- September 2026 Development Update - 29 September 2026
We've posted our September 2026 Development Update! Have a look: Spoilers follow! We plan to release the update to an Experimental branch on October 27th! Watch the video for the full background, as well as a preview of our upcoming equipment customization and map editor features, just to name a couple. Until then we'll be working on gearing up to support all of the new modding features, as well as preparing resources and documentation. As listed in the video, here's the high level list of features coming to the experimental branch: Maintenance of Way Track wears with traffic and must be maintained Construction milestones built with MoW work cars Vegetation crowds track as time since maintenance grows Temporary speed restriction boards on worn track Construction Difficulty and Track Wear settings Physics/Simulation Improved slack action from a rewritten coupling solver Tonnage ratings i…
- July 2026 Development Update - 24 July 2026
Hello, Railroaders! It's been a busy month for us here on the Railroader Dev Team. We've got three things to share with you today.First, it's Train Fest here on Steam, which means it's a great time to pick up Railroader for 25% off!Second, we'll have a booth at the National Train Show in Chattanooga, TN, USA, August 1st and 2nd. If you're in the area, come by and say hello! Also: I'll be presenting Railroader in Meeting Room 6 at 4pm, Saturday. (From what we understand this is included in the train show admission.)And third, we've made some incredible progress on the forthcoming update in the past few weeks. It's been a very exciting time for the dev team to see all of this work coming together. There's still a lot to share there, but in this post I want to focus on one aspect of it: Map Modding.Map Modding in the MoW UpdateOne of the biggest requested features for Railroader has been m…
- Maintenance of Way Preview Video for National Train Day - 9 May 2026
157 years ago, the driving of the golden spike marked the meeting of the Central Pacific and Union Pacific Railroads at Promontory Summit – the first transcontinental railroad in the United States. We're celebrating that remarkable accomplishment today with two things: our biggest sale on Railroader to date (25%!), and a video overview of the MOW mechanics in our forthcoming update.It took about six years to complete the transcontinental railroad, and while the MOW update hasn't been in progress for six years, it sure feels like a long time. To us as well as you! It is critically important to us that we get this next update right, in particular its modding features, and that is taking time. As always, we thank you for your patience and support! A quick aside: we focus on various performance aspects with every update, but this update has seen significant work in that area. This video was…
- March 2026 Development Update - 6 March 2026
Hello Railroaders!We wanted to give you an update on where things stand with the MoW Update. The beginning of this year has been particularly productive, and while we are happy with the state of the game, there is still more to do before it is ready for an experimental release. In this post we’ll give you a clear view of where we are and what’s left to do. Thank you for your patience – we know that it has been a long wait!Here’s some of what we’re currently working on:Testing and refining Maintenance of WayNew wages system for Auto Engineer crews and MoW work crewsRedesigned save system that groups saves by railroad — no more autosaves cluttering up your Load Game screen!A new car styles system, including making it possible to define multiple colors for cars that are designed for it. Previously, when a car arrived at interchange it would have an independently selected random color and r…
- November 2025 Development Update - 30 November 2025
Hello Railroaders!Can you believe it’s been almost two years since Railroader was released in Early Access? Some of you have been with us since before it was called Railroader! Many of you have joined us along the way, and some of you have only just become familiar with the game. Whether you’re an old head or a greenhorn, we want to sincerely thank you for your support. We’ve been fortunate to hear from many of you over the last couple years how much Railroader has meant to you. Our small dev team feels a lot of responsibility as stewards of the game. In our last development update we covered some of the features we’ve been working on to support the Maintenance of Way (MoW) update, including enhanced car loads, expanded industry at Hewitt, and the interchange at Almond. What have we been up to since then, you ask? We’ve been thinking a lot about modding! Building Toward Official Modding…
- New Bundle: Running the Railroad - Railroader & Rail Route - 7 October 2025
Railroader has coupled up to Rail Route, the railroad design and dispatching strategy game, for a railroading bundle! Take command behind the signal board in Rail Route, where you’ll design, expand, and automate your own rail network - then jump into the cab in Railroader to haul freight, run passenger services, and feel the power of classic American locomotives in the golden age of rail. https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/60052/Running_the_Railroad/ Move trains across the grade with this incredible double-header today!
