- Hobby props & room customization! v6.3 - 2 October 2026
This update is all about making the game feel more like a model railway. It adds lots of new props for things like hobby tools (wire cutters, soldering iron, etc), lots of electronic circuitry props (resistors, a breadboard, etc), new wire features and a complete redesign of how you can customize the actual room that you map is placed in. New propsYou can access all of these new props in the "Room -> Hobby props" drawer. I would love to give a huge thank you to SmokeStream who built the majority of these props (everything except for the circuitry props). They have a huge number of other amazing prop mods on the Steam Workshop which I highly recommend having a look at! Props like the soldering iron and airbrush even have snap points so that they can be easily attached to their holding stands, and the lamp even has a switch on the top to turn the map on and off! Please keep in mind that t…
- Rolling Line in real life! v6.2 - 9 September 2026
Guess what! I've just been at a local model railway expo here in Nelson (New Zealand).This is the first time I've ever done a proper public demo of Rolling Line at an event like this and it was an amazing experience. So many people got to try the game for the first time, and I even ran into a few people that had heard of it before already! Since this public demo went so well I'll certainly be trying to attend more of these in the future, like the larger Christchurch expo next year (there's one happening in Christchurch in just a few weeks but that was too short notice to get organized for). Something I was also working on (which I didn't manage to get ready in time for the model railway expo) was some hand-made physical release disks! These are basically just me printing out and setting up my own disk copies one-by-one, so there won't be many of them. The main purpose is to sell at in-p…
- Performance optimizations! v6.1 - 18 August 2026
It's that time of year again where Rolling Line deserves some focused work entirely on optimization and background programming improvements. Since computer parts are getting horrifyingly expensive it's more important than ever that games are able to run as well as possible on low end hardware. I love the fact that Rolling Line is a train game that can run on very low end PC's and laptops (at least small maps can!) and I'm always looking for ways to improve performance as much as possible. This update is mainly all about performance optimization, but it also includes some new features and lots of quality-of-life fixes. The optimizations in this update are focused on these main things:Reducing draw calls caused by inefficient use of materials Reducing CPU bottlenecks from game logic More aggressive LOD (level of detail) to hide objects far away from the player Smoother loading of chunks (…
- Scales & Gauges! v6.0 - 20 July 2026
The scales & gauges update is here! With this update you can now fully customize how large the track, trains, props and player character are in the world. So it will finally be possible to accurately model real-world model railway scales in the game, like HO, G, N, Z, etc.You can make tiny N scale layouts all the way to huge G scale garden railways:How does it work?Firstly, if you just want to make maps and aren't concerned about real-world measurements, then you don't have to change anything! You can keep making maps and driving trains at the default scale and everything will look exactly the same as before. But if you want to switch to a real world model railway scale that uses accurate measurements, then you can now do this with the new scale feature. This system lets you customize two values, the "scale" and the "gauge".The scale controls how large the map is in relation to the real…
- Custom model railway scales/gauges coming soon! - 5 July 2026
Coming up within the next few weeks is the much anticipated scales & gauges update! I'm announcing this now because the update is well into testing but still has a lot of work to do, and I want people to be aware of how this new scaling system will work and what to expect. My plan is to release this update on July 20th!The main feature of this update is that you can now fully customize how large the track, trains, props and player character are in the world. So it will finally be possible to accurately model real-world model railway scales in the game! Like HO, G, N, Z, etc.You can make tiny N scale layouts all the way to huge G scale garden railways! How does it work? This system lets you customize two values, the "scale" and the "gauge".The scale controls how large the map is in relation to the real world. So if the scale is 1/100 (one hundredth of the size of real life) then a 5m hig…
- Color editing, drawer improvements and more! v5.48 - 15 June 2026
Every now and then it's great to do a "spring cleaning" kind of update, that includes lots of quality-of-life improvements and fixes a ton of small jobs I've had on my to-do list for ages. This update includes a lot of changes, so I'll go through them one-by-one:Edit colors directly on props/menusThis is great quality-of-life improvement I've been meaning to add for ages! You can now open the custom color edit menu on any paintable object. So when you are editing a color in the multi-paint popup, track style menu, modding menus, settings, etc you can now press Shift + left click to open the color edit menu instead of spawning a copy of the color in your hand.From inside that menu you can adjust the color (hue, saturation, value, etc):You can also now set whether the material is transparent by changing the alpha value ("A") and this means you can also adjust how transparent it is, rather…
- Mountains and Rivers map jam favorites! - 8 June 2026
