Those who played with electric trains as children, fans of railways and trams, realistic video games and those who have always admired train drivers, will certainly be happy to be able to play with an extremely realistic, free and professional-level train simulator. . In fact, there is a real train driving simulation game, faithfully recreated according to the technical and aesthetic characteristics, with 3D visualization and real railway journeys all over the world.
The project, completely opensource, comes from Japan and is called OpenBVE, downloadable for free and available for Windows Mac and Linux .
OpenBVE can be downloaded from the official website and is also in Italian.
After installing the game, you need to download the routes and trains .
When the simulator starts, a window appears asking you to load the route and the train.
On the page of the BVE-Routes website you can choose many railway routes that are actually rebuilt by the tramway network all over the world .
Even the train driver's cabs are real in graphics and controls.
If you filter the railways for Italy you will find routes and rails especially in the province of Genoa such as the Genoa Brignole-Recco .
In the same links there is always at least one train to download, both in modern and past scenarios.
After the downloads, extract the zip files into folders and select the paths from the game's start window.
The list of controls can be customized from the game's start window.
Below you can choose the driving mode between beginner (recommended to start from here), normal and expert.
At the end, press on Start at the bottom right.
This is not a game with objective and scores but only a very realistic simulator where you have to drive a train as a driver, checking the control panel and taking it from one station to another along the tracks.
Speed limits, times, and braking must be respected to stop exactly in the stations.
Without printing the command map, you will not go very far and it will take a lot of practice to drive the train smoothly and with a certain safety as a real driver would do.
Much of the fun comes from downloading a route that is familiar, perhaps driving the tram that you take every day (if it were available).
The Italian site BVE.altervista.com provides additional support, guides and other maps to download.
To find something more immediate and simple, (much less beautiful and realistic) there is another train simulator game on the RealRailway.com website.
In this case you just have to unload one of the three railways and play.
On the same site there is also a simulator to play online to drive the train.
Another online flash game where to drive a train is Eurodriver, from Bologna to Milan, not in 3D but with horizontal scrolling.
Finally, I remember that city transport and train simulation games are available such as OpenTTD and that there is a universal driving simulator for trucks, cars, planes and ships .
