I have written quite a few reviews and columns lately where I celebrate my love of all things related to railroads and trains. In real life, I even bought a piece of a steam engine’s fire tube at the train museum in Savannah, Georgia. And I got to see the legendary Southern Pacific 4449 locomotive (also known as the Daylight) as it toured Ohio. I am even planning on taking a long train ride through the Cuyahoga National Forest next year. Needless to say, I am a huge fan of anything related to trains, especially classic ones.
So, you can imagine my surprise when I ran across Train Yard Builder, a simulation that lets you plan, build, and play with some amazing model railroads. This is great for people who would love to have an extensive model train set but can’t obtain one due to budget or not having enough space to set something like that up, which can take up a lot of room. Even if someone does have a model train yard in their basement, adding new environments or features would be quite the endeavor, so they might want to use a simulation like this to plan it out first and see what a new environment might look like in action.
This is a very casual title, yet it does have somewhat of a story before dropping you into the simulation. Train Yard Builder has players inheriting their grandfather’s pretty extensive model train collection and are given a brief walkthrough on the basics like how to set up tracks and add various landscaping elements. After that, you send your grandfather’s train table off to a show and start in on buying and creating your own railroad. This includes buying all of the parts and models that you will need, as well as receiving older models that need cleaning and repainting. The restoration part of it closely follows other games published by PlayWay that feature fixing up everything including old homes, rundown factories, bombed out World War II villages, and even abandoned train stations.
While the gameplay loop in Train Yard Builder is simple enough, it also adds different layers by having folks ask the player for different styles of tables. One of the first tables I was asked to build was an extensive railroad featuring Japanese architecture and trains. Train Yard Builder lets you intricately plan everything in those builds from the ground up, including the size of the table that will be used to support your creation.
A recurring theme that has appeared in these reviews is that my artistic skills are sorely lacking, and this time was not different. It was easy to pick up the parts I needed to build those model train yards of my dreams. However, I couldn’t quite get the tables as pretty as I wanted. This is no fault of Train Yard Builder. The tools were there. I just had a difficult time bringing my vision into reality.
I did keep trying, however. One of the game modes includes a sandbox where you can craft without worrying about completing quests. In that sandbox, I am trying to recreate the Georgia Southern Railway. It’s going pretty well, and I have been spending a decent amount of time with it as it is helping to develop my artistic side.
Train Yard Builder is a very nice and relaxing way to enjoy model trains. Trains.com estimates that a commercial quality train layout will cost about $450 per square foot, and they recommend setting aside $5,000 to start. While that would be amazing, it’s much more cost and space efficient to simply invest in Train Yard Builder. As much as I tried to find something negative, this is one title that does everything right.
Train Yard Builder earns a perfect 5 GiN Gem score. It quickly became one of my favorite titles, and those who enjoy either real or model trains will find many great reasons to spend a lot of time working on their model railroads in Train Yard Builder.