Although Trains aren’t the most popular mode of transportation nowadays, they’ve certainly attracted some entertaining and engaging games that’ll really make you feel like operating a locomotive yourself. If you’re already a train-lover, this will be the best game list you’ll see this year, for this is the 11 best train games to play in 2016. Never, will you see the best collection of train games assembled into one list. So it’s time to put away that beloved train-set, get with the digital age, and play the best train games of 2016.

Sid Meier’s Railroads
 

Sid Meier’s Railroads is a sequel to Railroad Tycoon 3. In it, you as the player are will in charge of your own rail-road company. This game is mainly focused on economics and industry as you get to run everything from steam-powered locomotives, to modern diesel and electric trains. Not only will you be dealing with hands on locomotive work, but you will also be dealing with rival train tycoons, entrepreneurs, and robber barons.

The gameplay of Railroads is fairly straight-forward. It’s a series of clicking, receiving money as you click on things, and clicking and dragging things to lay tracks. Sounds exciting? Well, let’s get into specifics. As you see on the video, you have the ability to take your train through different cities and train stations that will eventually cross the path of other trains owned by other tycoons. You basically assemble your own digital model train set.

Only this time, Sid Meier wants you to experience the fun of finding routes for delivery. Being that the gameplay is fairly easy, it’s easier for players just coming in to get right on board with it. In the game you will create bridges, tunnels, and adjust prices on terrains throughout a given map of the landscape. As you go from to town to town, you’ll encounter different industry plots and figuring out the ways of which you’ll get those industries for yourself.

 Ultimately, the objective of the game is to lay out the best tracks to the best routes so you can deliver as many resources and goods as you can. Also, it should be noted that industries vary depending on where you’re located and your timeframe. European scenarios deal with wine, beer and dairy products and the United States deal with oil and gold.  

Bounty Train
 

Developed by Corbie Games on August 25th of 2015, Bounty Train is a period piece and a simulator game set in 19th century of the American West.

In this game, you are a train conductor who is in charge of a steam train of your own construction. However, you are not alone. You need to assemble a crew to help you on the train.

With your assembled crew, you will travel throughout the American West in the years during the Civil War period (1860-1868) delivering cargo and trading goods. Along your travels through the tracks of the west, you’ll face a number of issues and scenarios such as rail road chases, ambushes from robbers, and coal and train malfunctions.

Again, much like the last game it’s a click and drag sort of game. More so when you assemble your train. When you start off the game, you’ll pick up a few (3 to 4 I’d imagine) to be your crew.

But unlike Sid Meier’s Railroads, Bounty Train follows a specific story-line.

In the game you play a man in search of the rest of family throughout the American frontier. You’ll start off doing basic train jobs such as transporting cargo to different towns such as Boston, and sometimes you’ll come across bandits trying to steal your cargo.

You fight them off with your gun while also defending and aiding your crew as well. As the player, you’ll also encounter Native American tribes and you get to defend them from Confederate or Yankee soldiers, depending on which side of the Civil War you’re in.

Overall, Bounty Train is your chance to experience a fun western wagon train tail.

Train Valley

Train Valley is a PC game developed by Flazm Interactive Entertainment on May 7th of 2015.

Train Valley is a train simulator that spans multiple time periods all the way to the future, and in continents such as America, Europe, Japan, and Russia. In this game you’ll be able to build railroads to connect cities, tunnels, and bridges.

On story-mode, you can play through real life events such as the Gold Rush of 1846, the construction of the Florida Overseas railroad, World War II, the cold war, the launch of the first manned space flight Vostok 1 and more. In random mode, you get to explore play around with the different locomotive models.

Train Valley was developed by a team of developers from Russia in the Urals region. According to the Train Valley way, the developers are Alexey Davydov (game designer, and producer), Sergey Dvoynikov (programmer, optimization, and wizard), and Timofey Shargordoskiy (designer, and 3Dmodler).

They’re all from Russia, according to their website the locomotive was a key part of  the transportation system so they have a passion for trains and games. Interestingly enough, the game does involve a lot of Russian historical events such as the first man to be shot into space, and the cold war.