Congrats to everyone who took part in the Mountains and Rivers map jam event! There were 85 entries and it was really hard to narrow down my favorites to just a few.As with all these map making events, I always play through every single entry and then pick some to give shout-outs to at the end. So without further ado, here are my favorite entries (in no specific order):And here's also a list of runner-ups:Thank you to everyone who took part! I always love these map making events, It's a great chance to have a go at making something if you need some extra inspiration. I highly recommend having a look at the Steam Workshop yourself and giving the event entries a try. When choosing tags/categories on the Steam Workshop you can view the entries from this event as well as all the previous map making events too! This is just a news post and doesn't include any game feature updates, but keep a…
- Caves! v5.47 - 22 May 2026
As mentioned in the previous news posts, I'm currently working on a new official map set on the West Coast of New Zealand! For this update I'm going to release a preview chunk of the map which features a some rather unique terrain... fully explorable underground cave systems! (more on that later in this news post). Since building these caves also meant adding some new props (like stalactites and other cave decorations) I'm releasing these as their own small update now. You can find these new props in the "Terrain -> Caves" drawer:West Coast map preview This update includes a small chunk of the West Coast map which you can play right now as a preview! You can play this map from the main menu alongside the other official maps:This preview segment of the map features the Buller Gorge, Charleston, a couple of mountains and the Nile river. Obviously this is just a small part of the full map!…
- Mountains & Rivers map jam! v5.46 - 7 May 2026
It's about time for another community map making event! This time It's themed around the brand new terrain system update.While the name is the "Mountains and rivers" jam, this can include all kinds of terrain, like deserts, valleys, oceans, beaches, canyons, etc. The only theme requirement is that you make use of the new dynamic in-game terrain sculpting tools.To submit you map, simply tick the "Mountains & rivers entry" toggle when uploading to the Steam Workshop:Here is a more detailed list of the rules and requirements:You map must use the in-game dynamic terrain sculpting system. You can use other terrain options (like flat tables and 3D model modded terrain) as well, but this must be in addition to the in-game sculpting system. The main focus must be on the in-game terrain system. You can submit as many entries as you like.You can submit a map you've already worked on in the past (…
- Rolling Line's 8 year anniversary + New map announcement! v5.45 - 29 April 2026
Time really flies... Rolling Line is celebrating its 8th birthday today! That means 8 years since it's release back in 2018.As you might already know, I'm just one solo developer. I've been working on this game as a full time job for about 9 years and it's well and truly my pride and joy. It is both my income and my own creative outlet, and I wouldn't dream of having things any other way. I've released a total of 205 updates to the game since its launch date back in 2018, and I would love to dig a bit deeper into the games development history in this news post.But first, here's some stats about the trains & maps added to the game over the years, as well as all the community made content on the Steam Workshop! Trains & modsThere are 23 official trains + 39 official freight & passenger wagons And on the Steam Workshop:10,115 community made liveries + 7,203 community made modded trains & m…
- New terrain system! v5.44 - 31 March 2026
This update is a big one! While multiplayer was the biggest update for the game overall, this one is the biggest improvement to map making since Rolling Line's release. You can now make proper 3D smooth terrain in-game, entirely using in-game tools. In the past the way I made the official maps was to use external 3D software (in this case, Blender) to make a 3D model to use for terrain. I would then import this terrain into the game using the terrain modding tools. The other main way of making terrain was to use in-game props. Starting from flat tables, you can stack up hills and rocks to make some quite impressive 3D terrain, but this process is quite slow and limiting. But all of that changes now! You can sculpt your own terrain in-game and create proper 3D terrain just like the official maps with all the features (like rivers and oceans) you would see in maps like the Sierra Logging…
- Undo/Redo feature! v5.43 - 18 February 2026
For people that have been playing Rolling Line since the early days (almost 8 years ago!) an undo/redo feature will be like a dream come true. It's something that's been on my "nice to have" features to-do list, along with a hundred other things, and it feels great to finally add this incredibly highly requested feature into the game. Now that it's there, it will be one of those features that you'll forget that it ever wasn't there! To undo an action, simply press Ctrl-Z, and to redo, Ctrl-Y (both of these are re-bindable in the controls menu)The actions which can be undone are:deleting props/trackplacing props/trackpicking up/dropping props/trackmoving props/track (transform edit mode)painting colors onto an objectpainting detail types on to trackYou can also change the number of undo/redo steps which are saved using the setting "pause menu -> PC options -> Undo/redo steps".Gone are th…
- Coal & ore loading! v5.42 - 19 January 2026
To kick off 2026 I was looking for a new feature that was gameplay themed and gave people something new to do on their maps (and for multiplayer operations!).The freight loading system is still quite "work in progress" and one of my top to-do list items for a future update was to finally add support for more interesting freight loads. So you can now "fill" open freight wagons (like gondolas) with loads like coal, gravel and iron ore:These work in exactly the same way as the log loaders already in the game!Simply place the loader prop on a piece of track, then park an empty freight wagon under it and it will load automatically:New freight loads This update adds a new loader prop which you can use to load certain freight wagons with any material you want. Since materials like coal, ore, gravel, etc all pretty much look the same, all you need to do is change the color! E.g. if you paint th…
