Trains

Want to become a railroad magnate? Grab a desk, a glass of whiskey, and figure out how to connect American cities so the profits start flowing. Trains from 1984 is a rail network simulator that gives you exactly as much freedom as you can handle responsibility for.

You play on a map of American cities and your task is simple — build tracks, buy trains, haul freight and passengers, and don't go bankrupt. The game offers several scenarios, each with different starting capital and ambitions. This isn't about nonstop action, but long-term planning. If you want profits, you need to buy the right type of train, connect lucrative routes, and constantly think about whether it'll pay off.

Playing is fairly abstract. You toggle between the map and tables and ledgers, read text, and click on options. There's no animation, no visual feedback like you'd get in later simulators. Instead you get tables showing line status, a clean logical system, and bland but functional graphics. The controls are simple, almost too simple — you don't have many options, so decisions come down to two or three paths. The game sometimes feels like a paper simulation converted to computer without any added magic.

What Trains delivers is the feeling that you're really an entrepreneur. When your routes start running and making money, it's satisfying. When you go bankrupt because you miscalculated your margins, it hurts. It looks like ancient history now, but this concept became the foundation for Transport Tycoon and other simulators that knew how to sell themselves better.

For today's player, Trains is mainly a historical curiosity. If you love pure, text-based simulators without frills and profit-and-loss tables don't scare you off, you can give it a shot. It's not fun for fun's sake, but an intellectual challenge old-school style. Playing it in a browser gives you a taste of how computer games were made in the late eighties.