I love Trainz. When people ask me why, I tell them "It's Trainz!"
If someone ever asks me what train simulator is the best to get into, I usually say Trainz. I suppose the reason why Trainz has become the "go-to" train simulator for new players is because of just how easy it is to use. Tracklaying is a breeze, the amount of freeware content is mind-boggling, and developer support is strong and they interact with the playerbase. We are lucky to have so many talented modelers and route builders among us, and Trainz: A New Era has shown me this game has a very solid future
Don't get me wrong, Railworks was fun and I enjoyed playing it. The main problems I had with it are poor optimization, lack of developer support, aside from a heavy focus on spitting out $19.99 payware bundles left and right, and little to no US steam locomotives. But after moving to Trainz, there was no turning back.
The whole concept of Rail Simulator (predecessor to Railworks) began with Microsoft Train Simulator 2, which was dropped after Kuju Entertainment left to develop their own game, Rail Simulator. The developers hoped that 3rd party developers for MSTS would be making new content for RS however that didn't happen. This was mainly because of the lack of tutorials, complex and buggy exporter, and no support for the popular 3d modeling program, Gmax. I mean come on, soooooo much content for MSTS and Trainz has been made with Gmax and Railworks does not support it. After re branding themselves into RailSimulator Co. or RSC, they began developing new content for Railworks. Believe it or not, it wasn't about the money at first. The Devs where kind and generous. For example, they used to do route building competitions, the winners getting a prize of some sort, and they would do monthly specials on DLC. The also gave away content they could have profited from. For example, one time they built an entire route in 24hrs named TestTrak using default assets in the game. It was later released and included with all new copies of Railworks until 2012. Another route was a pet-project of sorts by one of the RSC developers, known as The Port Road. Set in the UK during the 1960's, It also included custom skinned Steam and Diesel locomotives. Aside from routes, they also gave away Scenery and Station packs, as well as the Class 801 after the release of their new project, Train Simulator 2012. TS2012 is considered by many to be the last "good" version of Railworks. After that it was all downhill.
Just to keep all of you guys on track, here is the timeline of the games development:
Kuju Entertainment -> Rail Simulator -> RailSimulator Co. -> Railworks -> Train Simulator 2012 -> Train Simulator 2013 -> Dovetail Games -> Train Simulator 2014 -> Train Simulator 2015 -> Train Simulator 2016 -> Train Simulator 2017 -> Train Sim World
It Initially started as RSC removed default assets and routes from the game, only to repackage them later and sell them on Steam. After the rebranding to Dovetail Games, the amount of routes included was reduced as well, going from 7 in Railworks down to 4 by TS2014. The also charged previous owners for updates to locomotives, meaning you had to pay full price again for something you already own. On top of that, they keep spitting out content faster than they can update it. Take a look at the store, some stuff hasn't been updated since 2013!
Overall, Train Simulator 2017 has its problems and it needs to die out. Hopefully the succeeding product Train Sim World will be much more successful in the long run.