- Christmas! + Map event shoutouts v5.41 - 23 December 2025
It's time for Christmas! This update wraps up the Multiplayer Map Jam and includes a bunch of shout-outs of my own personal favorite maps from the event. It's also a good time to enjoy a bunch of snowy themed maps and make use of the various winter themed features in the game! Previous year's Christmas updates added things like: Dynamic snow cover on trains and wagons (if you set the weather to snowy!)The Canadian Christmas train Rotary snow plowAttachable snow plows you can add to any trainSnow globe propChristmas decoration propsChristmas presents Winter themed mapsOver the years there have been tons of snowy maps and Christmas themed maps uploaded to the Steam Workshop, so here's a few of my favorite examples: Multiplayer Map Jam shout-outs!Congratulations to everyone who took part in this map making event! There's a ton of amazing maps and It's been great to see public servers being…
- Map event extension + weekend multiplayer festival! v5.40 - 13 December 2025
Due to lots of requests to extend the end date of the Multiplayer Map Jam, I've decided to extend the event by an extra week with a new finish date of December 22nd! And along with the new end date, the final weekend of December 20th-21st is now going to be a dedicated multiplayer map sharing festival! This means that over the weekend is an especially perfect time to host a public server running your own map for other people to play! If you are hosting a server, you can post about it in the multiplayer server forum to advertise it to other people and share extra information about what map your server is running or any special rules and requirements for players to join your map. Even if your map is not finished yet for submitting to the map jam, hosting a public server is a great way to test it out with real people and see how people interact with your map.For more detailed information a…
- Multiplayer update feedback form - 28 November 2025
I hope everyone's enjoying the multiplayer map jam event! There's already some great entries there. I'm doing a quick survey to see what people think of multiplayer so far, what kinds of bugs they are experiencing, and what kind of updates they want to see focused on in the future.Please fill out this form if you have the time, it's extremely helpful!Fill out the form here
- Multiplayer map jam! v5.39 - 20 November 2025
With multiplayer officially released, it's time to really make the most of it! When you experience a map with multiple people it really changes how you view it, and lots of different design ideas suddenly become more important. So a map designed from the beginning to be played in multiplayer is quite different from one that isn't. So the goal of this map jam is simply to make maps themed around being played in multiplayer!Here's the details:This map making event runs from now until December 15th! (26 days)There are no restrictions on theme. It just needs to be in the spirit of being played in multiplayer You can work with other people, or soloYou can make as many entries as you likeYou can upgrade old maps to design them for multiplayer. It doesn't need to be a brand new save fileYou can use as many mods (trains/props/terrain/etc) as you like You can host your maps in multiplayer server…
- Server browser! v5.38 - 12 November 2025
The release of multiplayer has been amazing! I'm loving seeing all the stuff that people are up to (like this screenshot above by Trainmann!), it really is a dream come true to finally see Rolling Line multiplayer in action.One of the top requested features right away was some form of public server browser, so people can easily make their multiplayer sessions joinable by anyone. So I made this an immediate priority! (alongside various bug fixes and such). Server browser The core feature of this update is the new server browser! When you host a multiplayer server you now have the option of adding it to the public server list. To do this simply open the "Hosting options" when creating a new server:Then enable the "Show on public server browser" toggle. From here you can set the server name, and also supply an optional download link for any Steam Workshop content your map requires.For exam…
- Multiplayer! v5.37 - 8 November 2025
The day has finally come! Rolling Line now has multiplayer. It's been the most highly requested feature since day one, and I've always dreamed of adding it. Working on multiplayer was always going to be a massive undertaking, but I'm so glad with how it's turned out! Multiplayer has been in private beta testing for a while now, and I'm hoping that all the major bugs have been spotted. But launching any kind of multiplayer feature always has unforeseen problems, so please make sure to report any bugs you find! (I've added a new "Multiplayer bug reporting" thread here in the Steam community discussions). What can you do in multiplayer?Rolling Line multiplayer is a sandbox for driving trains and messing around on maps with other players. You can do realistic operations or just have silly fun. The main limitation is that map editing is not possible in multiplayer! I've spoken about this bef…
- Waybills! v5.36 - 4 November 2025
As multiplayer moves closer and closer to a full release, here's another feature which I've made as part of multiplayer that is already ready for release now! During multiplayer beta testing, it quickly became obvious that players needed a way to put basic labels on freight wagons to show things like cargo and where they are being transported to. Since I've always wanted to add a basic "waybill" system to the game, this was a great opportunity to finally do this before multiplayer gets released. "Waybills" are a very common tool used in real model railways, it's basically just a piece of paper where people write the origin, destination and cargo of a freight wagon (along with it's roadnumber and other details, and anything else of interest). These pieces of paper are stored in shelves next to industry sidings and rail yards on the model railway to represent the freight wagons currently…