In the game you get to control 15 different types of trains during crucial moments of transporting goods and cargo. You go through many different American, European, Japanese, and Russian landscapes, and once you’re done with the story mode the landscapes are more imaginative and even futuristic.

Railroad Tycoon 3

Railroad Tycoon 3 was developed on October 27th of 2003 by PopTop software. Very much seen as a large improvement from its predecessor Railroad Tycoon 2, Railroad Tycoon 3 is a railroad business simulator game. This gameis basically more focused on the economics and transport. Your train will move to stations depending on the gradient of a scaler field represented as price. Each carload of mail, troops and passengers, and usual cargo have specific destinations they are assigned to.

Much like Sid Meier’s Railroads, Railroad Tycoon 3 is more of a simulator game than anything. It wants you to experience what it was like for the railroad system in different time periods and across many different continents.

These continents are separated into 16 campaigns with a total of 5 continents with 7 maps in North America, 6 maps in Europe, 1 Map in Asia, 1 map in Africa, and 1 map in South America. You can pick from these different scenarios and from 40 different locomotives from early steams to modern bullets.

Overall, a very authentic and fun experience for your train enthusiast.

Ticket to Ride

Based on the German board game, Ticket to Ride (Or Zug Um Zug in its original German) is a digital adaptation of the same game. It was developed by Alan R Moon in 2007, and it is a simple and fun train transport board game. It was made into computer game by Next Level Games on June 25th of 2008.

The gameplay is identical to the original board game, so much of the same rules apply.

You are given two types of cards: the colored train cards represent the different types of cargo, two destination cards that go from Chicago to Miami.

For each turn the player has to make a decision from three choices: draw two railway car cards in various colors, draw three additional destination cards, or play their collected their collected railway car cards to earn points.

To get a route, you must pay with a combination of same colored cards as well as locomotives that serve as wild cards. The game ends when the players have used up all their trains. For completed destinations you get a bonus, and anyone with the longest train route wins.

This game is mainly more fun as a multiplayer game because it is a digital board game. Unlike the previous games, this game is more about the traveling side of the train system as opposed to the economics and transport system.

It’s ultimately a fun way of making the train system into a digital card game for a family or group of friends.

Chris Sawyer’s Locomotion

Chris Sawyer’s Locomotion was developed by independent game developer Chris Sawyer. Released in September 2004, the creator would describe it as the “spiritual successor to Transport Tycoon.

This game, more so like the others is about transport than the previous game. In the gameplay, you are allowed to transport cargo using trains, trams, trucking lines, buses, airplanes, and ships. Your overall goal is to earn money in the transport business throughout the years of 1900 to 2100.

The gameplay is a simple form of click and drag, you are free to explore different scenarios and problems. The scenarios can be set to different difficulty levels such as beginner, easy, medium, challenging, and expert.

You’ll mainly be playing in city and open field landscapes. This game is an interesting way of comparing trains with other transport vehicles, and that is something that the other games in this article so far has not had.

Mini Metro
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pz8K7Inzaew

Mini Metro was developed by Dinosaur Polo Club with an early access on Steam in November 6th of 2015, and will soon have a release on Android and iOS in 2016.

This game more than any game on here, is unlike the others in that it actually doesn’t have anything to do with trains themselves. Mini Metro is a subway strategy game.

Your goal as the player is to design and create a subway network for an expanding city. Players must draw colored lines to connect to subway stations represented by shapes. The game ends when an over-crowded station’s time runs out. And that’s the game in a nutshell.

It’s one of those games you can casually play while you’re on the bus, waiting in line, or for an appointment. It’s a nice time-killer while waiting on anything essentially. It is a very smart move of the developers to create it for android and iOS apps.

Tumbleweed Express

Tumbleweed Express is an alternate history train game developed by Dirigballers on PC, Mac, and Linux for now on stream, and was made available on windows on May 31 of 2016.

