Download > Versions

Three Versions of Open Rails

Three versions of Open Rails are readily available to users, as shown below:

For first-time users, we recommend the Stable Version which comes with an installer.

Updater

Whichever version you choose, Open Rails has a mechanism to notify you of new versions and to update Open Rails for you. You will find the settings for this mechanism in Menu > Options > System

Open Rails will check for updates at most once a day. When it finds one, it raises a red flag in the Notifications icon.

Use the "What's new" button to find out more about an update or the "Install" button to launch the automatic update process:

Testing Version

If you follow the Open Rails project on the forums, then you will hear about bug-fixes and new features. These are included in the Unstable Version for developers and testers to try out. Once they have been checked and approved, they are published (on most Fridays) as the latest Testing Version. Any user can easily update to the current weekly Testing Version and benefit from these improvements.

For reference all the Testing Versions (executable and source) can be found in our archive.

Recent Code Changes

• T1.6.1-438-g3a4d79804 Merge pull request #1250 from SteelFill/engine_rpm
  Thanks again Cesar. Merging Fix Diesel Starting Behavior
  • 421dc49f Fix diesel starting behavior
• T1.6.1-436-g475d351aa Merge pull request #1243 from cjakeman/fix/bad-system-name
  Fix for system name not extracted by Notifications
  • 1aa00b70 Fix for system and runtime not extracted in Notifications
  • 13eef889 Fix for system name not extracted by Notifications
• T1.6.1-433-g244792599 Merge pull request #1249 from cesarBLG/net6-loading-time
  Fix longer loading times in .NET 6
  • 5035c8c6 Buffer for decompressed files
• T1.6.1-431-g351cbc354 Merge pull request #1235 from SteelFill/engine_rpm
  Thanks for reviewing, Cesar. Merging Expanded Engine RPM Behaviors
  • 2ea1d413 Clean-up and documentation updates
  • 6fd9b173 Merge latest master build, continued minor tweaks
  • f7091767 Improve handling of spawning in motion, continued diesel variable tweaks
  • 4ef64a73 ETS tweaks
  • 4053dbdb Fix silly indexing crash
  • cd8386b4 ETS behavior tweaks, variable naming adjustments, transmission efficiency adjustments
  • 1c1c22d1 Only set default RunUpTime for diesel locomotives
  • 9d08fe9e Some spelling correction
  • 3f938d5e Tweaks to handle more existing rolling stock
  • bed8bdd2 Consider transmission efficiency in the UI
  • e5ba0428 Resolve conflict in manual
  • 43c2841b Refactoring to support arbitrary engine RPM behavior, plus new tables to control engine RPM

See more code changes

The current Testing Version can also be downloaded as a Zip archive:

28 August 2026, 98MB

• Installation Guide (English)

The documents included in the Testing Versions downloads can be found on-line at:

• Architecture Diagram V1.pdf
• Contenct checker.pdf
• How to Provide Track Profiles for Open Rails Dynamic Track.pdf
• Installation Guide En.pdf
• Localization Manual.pdf
• Manual.pdf
• ORTS Trackviewer manual.pdf
• Processor Flow Chart.pdf
• timetable-editor_de.pdf
• timetable-editor_en.pdf

Note: Multiple versions of Open Rails will not interfere if they are saved to different folders.

Unstable Version

To support development, the latest unstable version is also available, which is updated whenever a developer publishes a change. The unstable versions are more likely to contain serious bugs and are only recommended for users wishing to help with Open Rails development.

The Manual for the Unstable version is not included in the download, but is available on-line.

For reference all the Unstable Versions (executable and source) can be found in our Unstable archive.

Improvements

Improvements to Open Rails are drawn from several public sources as shown here:

We try to make sure that these changes all work and fit together by reviews as marked in orange in the diagram.