Rating: 
Summary: more fun and less easy than you would think
Review: In response to some who said "It's just a train on a track, how much fun can that be?": There is so much in this sim to keep you busy, even on the simple electric trains, that you will find it a challenge from the beginning. To the reviewer that said that it bores his 4.5 year old: I would hope so!There are speed limits to contend with, time limits, passengers that cannot be jostled around, etc. Starting and stopping these beasts is an art form. The first time that you don't make it from one station to another without penalties, and in time, you won't be able to keep the smile from your face. The graphic requirements are low on the box. However, to see some spectacular scenery you need a much more than 233 mhz and a 4mb video card. If you have even a passing interest in trains, you owe yourself to try this one out.
Rating:
Summary: This game ROCKS!!
Review: Hey, I have seen many Train Simulators out there...but none this realistic. The graphics and gameplay are just outstanding. Whats really cool is that you get to make your own routes and customize your trains. The interface of the Route Maker is a little hard to use, but who cares!! Also, every time you quit and restart the game, the scenery changes!! This game is just too good to be true! BUY IT TODAY!!
Rating:
Summary: All Train Lovers Go Out And Buy This
Review: I bought Train Simulator last weekend and I installed the Marias Pass Train Route through Montana. You do not, and I'm going to repeat this, you do not have to install the whole simulation like other reviewers have said. That means your not going to use up 1.8 GB on your hard drive in your computer but only a fraction of that. Their different train routes in the game and you only need to install one train route at a time to make the game work. Now I've got just a IBM 475, 64 MB RAM, computer with a 8 MB ATI PRO video card and the simulation worked just fine for me. The scenery and mountains through Montana are beautiful and breath taking. It's really neat to see animals like cattle and even deer next to the tracks. When I saw some deer next to the railroad tracks, I blew my train whistle and the deer actually jumped away and bounced off into some nearby trees. You come to railroad crossings and you hear the sounds of the bells and whistles at the railroad crossings and see the crossing gates come down to stop traffic. You actually see vehicles traveling down roads stop for trains at the railroad crossings just like you do in real life. There are only two things missing from Train Simulation which is people (It would been so cool to see railroad workers working the switches in the railroad yards and flagging trains through the yards.) and 1800's and early 1900's American train engines and railroad cars. I know over time these things will be added because of the editor included with the game and upcoming patches and add-ons expansion sets that will come in the future. If you ever wondered what it was like to be a train engineer driving a train, go out and buy Train Simulation and you'll feel like your almost doing the real thing.
Rating:
Summary: All Aboard - this newest and best rail sim
Review: If you are a train buff and if you are familiar with Railroad Tycoon One and Two you'll have to get both your hands on Microsoft's just released brand-new TRAIN SIMULATOR. If you've got the RAM then they've got the very best rail sim to come down the pike. RS is accurate, absorbing, astounding, amazing. Excellent in all respects. RS requires a huge chunk of HD space but it is worth every MB. I can hardly wait for the long list of add-on engines and operating areas but out of the box, RS is fantastic. Absolutely. Five Choo-choo's on this baby!
Rating: 
Summary: Hokey Looking Locomotive Simulator.
Review: It is apparent that the person or persons responsible for the picture of the inside of the locomotive cab doesn't know diddly about what a United States locomotive cab looks like on the in- side looking out. What you obviously have is the inside view of a European locomotive. Anybody who knows anything about the con- trols of a North American locomotive will be lost looking at that Hokey picture that you have in your ad. It even appears that the Engineer's position is on the left hand side, as in European practice. In North America the Engineer is on the right side of the locomotive cab. The Simulator Game may be great, but your ad gets a big fat "F."
Rating:
Summary: The bar has been raised
Review: Well after seeing a demo of the game at the National Train Show in San Jose last year, I waited patiently for this game to hit the shelves. I wasn't disappointed. Train Simulater was easy to load right out of the box even if you are like me and don't read the directions. I found the "quick and dirty" install instructions well written. The full 90 page or so instructions I printed out and read them cover to cover. Not only did Microsoft provide how, what and where but gave everyone the WHY. They even went as far as to include basic railroading terms and a "how things work" that a non-railfan would need to play the sim. Without going into all the routes there are several activities that the "engineer" can try to accomplish. There are even short tutorials that gives you some "classroom" work before hitting the high iron. There are a few minor annoyances. One of which was the need to play with the graphics settings within the game. Once I master this (it took about 10 mins to get it the way I wanted to) I didn't have to reset anything and the sim function fine. Microsoft's system recommendations should be followed, not the bear minimums but the "it will work great if you have this!" instructions. Microsoft has raised the bar for other train simulator programs, if you didn't feel the hair on the back of your neck stand up with the Dash-9 in dynamic braking...well...check your pulse Now if Microsoft can just get Union Pacific RR to cooperate and start getting those add-on routes out..