The game is set in the American West in the year 1885 in the height of the steam age. An evil entrepreneur known as Dirigibaus, has monopolized the trade system in the west, but with a fleet of airships. These airships known as Dirigibles and Zeppelins are oppressive forces that make it harder on the average Joe.

But you, as the player, are in charge of the Tumbleweed Express. An old cargo train now fixed with guns and ammunition to fight off the evil airships and defend the people who are downtrodden.

Sounds pretty epic, right?

Well, the gameplay certainly lives up to the premise.

The game plays out more like a post-apocalyptic shooter game like Bioshcock as opposed to the previous ones. Your objective in the game is to complete 12 levels across 3 different acts while you battle airships and deliver mail and supplies.

You also have to do some contracted jobs to gain money for more weapons. In the game you’ll be working with a plenty of guns and weapons, and also with a crew in hand as well. To engage in combat, you have to man the caboose of the train and control the guns and canons that way.

As you go through the game, you’ll get more story and background on this alternate West and on the Tumbleweed Express herself. Even if you’re not a train fan at all, once you see this game, you’ll to admit it looks pretty fun.

Factorio

Factorio is a real-time strategy game that is currently in development as I write this, and will be released on Microsoft Windows, OS X, and Linux by Wube Software.

The game is available on steam, and it centers on an astronauts who are sent to an alien planet. Their mission is to defend earth’s colony ships.

Unfortunately the astronaut crash landed on this alien planet, and was left ill-equipped for defenses and communication. Now, it’s up to you as the player to help this astronaut build and design automated factories to produce items.  

This game, surprisingly has very little to do with trains actually. Factorio is a real-time strategy game that is more akin with Minecraft or Buildcraft. For the gameplay, you are given tools and you must use them to find more resources and make more resources. The game is also in 2-D, giving it a more flat and simple experience.

Your building and research will eventually lead to automated structures and drones to help you build more and more. The game is eventually won by launching a rocket with a satellite into space to get in contact with earth.

You’ll also come across an aggressive alien race that you’ll have to combat. The indigenous fauna do not react positively toward the pollution the factory causes, you’ll have to defend your factory from them. This is done at first with a pistol, then with a sub-machine gun, a shotgun, and eventually a combat gun. You can also automated turrets and weapons along with your factory.

While this doesn’t directly have anything to do with trains, Factorio does make the players become creative and resourceful much like how train games do.

Locoland

Locoland is a strategy train game that was released on November 22nd of 2003 and developed by Gomada. Set on a colorful and strange plane, a steam-robot civilization is at war with itself. They have developed trains that are only made for war and but also capable of violent collisions. Your task as the player involves creating an economy strived on the locomotive system. After defeating these robots, your overall goal will be revealed at the end.

Much like the previous game, Locoland is within a 2-D format. It consists of a lot of flat landscapes and locations. It sort of looks like a digital game board that harkens back to Candyland. It’s a simple click and shoot sort of game, only with trains as the main vehicle, but its very fun for both adults and children.

 Paper Train Traffic

Lastly we have Paper Train Traffic. This game was developed by isTom Games Kft and released on March 4th of 2016. Paper Train Traffic is made to stimulate and challenge players with complex problems. As the player, your objective is to moderate and supervise ongoing train traffic throughout the world to keep wrecks and collisions from happening.

The style of the game play is in 2-D and flat, but has a drawn background. In fact, everything is drawn and looks as if it was drawn on a loose sheet of grid paper. You as the player click on red and green dots in the middle of the track to stop and regulate train traffic. It consist of 300 levels of challenging levels, 6 animation videos, and is simply non-violent. It’s a simple game, but fun to kill time for train enthusiast.

And those my fellow readers, are the top 11 best train games to get in 2016. If you a train enthusiast, these are essential games.

If you’re interested in more games, or you’re just starting out with video games fear not. For I have recommendations for other articles.

Check out the 15 of the best Indie Games in 2015, 10 Sandbox games you’ll love, and 11 great PC games coming out in 2016.

  15 of the best Indie Games
 

10 Sandbox Games you’ll love

11 Great PC games coming out in 2016