Railworks 2 Review Part 1

By Herman Hum on February 14, 2011 in _trains, Reviews

A freight train rolls through a spot of life in the desert.

Introduction

What is Railworks 2? Railworks 2 by Railsimulator.com Ltd, is an expandable “base package” railroad simulation. Offered as a free update to current owners of the original Railworks, the product is also available for sale on Steam and DVD media. The original Railworks was a 2009 follow up to Rail Simulator published in 2008 by Electronic Arts.

Railworks 2 presents itself as a “platform” from which players can build as they wish. From here you expand your product by purchasing downloadable content (DLC) products through Steam. These DLC contain materials such as locomotives, rolling stock, and entire railway routes. Some of these DLC contain more than one item, for example many locomotives come with multiple variants and scenarios, and there are occasional bonus items like rolling stock to match. As of the time of this writing, the Steam store lists 61 DLC packages available for Railworks 2. Pricing for DLC varies, with larger items like railway routes costing more.

Just remember that the idea here is much the same as building a model railroad, piece by piece, as you want it, rather than buying a single box with everything included. But the Railworks 2 base product does include a good deal to get you started. To my knowledge, only materials included with the base product were used for this review. Let’s look at what is included with the base product.

There are a total of 8 railway routes, with 5 being real world, and 3 being fictional.

Real world routes Include:

Bath-Templecombe
Oxford-Paddington
York-Newcastle
Hagen-Siegen
Cajon Pass

Fictional routes include:

a UK railyard
a route near Denver, Colorado
a route set in northern Europe

A total of 13 electric, steam and diesel locomotives are included in Railworks 2. The list below includes color and markings variants.

Electric (7) BR101 DBAG Black BR101 DBAG Blue BR101 DBAG Red BR101 DBAG Silver BR143 DBAG Red BR151 DBAG Red DB BR 151 002-3	Steam (6) 7F 2-8-0 BR Black BR52 2-10-0 BR52 2-10-0 OEBB Black 5 4-6-0 BR Black Black 5 4-6-0 BR Green Black 5 4-6-0 BR Rusty
Diesel (27) BR294 DBAG Blue BR294 DBAG Red BRV200 DBAG Blue BRV200 DBAG Red Class 166 DMU FGW Blue Class 166 DMU FGW White Class 166 DMU FGW Network SouthEast Class 37 BR Blue Split Headcode Class 37 BR Green Split Headcode Class 47 BR Blue Class 47 BR Green Class 47 InterCity Swallow Class 47 Large Logo Class 47 Rail Express	Class 47 BR Triple Grey Class 55 BR Blue Class 55 BR Green EMD F7 UPRR EMD SD40-2 Black EMD SD40-2 Unweathered EMD SD40-2 Weathered GE ES44AC Black GE ES44AC UP GE ES44AC UP Heritage High Speed Train BR Blue High Speed Train FGW Blue High Speed Train FGW White

Electric (7)

BR101 DBAG Black
BR101 DBAG Blue
BR101 DBAG Red
BR101 DBAG Silver
BR143 DBAG Red
BR151 DBAG Red
DB BR 151 002-3

Steam (6)

7F 2-8-0 BR Black
BR52 2-10-0
BR52 2-10-0 OEBB
Black 5 4-6-0 BR Black
Black 5 4-6-0 BR Green
Black 5 4-6-0 BR Rusty

Diesel (27)

BR294 DBAG Blue
BR294 DBAG Red
BRV200 DBAG Blue
BRV200 DBAG Red
Class 166 DMU FGW Blue
Class 166 DMU FGW White
Class 166 DMU FGW Network SouthEast
Class 37 BR Blue Split Headcode
Class 37 BR Green Split Headcode
Class 47 BR Blue
Class 47 BR Green
Class 47 InterCity Swallow
Class 47 Large Logo
Class 47 Rail Express

Class 47 BR Triple Grey
Class 55 BR Blue
Class 55 BR Green
EMD F7 UPRR
EMD SD40-2 Black
EMD SD40-2 Unweathered
EMD SD40-2 Weathered
GE ES44AC Black
GE ES44AC UP
GE ES44AC UP Heritage
High Speed Train BR Blue
High Speed Train FGW Blue
High Speed Train FGW White

Also included are a variety of passenger and freight rolling stock suited to each of the included trains, more than 50 scenarios, and a World Editor to build new and edit existing routes.

The promotional video for Railworks 2 provides a good overview of the different trains available.