Like most train enthusiasts, I have several rail sims, among them Railworks, a few versions of Trainz including the most recent 10 and 12 versions, and of course good old MSTS too. All of them have plus points, the obvious ones are that the longevity of MSTS means that it has stacks of content from very experienced developers such as BLW, Trainz has stacks of content too of course, since it is perhaps the most community-oriented of all the train sims. Railworks, whilst not quite so well endowed in the content department, and rather pricey on that score (notwithstanding frequent heavily discounted sale prices, which do mitigate that somewhat) does also have very shiny graphics on its side, although these can tax even the best of computers, and load times can be long, so all that graphical splendour can exact a price in terms of convenience, although to be fair, the rain effect which they slung into Railworks a while back is truly excellent.
Having said that, anyone who knows Trainz reasonably well, will also know that with the right DLC, and indeed with some of the included stuff too for that matter, the gap between it and Railworks graphically, is not so wide as many would claim. One only has to look at things from RR Mods and Jointed Rail to see that the locomotives you can get for Trainz are every bit as good, and in many cases better, than anything you can get for Railworks, except possibly that rain effect which is way better than the rain you see in Trainz. MSTS is somewhat frozen in time where graphics are concerned of course, but even that can still hold a candle to the newer sims in some of its visual aspects and this is clearly a barrier to wider acceptance of Railworks for US rail enthusiasts who, being the partisan types they often are, might not be fans of Trainz.
Where realistic operation is concerned, the difference between Railworks and Trainz is more noticeable. To be brutally honest, I think Trainz is all over Railworks like a cheap suit when it comes to the simulation of intertia, and that is a major plus point for Trainz when it comes to the realistic simulation of shunting and emulating the power and braking that is necessary on gradients. It is okay in Railworks, but only okay, whereas in Trainz it is far more convincing. That might not bother some users of course, but it is a big difference for me personally and it can lead to annoying glitches in Railworks. Roll up to a hopper too slow in Railworks and you will occasionally be rewarded with it completely failing to detect a collision of the couplers, and then you'll see your locomotive passing ghost-like through the stationary wagon, forcing you to back up and crash into it a bit more aggressively, often a few times before it registers the contact. I've never seen that happen in Trainz, not once.
As far as aspects outside of actually using Railworks and Trainz as simulations are concerned, this is another area where Trainz is often preferable. Anyone who has used the Trainz Surveyor to create their own stuff will know that it is very easy to use, intuitive to the extent of one hardly even needing to look at the manual in order to get to grips with how it works. This is in stark contrast to the content creation tools in Railworks, which although very capable, are unfortunately a confusing mess of unintelligible icons, pop out menus and frankly mystifying modes, all of which makes learning how to use the things a real chore and forces one to read the manual, which isn't tjhat great either. This alone probably accounts for the lack of widespread freebie content for Railworks which is out there (or rather not out there), since there must be many who have looked at the content creation tools for Railworks and simply given up. Yes, it really is that clumsy, in fact, if I was into conspiracy theories, I'd be inclined to suggest it was a deliberate attempt to force people into relying on payware for the thing. One thing that you have to admit though, is that anyone who has persevered with these tools enough to actually create something probably deserves every penny they get from what they charge for it.
A bigger problem with Railworks however, is the content itself; and this for a variety of reasons. Being largely developed in the UK, with some 3PD stuff made in the US too of course, Railworks is - naturally - demonstrably British in most of its content, with only a few continental European DLCs and some US stuff to add to that largely Albion-based feel. This is fine if one is primarily interested in UK railways, and being from the UK I am at least somewhat into UK railways, but if you like perhaps Indian, Chinese or Russian railways, then you are sh** out of luck where Railworks is concerned. Personally, I am more into US railroads, and that would, or at least should mean that Railworks has enough stuff to float my boat, but the problem is that much of the US content is lacking in prototypical realism and attention to detail, with inaccuracies and examples of what are quite simply lazy research creeping in. This isn't true of all US DLC for Railworks, a few add-ons you can buy for it are actually quite excellent - Ohio Steel for example, is one which represents good value for money and enjoyable content. However, that is more of an exception than a rule, and when you see how sloppy things such as the iconic Donner Pass add-on for Railworks turned out, even to the extent of having some locomotives painted in liveries which the real railroads never actually possessed, or the fact that many locomotives have poor engine sounds and the wrong horns as a result of a copy and paste mentality when it comes to development, then it becomes apparent that the focus is often on money rather than attention to detail. There is nothing wrong with a payware developer wanting to make money of course, but the focus should be on offering value for that money, and this is too often not the case, with many DLC routes for Railworks offering precious few scenarios for the price, making replay value often pitifully low when combined with the propensity for inaccuracy which is manifest.
Much of this would be at least partially forgivable if such errors were limited to non-domestic stuff, since with the scope of the continental US, one could then at least try to proffer the defence that it is a lack of geographical familiarity on the pat of the developers which is to blame, but such errors are to be found on UK DLC too, and in the UK it's kind of hard to be more than a 300 mile trip away from any locomotive you want to research. In any case, a quick trip to an Ian Allen Bookshop, of which there are many in the UK, would reveal that there are no shortage of DVDs one can watch to get such details correct if one cannot be arsed to go and check out the real thing in person. So there really is no excuse for the kind cookie-cutter sloppiness which is all too common in the DLC for Railworks.
To be fair, and from a technological standpoint, Trainz is not without its issues either. There can be little doubt that the nature of dependencies can sometimes make things a bit of a pain in the ass to get up and running, but this is rarely a show stopper, and one thing you can certainly say about Trainz in this regard, is that given the amount of freebie and payware DLC there is for it, it is surprisingly robust considering what can be thrown at it. Would that this were so with Railworks, but unfortunately, it is not, even payware content via Steam that has been available for years still exhibits glitches with no sign of fixes even being attempted. Worse, such glitches are beoming more common as updates and tweaks are added to the core program, to such an extent that even the once entirely pro Railworks America fan site now has threads with people openly criticising the developers of Railworks and announcing that they are abandoning the thing in favour of other sims. Although the often preposterously partisan nature of many train sim fans has many such dissenters unable to bring themselves to mention the rather obvious alternative that is Trainz, which is a state of affairs made more laughable given the notion that anyone who has Railworks can hardly be unaware of the availability of Trainz since it too is available via Steam and is in fact available at a discounted price at present.
Naturally on a thread of this nature, one is likely to focus on issues rather than plus points, so I will conclude in saying that there absolutely is enjoyment to be had with Railworks, and there are some trully stunning visual touches in the thing too, but for me, there is simply far more fun to be had with Trainz. It is more stable, easier to get to grips with, and isn't going to cost you an arm and leg to enjoy, and I think these are the real diffences between the two. If you like trains, then I would say that both are worth having, but spend a bit of time with both sims and I'd put money on you ending up preferring Trainz.
Al
