Discover > Open Rails

What is Open Rails?

It is a train simulator and a hobby that offers free fun for life. Discover what you can do with Open Rails:

Play

Drive steam, diesel or electric powered trains in a simulation that approaches reality
Perform activities to transport passengers and freight safely and on time
Load and unload various types of freight and pick up fuel
Operate signals, switches, turntables, transfer tables and elevators for locomotives and wagons
Load and unload containers at an operational terminal
Couple and uncouple freight cars at yards and industrial sidings
Drive multiple trains in a timetable-driven railroad simulation
Observe the train inside and out and make screenshots using the 7 camera views
Engage in multi-player sessions
Or just sit back in a passenger car and enjoy the scenery from all over the world

Socialize

Join an international community of like-minded people
Participate in forums like Elvas Tower, TrainSim.com and many other international forums
Get answers and learn from other railroad enthousiasts
Share your knowledge, stories, photos and screenshots

Create

Create your own railway routes, form the terrain with or without satellite and map data, lay tracks and roads and build the scenery
Build or repaint locomotives and rolling stock
Build new scenery objects
Assemble train consists out of locomotives, passenger and freight cars
Record and add railroad and environment sounds to enhance a realistic experience
Create challenging activities that measure performance in various railroad operations scenarios
Create timetables to simulate a railroad with multiple operational trains

Collect

Numerous free and payware, real-world or fantasy routes and other content
Various Locomotives and Rolling Stock
Activities for countless hours of play
New scenery objects like tracks, roads, houses, bridges and tunnels, cars, animals and people to use when building your own route

Learn

Control the power of a train and navigate challenging terrain
Install new content to expand your railway inventory
Build your own routes using the TSRE route editor and various other tools
Create activities that define train operations scenarios
Set up timetables to schedule railroad simulations with mutliple trains
Use of 2D and 3D graphics tools to create your own locomotives, rolling stock and scenery objects

Contribute

Share your creations: routes, rolling stock, scenery objecst, activities and timetables with the rest of the Open Rails world
Help with testing and report any issues with new Open Rails software releases
Join the worldwide team of volunteers that continuously improves the - open source - Open Rails Train Simulator and supporting tools

Our Open Rails project provides a free train simulator for the largest collection of digital content in the world - routes, rolling stock, activities and timetables. Our statistics reveal that we have around 25,000 active users.

Open Rails is open, as the name suggests and the license guarantees. It is a project developed, maintained and nurtured by a team of volunteers. Our team is working to provide a sound future for the communities' content (both free and commercial) and to create the best possible train simulator.

Suggestions for improvements are welcome – see our Roadmap and also see ideas you can vote on and submit yourself.

Origin

Microsoft Train Simulator (MSTS), which was launched in 2001, was very successful but Microsoft had several false starts at developing it further, which stimulated the launch of the Open Rails project in 2009.

Open Rails is independent of Microsoft and now runs the trains on routes built to MSTS standards but with all the advantages in performance and graphics that the passing years make possible.

Goals

The project reached its initial goal – running MSTS trains at least as well as MSTS did – some time ago.

Along the way many valuable features have been added, visual improvements such as superelevation and 3D cabs and operational ones such as timetables, container cranes and ETCS. We also provide multi-player and control from connected devices such as RailDriver or a web browser.

The standards for MSTS content have restricted Open Rails in many ways, e.g. curved track must be circular arcs so transition curves are not possible. In response, a current aim is to leave behind these restrictions while still supporting content built to these old standards.

Another aim is to make it easier to build routes, with options to generate lineside objects instead of placing them individually.

Our goal is to enhance the railroad simulation hobby through an open platform, designed and supported by the community to provide a lasting foundation for accurate and immersive simulation experiences.

Open Rails is "open"

Open Rails lives up to its name - a railroad simulation platform that's open for inspection, open for continuous improvement, open to third parties and commercial enterprises, open to the community and, best of all, an open door to the future.