Home / Games / NIMBY Rails
NIMBY Rails
Design and run your own railroads for the real world. Solve global transportation dilemmas. Unleash your inner railway engineer and transit policy manager.
What players say
Steam review score and the most-helpful voices, which may include critical ones. Score via Steam as of 2026-09-02 · quoted reviews as of 2026-05-13.
What reviewers agree on
39 of the 69 reviews raise this.
“My autism forced me to have openrailwaymaps on other screen and recreate whole european railway network. Runs slow even on fastest speed but it was worth it. 10/10”
“I love the openness of the platform, though for anyone wondering, it's more of a railway sim and less of a game. You will need to look up some tutorials. But really fun, you should really try it out”
3 of the 69 reviews raise this.
“NIMBY Rails is genuinely a dream for transport network designing. The game is mostly just a simple map, but through placing railways, stations, and other transport infrastructure it allows you to fully create your own…”
3 of the 69 reviews raise this.
“Great sandbox train game that has a great modding community who bring all the things from real life into the game which makes it able recreate real lines”
“NIMBY Rails is genuinely a dream for transport network designing. The game is mostly just a simple map, but through placing railways, stations, and other transport infrastructure it allows you to fully create your own…”
13 of the 69 reviews raise this · 11 of them still recommend the game.
“I love the openness of the platform, though for anyone wondering, it's more of a railway sim and less of a game. You will need to look up some tutorials. But really fun, you should really try it out”
“Very addictive if you like to build & maintain big transport systems (same for me, 370 hours on one save). Overall, very good game, especially because it frequently gets updates with new features, bugfixes, etc. as it's…”
7 of the 69 reviews raise this · 1 of them still recommend the game.
“I love the idea of this game and there is no game quite like it. However the world feels extremely flat, like google maps. The city is stale, with no people, cars or any life. The only thing you can actually see change…”
“It feels quite unfinished in that the "game" aspect is just not there, it's basically just a mapping sandbox at this stage. The building, train behavior and scheduling side of things feels solid with only a few…”
3 of the 69 reviews raise this · 2 of them still recommend the game.
“Way too few updates for an early access, and so poorly optimized it becomes unplayable after a certain point”
“My autism forced me to have openrailwaymaps on other screen and recreate whole european railway network. Runs slow even on fastest speed but it was worth it. 10/10”
3 of the 69 reviews raise this · 3 of them still recommend the game.
“It's an amazing game. But where's cargo trains? Here, in Brazil we've only (almost) that type of trains.”
“It feels quite unfinished in that the "game" aspect is just not there, it's basically just a mapping sandbox at this stage. The building, train behavior and scheduling side of things feels solid with only a few…”
Counted across 69 English reviews, sampled to match this game's 89.6% positive rating · as of 2026-05-13
“Suggestion: Add "Transport Density" and "Passenger-Kilometers" to Line Statistics Thank you for creating such an incredible transit sandbox. As a hardcore railway enthusiast, I’d love to suggest two key performance indicators (KPIs) that would significantly enhance the…”
— a player, Steam review · 375 hrs played“This gaming is doing unspeakable things to my autism 15/10 ign”
— a player, Steam review · 193 hrs played“Don't go into this expecting a game, this is more a gameified CAD software for people who (like me, with a severe case of The Train Autism) will genuinely spend hours with mapping software just sketching out train lines because trains and public transport are inherently…”
— a player, Steam review · 326 hrs playedPlayer activity
Monthly average concurrent players. Live data self-collected from the Steam API · history through 2026-06 via SteamCharts.
Price tracking
US-region pricing (USD), sampled twice daily by our own tracker since 2026-07-11. Steam prices vary by region — always confirm your local price on Steam.
Regional prices at last sample, in local currency — Steam sets each region's price independently.
Cheapest → most expensive, converted to USD at ECB reference rates (2026-09-04). Relative comparison only.
Latest official news
Developer announcements via the Steam news API — links go to the original posts. More across all games on the news hub.
Version 1.19.10
- Map rotation binding can now be toggled between shift + vertical wheel, alt + vertical wheel, and horizontal wheel - Fix: population palette mods did not always apply on loading a game - Fix: Linux
Version 1.19
Updated default map The default, bundled OpenStreetMap data has been updated to a newer planet database. It also includes a huge amount of data that was removed in previous versions. Building footprin
Devblog for May 2026
Raster layers are now implemented in the new 1.19 map renderer. They use the same raster data as the current version, but adapted to the new coordinate system, which required a lot more work than anti
Devblog for March 2026
Version 1.19 is shaping up to be one of the largest, most significant updates to the game. It will bring a long overdue redesigned train motion physics simulation with the aim of once for all fix all
Version 1.18.30
- Stop selection signals now again perform a (possibly redundant and unnecessary) goal stop selection at the last possible moment, both from a stop or a pass-by. - Fix: queue_train_drive_to() was full
Games like NIMBY Rails
From our knowledge graph — ranked by shared traits, not a black box. Each card says why it's here.
Citystate II
71.6% · 580 reviews
shares Politics, Transportation, Political Sim, Political
Tropico 6
86.5% · 13,395 reviews
shares Politics, Political Sim, Political, City Builder
OpenTTD
94.6% · 9,147 reviews
shares Trains, Transportation, City Builder, Economy
Plutocracy
79.2% · 803 reviews
shares Politics, Political Sim, Capitalism, Economy
Rise of Industry
71.9% · 2,543 reviews
shares Trains, Transportation, Capitalism, City Builder
InfraSpace
79.8% · 1,198 reviews
shares Trains, Transportation, Capitalism, City Builder
Democracy 3
74.6% · 5,411 reviews
shares Politics, Political Sim, Political, Capitalism
Tropico 4
90.8% · 7,075 reviews
shares Politics, Political, Capitalism, City Builder
Screenshots
Official Steam store screenshots — click any shot to enlarge.
Facts & details
From the Steam store record, snapshot 2026-05-13.
| Genres | Simulation, Early Access |
| Player tags | Early Access · Transportation · Simulation · Economy · Management · Building · Sandbox · Politics · Open World · Singleplayer · City Builder · 2D (SteamSpy community voting) |
| Features | Single-player · Multi-player · Co-op · Online Co-op · Steam Workshop · Steam Cloud · Family Sharing |
| Languages | English |
Minimum system requirements (PC)
Minimum: Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system OS *: Windows 7 64bit Processor: Dual core, 2 Ghz+ Memory: 8 GB RAM Graphics: Intel HD 5000 DirectX: Version 11 Storage: 28 GB available space Additional Notes: Installing in FAT32 is not supported.