles and so on. Next, I was reminded that Railroad Tycoon II can become beautifully complex, with patience and micromanagement. I don’t remember playing III and it was more of the same, but I did enjoy a couple of hours with Railroads(!) and its additional economic layers, even if it ultimately seemed too easy. (Interface notwithstanding.)
And so, when I saw the early access game, Rail Route, I was suitably primed for it. It’s also quite impenetrable, but ‘making things easier for yourself’ is the game’s entire premise. It’s less a ‘train sim’ and more a ‘train signalling sim’. The story (on endless), which I entirely imagined (because this game is just lines and shapes), goes something like this. You’re a dispatcher with only the most basic of equipment. Prague (or another city) has decided to outsource its overflow to ‘the cheap guy’. You take what contracts you can get and gradually build an ever fancier network.
On my first few attempts, I was flicking basic signals to green, assigning trains to platforms and tracks, and killing lots of innocent passengers (which is a fail state). Every piece requires interaction, although you can manage the difficulty by accepting contracts slowly. As routes are completed you earn two kinds of tokens and buy from the weirdest upgrade tree I’ve ever seen. As well as unlocking more interesting contracts, you might upgrade an aspect of automation, or buy literally just a sound effect that goes “clack” when a train is stopped at a signal.
It’s not an exaggeration to say that I dispatched mindlessly (but happily) for 20 minutes, just to buy the Command Chain upgrade. This allowed me to remove one mouse click from how I had to manually assign one train, on the hour, even though this train still required four other signals, or tracks, to be clicked upon anyway. Why? If I failed to recognise this particular train on approach, then accidentally auto-signaled it to Bubny, I’d have to painstakingly direct it back to Dejvice through the (otherwise relatively) orderly mess of allocated traffic. One click can mean a lot.
Eventually, you can automate nearly everything. Arrival, departure and routing censors, which change ALL signals based on a passing train’s destination, are a revelation. Is my rail route fully automated? Gosh, no. I have dedicated lines and autonomous loops, but coachyards (which store and release engines) and urban transit (where trains circle a hub station) remain tricky. What I love most about Rail Route is that I’m intimately familiar with every click my network still needs, but I’d hand you this save and you’d mess up its management immediately.
I think the desire that Mini Metro (fun as it is) actually left me with wasn’t so much to rediscover Railroad Tycoon, but the ability to create a railroad that’s mine, all mine. From spitefully blocking, or outpacing, a competitor in the original games, to the thrill of incrementally selective automation, I may have gone mad with power. You can keep your mighty weapons and fearsome dragons. I’m going to sit here with my tea and click exactly once to ensure the 2.57pm COM6896 from Masaryk to Dejvice gets onto the correct track and everyone arrives safely.