Rating:
Summary: Much better than I thought
Review: I wrote the nasty review below when the sim first appeared. 2 years later... Boy was I wrong. Simply a must have for any sim person. What changed?
The Sim is more a learning tool. It has become a focus for learning about railroad operation and in turn, railroad history - itself an important component of American history. In short, I was wrong, wrong, wrong. I have since bought all the expansion packs and even upgraded to a better computer so that it would run better. Oh, and the kid is older now and plays it for hours. ORIGINAL (WRONG) REVIEW BELOW:
Wanna spend a few hours driving a train? If so, this is the sim for you. Love MS Flight Simulator and wanna drive a train? Buy this immediately. However if you want to be entertained by something other than pretending to drive thousands of tons through the mountains, than forget this sim and go back to Railroad Tycoon2. My 4.5 year old is a steam train fanatic, but this sim bores him in less than ten minutes compared to the 30 mins+ he gets from RT2. The graphics are great, though I am having problems with tiles appearing when they shouldn't and with the changes to the controls not sticking when made by the mouse. But how long can you look at neat stuff on your monitor? So far I have only driven the Acela and the Flying Scotsman; maybe there's more exciting scenarios elsewhere. Then again, I have always preferred combat sims over the flight sim so maybe MS sims are not for me.
Rating: 
Summary: May Cause Drowsiness Behind The Wheel
Review: The quality of the graphics of MSTS is quite impressive. The train's are highly detailed and move very smoothly. The gameplay is repetitive and boring after a while. There are times when there is nothing to do but to watch the repetitive scenery go by. Granted, I have not tried the Activities included in the game, but I'm not expecting much. The biggest surprise turned out to be a technical one: The game disk is not needed to run the game, which is very unusual, especially when all other Microsoft games I've used required that the disk to be in the computer.
Rating: 
Summary: Needs better documentation
Review: This is an outstanding simulator. The sights and sounds are just fantastic. If you like trains, this is the equivalent of eating potato chips, you can't put it down. I have a P4 1.3 with an nVidia Gforce2 32 MB DDR video card. I have been running this sim at its highest resolution but get considerable hesitation. I can only wonder what people with lesser machines will get. Still in all, this a the best railroad simulator ever. It takes lots of effort and concentration to get a train moving 110 mph down to 30 as required or keeping your freight train from rolling backwards on an incline. I wish Microsoft would have added better documentation for the editor. I guess I will just have to wait for the Sybex book to be released.
Rating:
Summary: It's a "niche" simulator, for sure.
Review: Driving a train is, admittedly, not as glamorous as jumping in the cockpit of a 747. However, the value in this game comes from the attention to detail. You will probably find this game a real snoozer IF you don't like trains or the idea of driving one. There is just something about notching the throttle forward and then those millions of pounds of steel start to slowly roll down the rail. Then there's the satisfaction of getting your train to the station ON TIME. And, my God, the scenery detail. Just amazing. Again, this is only going to be really interesting to those niche players. Sorry kids, you can't shoot any guns at oncoming trains, cars, or the animals that sometimes appear on the side of the track. I really like this game. I don't love it (hence the four stars, not five) because the interface is not what I had in mind. Honestly, I'd like to be able to hook up my joystick and throttle for some functionality, but it's all keyboard- or mouse-controlled; nothing else. I had better hopes for performance since your field of motion is limited to forward and back and only some side-to-side. I figured they'd be able to have the great scenery and still be able to get the performance up there considering "flight simulator-type" requirements are not there. However, this is not the case. I have a 600 mhz PIII with 256MB RAM and a 32MB 3d card (Riva TNT2) and I still can't get any better than 9 FPS in complex areas. Beyond this, though, the scenery really is outstanding. I haven't been on any of these routes personally, but I understand it's all accurately mapped. Not to mention just gorgeous. I hope that, if you are a train enthusiast or even if you've just been curious about driving trains and how they work, you'll pick up a copy of this fine piece of software.
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