I spent more hours with it this afternoon and evening, and I am very impressed. This game is a challenge. It forces you to drive properly, not to waste money, because everything costs you money: Diesel, sand, maintenance, licenses, everything, nothing you do you can do for free. The running costs cna eat you upo, if you are not careful. So you are best advised to save fuel and sand where you can, and not waste Diesel when you are on a track section where the train will go as fast in idle all by itself.
You need to anticipate things and look ahead. Identifying the correct section in a station and the right cargo waggons you need to hook up to, "mentalising" your leave from your destination and visualising the switches' correct siding (do you say that?) in advance and more important: identifying the to be expected most likely destination track in the destination station, the correct orientation of the locomotive (so that it gets properly cooled), and so forth: in the beginning it really can grow over your head. Its a challenge, and it is very easily to miss something enroute when you study the paperwork and map, say the next switch is to the wrong side and your forget to change it in time: you need to brake, what costs you time, you need to reverse, what costs you time, you brake again, what costs you time, and come back to speed, which also costs you time. On a steam locomotive, you additionaly would need to care for feeding the oven and shipping coal, control the water and pressure, while studiyng the map, having an eye on the momentum and the need for sand, anticipating climbs and descents and how to handle them with brake and gas and sand, speed limits. The speed limits are not enforeced different from having you derailing if you ignore them too clearly. There is an insurrance system that limits the costs to you if you deraila nd need to comeosnate for the mess oyu m ade,l but the fees for that grow the higher your licenses are.
Its not just a very good driving sim that teaches you to properly drive a physically impressingly simulated piece of machinery of some weight, it also is a career and a management and an economy simulator. Really, it reminds a lot of all the good in Railroad Tycoon, but all that old memories being massively refined and boosted in complexity.
More good stuff to come is planned in Early Access keeps them floating. Map editor, more maps, for example.
Very much recommended for everybvody who is into trains. And the video shows that it seems to work reasonably well in 2D, too.
I wish the devs that they get the financial support by the players that they need to move all the way to completion. The price they ask for - 16 Euros - already now is fully justified, if not a steal.
4.5 of 5 from me.
Quite some nice new addings to my collection the recent weeks. VTOL VR, FS20, now Derail Valley, and in between a reawakening of my interest into Shock Force, earlier this year Armoured Division. My day has not enough hours. I would also be interested in Combat: Modern Operations, but I must fold on that, due to time reasons, it seems to be a very complex and time consuming thing again.