Iron Trails

You are the dispatcher and the engineer

Iron Trails gives you a port, a connecting railroad and a valley full of customers. Everything between them is yours to build, signal and run, from the first spur to a busy main line with its own classification yard.

Build the railway

• Surveyed track that follows the ground, held to a 3% ruling grade, with measured curves and terrain tools to cut and fill.

• Single or double track, laid as main line, yard track or unsignalled OCS track.

• A yard tool that lays a standard or double-ended yard of up to 32 tracks, with a proper ladder, in one drag. It can also turn an existing stub yard into a double-ended one.

• Turnouts built as real ironwork, with points, frogs, guard rails and switch stands.

• Crew stations and fuel depots to keep your trains manned and fuelled.

Signal it your way

• CTC with controlled home signals and a dispatcher's board showing every switch and signal.

• ABS automatic block signals between them.

• OCS territory with no signals, where the dispatcher clears trains from limit to limit.

• An automatic dispatcher that arranges meets at passing sidings.

Drive real trains

• Air brakes with brake pipe propagation, coupler slack, tonnage and tractive-effort limits.

• Multiple-unit consists and rear-end helpers.

• PTC-style speed supervision that you can switch off.

• Seven modern and classic diesels, from the GP38-2 to the ET44AC. Buy them new, or buy second-hand for less and live with the breakdowns.

• Drive from the cab, or get down and walk the train on foot.

Work the freight

• Districts with their own character: heavy industry, oil and chemicals, farm country and building materials. Every customer, from grain elevators and steel mills to refineries and cold storage, sits on its own track.

• Waybills and switch lists, with every car tracked from pickup to delivery.

• A working port where ore comes in and export grain goes out by ship.

• Through trains from the connecting railroad: each day's cars arrive at your interchange and a symbol writes the switch list. Build the train with your own engines and run it yourself, or hand it to a crew.

• A classification yard: name your tracks, give each one a block, and let the yard switcher sort arrivals.

Crews that do the job properly

AI crews drive out by truck, climb aboard, release the handbrakes and work their switch lists. When the job is done they tie the train down and head home. They plan their own moves, but they never line signalled routes for themselves; the main line stays in your hands. When a crew is held, it tells you which train it is waiting for.

Grow the railroad

Buy branch valleys worked by shortline partners. A performance dashboard tracks train speed, terminal dwell, on-time running and operating ratio.

A living valley

Towns with road traffic, automatic level crossings and a full day and night cycle with headlights and shadows.

Your railway, your pace

No timers, no score to chase and no fail state. Build as much as you like and save whenever you want.