- Railroader 2025.1.0b Hotfix - 3 October 2025
This release contains no game changes from 2025.1.0a, but we have updated to Unity 2022.3.62f2 in response to a Unity security vulnerability. According to Unity there is no evidence of any exploitation of the vulnerability nor has there been any impact on users or customers. Meanwhile, work continues on the MoW update!
- August 2025 Development Update - 22 August 2025
Hello Railroaders!Progress continues on our Maintenance of Way (MoW) update! In our last update we shared a number of items, including that we are reworking track construction milestones to work with the MoW system: MoW trains will build the track and need to be supplied with ties, track, and ballast. Lots and lots of ballast.Today we'll look at what we've been up to as we continue to work toward releasing MoW on an experimental branch!Dynamic Load ModelsLoad models are an area that we've been needing to improve upon, and MoW has helped bring that to the forefront during our testing. One of the challenges with load models has been that our system required each car to be configured for each type of load model, which meant that if we were to add tie models to our gondolas, we'd need to do that for each gondola. New track load model? Update the gondolas. Adding a ties load model? Update th…
- June 2025 Development Update - 25 June 2025
Hello Railroaders!Today we are happy to share our progress on the Maintenance of Way (MoW) update we've been hard at work on. We knew this was going to be a big update, and as we have playtested and iterated on MoW that has certainly proven true. It's also driven us to revisit some aspects of Railroader's milestone progression and the map itself.We think it's important to note that none of this has happened in a vacuum, so to speak. Since we announced that we were working on MoW we've received tons of great ideas and feedback. Thank you! This is one of those features that makes it challenging to balance wide open vision with what we can make real, and will mesh with the rest of the game.In our last update on MoW we shared that you'll use ballast, ties, and rail to maintain your tracks. One thing we didn't share at that time was our thinking on how the core MoW mechanic of the work train…
- Railroader 2025.1.0a - 9 May 2025
This is a hot fix release that includes the following: Tutorial bug/typo fixes. Fix for broken Crews panel in the Company window.
- Railroader 2025.1.0: New Tutorial! - 8 May 2025
There's a lot to learn about Railroader and for a long time now we have wanted to create a more interactive tutorial, with better cues and feedback. For those of you who are new to Railroader we hope that it helps get you on the right track, pun intended. If you run into any stumbling blocks please let us know in the Discord or Steam Community! Note that if you had previously started but not completed the tutorial, you will need to restart it with a fresh Company mode game. Also in this release: Fixed AE Waypoint Mode pulling high of switch when the most logical route would be to change directions. (RR-789) Fixed/adjusted Bryson CTC blocks. Boundaries are now west of wye and service track switches, and east of easternmost crossover. (RR-783) Fixed Barker's Creek West occupancy gap. (RR-787) Fixed keyboard input for diesel throttle/reverser difficult to move notch-by-notch. (RR-805) Fixe…
- April 2025 Development Update - 20 April 2025
Hello Railroaders! Today we are sharing what we've been up to since the release of 2024.6.11 back in March. We've been focused on two big features/efforts: Maintenance of Way and an enhanced tutorial. Before we go into it, please keep in mind that this is all "work in progress" and may change dramatically between now and when it is released to you! Maintenance of Way Maintenance of Way is a big part of running a railroad, and we think the gameplay of Railroader will be made that much richer by representing it. In addition, for quite some time now we've had some visual ideas we've been wanting to try out, including dynamically changing the track and surrounding vegetation to reflect condition and maintenance. It's pretty exciting to see these ideas finally in action. It's too soon to go into full detail about where we want to take this feature as we are still testing and developing it, b…
- Railroader 2024.6.11: Waypoints, Timetables, Engines, Scenery & More - 3 March 2025
We are pleased to announce that Railroader 2024.6 is now available on the main branch after several months on the experimental branch! This release brings major new features like Auto Engineer Waypoint Mode and Timetables, along with new engines, new scenery, and numerous other enhancements and fixes. Check out our announcement post for a full overview of what's new: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1683150/view/498314610455086160 An important note for those of you who were using mods with Railroader 2024.5: please check them carefully for updates for 2024.6! Many 2024.5 mods are incompatible unless updated! (Railroader does not yet officially support mods.) Also, a reminder that we plan to remove the 2024.5.x branch on March 17th. What's Next for Railroader? We expect to continue building out scenery as well as refining our equipment, but there are two key features that we plan…
