When it comes to computer games, I have a particular fancy for railroad business simulators. Now, I am not talking about actual train simulators, like Microsoft Train Simulator, but rather railroad simulators that focus on the business side of things, like Railroad Tycoon, Transport Tycoon and A-train.
That is why,for Christmas this year, I asked Claudia to get me Chris Sawyer’s Locomotion, even though it was in the bargain bin. I simply cannot resist these games.
It all started when I first bought the original Railroad Tycoon way back in the early 1990′s, when I was still a teenager. I absolutely loved that game and played and replayed it endlessly.
Railroad Tycoon
Next up, I got into A-train, which was a seriously addictive, although underrated game. I enjoyed this one even more than Railroad Tycoon. It featured day-night variations, a stock market sim, and a healthy number of subsidiary businesses to build.
A-train
Transport Tycoon is the game that sucked up all my free time when I started university, and a brilliant game in my train-obsessed mind. I have played with the Deluxe version as well as played around with a few open-source ports of this game. It is a game that will never die for me.
Transport Tycoon Deluxe
Railroad Tycoon 2 I enjoyed, and played quite a bit, but, perhaps because, at the time, I was still too much into Transport Tycoon, I never played it to its full potential. It was a decent game none-the-less, and loved playing it.
Railroad Tycoon 2
The one game in this genre that I never fully got into was Sid Meier’s Railroads! It was not a bad game by any account, and I did find it fun, but it lacked the depth that the other games had, and therefore it got relegated to the shelf for times when I had nothing really else to play.
Sid Meier\'s Railroads
Now, though, I get to go and enjoy Locomotion….I know the game might be a bit dated, but considering how much I still love, Transport Tycoon, I am eager to see how it fairs.
