Diesel Railcar Simulator

Diesel Railcar Simulator lets you drive diesel railcars and locomotives that represent parts of Britain's railways in the 1960s. You can explore three routes spanning over 150 miles of track and operate services from a full daytime timetable, with advanced physics simulation affecting how the trains handle.

Driving trains

Choose between fully manual controls, with optional HUD guides, and simple controls for six-key driving. You can also hand the controls to the AI, watch from any viewpoint or switch to another active service. When driving yourself, you can use a keyboard, gamepad or mouse-operated in-cab controls.

The simulation models individual transmission components and each vehicle's suspension, which bounces and sways over uneven track. Many prominent sounds are recordings of real trains. AI-driven trains can make human-like mistakes, such as running late or misjudging braking at stations.

Timetables and career

Each route has a full daytime timetable, and every service can be driven. Choose from hundreds of Inter-City, semifast, stopping, freight, rescue and empty coaching stock services. After a run, the game evaluates your driving style and timekeeping; you can repeat it to improve your score by braking more accurately or driving more economically. Signal aspects can change between attempts if an AI train is running late.

Career mode connects individual runs into a longer experience, balancing randomisation with player choice. Achievements reward discovering different ways to play the simulator.

Trains and routes

The available trains include:

• Four British Railways diesel railcar classes with manual gearboxes: 112, 117, 122 and 126.
• Class 127 railcar with torque converters, so you do not need to change gears.
• Locomotives from Classes 03, 37 and 40.
• A variety of passenger coaches and goods wagons.

The three routes have distinct layouts and settings:

• North Landen: a four-track main line where express and stopping trains run alongside each other during the busiest hours.
• Westfords: a warm valley route connecting city centres by two alternative main lines, with suburban branches at each end.
• Mountain Pass: a double-track through line with a single-track section winding across rugged, hilly terrain with challenging gradients.

Create trains and routes

Built-in train, route and timetable editors let you create content, with Steam Workshop support for sharing and finding it. The train editor supports custom liveries and trains made with your own 3D models or the built-in asset library; it also includes a vehicle body modelling tool that requires no prior modelling experience. In the route editor, you can build routes from included assets, imported assets or your own creations. The timetable editor lets you add traffic around the clock.