- Railroader 2024.6 Is Inbound! - 28 February 2025
Hello Railroaders! On Monday, March 3rd, we are finally bringing our work on the Experimental branch to everybody! Those of you who have not opted into the Experimental branch will finally experience Auto Engineer Waypoint Mode, Timetables (if you so choose), new engines, and more! We will remove the experimental-2024.6 branch at this time. If you wish to delay updating to 2024.6, you can switch to the 2024.5.x branch which is currently available, but note that we plan to remove the 2024.5.x branch on Monday, March 17th. Thank you to the many of you who played the experimental branch and shared your feedback with us. You've been a huge help in improving Railroader. If you're already on the experimental branch you don't need to change anything before Monday: when we remove it you will be moved to the main release. We plan to create a new experimental branch at some point in the future. F…
- Experimental: Railroader 2024.6.10 - 22 February 2025
As with 2024.6.9, focusing on refinements with the goal of this being our last release before 2024.6 is posted on the default branch! Adjusted Auto Engineer to make hard couples less likely. (RR-750) Adjusted Auto Engineer Waypoint Mode to take current train direction into account when planning its route. (RR-763) Fixed Auto Engineer Waypoint Mode slowing in advance of CTC switches when there was a non-CTC controlled switch beyond it, even when that switch was lined for its route. (RR-764) Waypoint selection is now cancelled when selecting another engine or changing the control mode. Fixed clicking on window setting the waypoint 'through' the window. (RR-595) Changed locomotive and tender brake cylinder pressure for a train brake application to match the 2.5X factor of standard cars. Additionally, locomotive brake cylinders will hold pressure applied via train brake until train brake is…
- Experimental: Railroader 2024.6.9 - 11 February 2025
Added timetable symbol dropdown to car inspector Operations tab. Timetable symbol dropdown now shows next departure time, or last arrival time if the next departure is too distant. Fixed Auto Dest on timetable passenger cars incorrectly checking passed stops. Note that it will check stops which are not reachable otherwise, such as a local passenger vs express passenger. (RR-732) Fixed Timetable editor showing large negative estimates between stops that span midnight. (RR-739) Fixed Auto Engineer Waypoint Mode setting switch behind lined CTC switch causing signal to drop. (RR-638, RR-742) Fixed Auto Engineer running 25mph max speed just west of Wesser. (RR-748) Fixed flat top handbrake only clickable from very close on some equipment. (RR-735) Fixed longstanding issue where brake line is incorrectly restored to 0 PSI when loading a save with an engine that had been bailed off. Fixed weig…
- Experimental: Railroader 2024.6.8 - 31 January 2025
We're continuing to work toward wrapping up work on the experimental branch, so our programming effort has been focused on bug fixes and refinements to Auto Engineer Waypoint Mode and Timetables, but we've also been working on several new locomotives and buildings that are ready for service on your railroads! This release also includes a significant performance improvement for busy railroads. Equipment & Building Additions Added P-48 modeled after Southern Ps-4 class. Revised P-43 to model USRA Heavy Pacific. Added C-40 Mastodon. Added SD7 diesel locomotive! Updated GP9. Added Union Tank Car Co. tank car tank car. Fixed capacity of Single Dome tank car (8kgal to 10kgal). Added Locust Pin Co. and fuel dealer buildings! Auto Engineer & Timetable Improvements Auto Engineer now interprets timetable times that are 12 hours in the past as the next day, allowing assigning an AE to a timetable…
- Experimental: Railroader 2024.6.7 - 18 January 2025
Fixed steam engine trucks drifting forward/back, our of sync with engine. (RR-701) Fixed delivered cars not recognized at Bryson Lumber Coal & Supply D1, Nantahala Talc & Limestone T3. (RR-700) Fixed timetable passenger trains stopping at stations that are not on their timetable schedule. (RR-704)
- Experimental: Railroader 2024.6.6b - 17 January 2025
Two more quick fixes – thank you for your reports and feedback! Fixed issue that caused derailments and equipment damage during regular movement, first seen in 2024.6.6. Fixed "Edit Timetable" button missing for clients in multiplayer.
- Experimental: Railroader 2024.6.6a - 16 January 2025
A few quick fixes! Fixed Auto Engineer Waypoint failing to operate when signals were not unlocked. Fixed missing Nantahala Power & Light building. Fixed pavement at Dillsboro grade crossing.
