I have always loved model railroading, and had several N-scale layouts that I built as a teenager. I have not had the space to continue working with railroad layouts for many years. About 7 years ago, I came across Trainz (a train simulation game), that allows you to “create” your own “layout”, however, the game is very limited in what you can do with creating the layouts (especially when it comes to multiple track/multiple lane street crossings. It is also very difficult to create “gradual” inclines or declines, or to easily create bridges (road or train).
Does anyone know of a good train simulation game that I can purchase? I would like to create a “huge” layout that “mimicks” all rails in Illinois. I want to dedicate this to my dad as well as to several friends (all of whom worked for the railroad in various capacities).
Bottom line, to do what you want to do will take a Cray super computer to run and will take years to get half way right. If you want content MSTS has the most by far out of all of them. It is dated so look at OpenRails it is an open source project and really looks like what you might want. Being in late beta there are issues to work out. There are also a lot of Illinois routes that will run on MSTS/OR. SImming is ok but I like getting my hands dirty so it lost intererest. Two web sites to check out are www.trainsim.com and www.elvastower.com you will need to join both websites to do anything.