At the Throttle Of: Chris Sawyer's Locomotion

From the creator of the original Roller Coaster Tycoon comes one of his most overlooked, but probably impactful, creations in the lucrative genre of business strategy gaming.
To buy Chris Sawyer's Locomotion: store.steampow...
Other great Locomotion videos:
• OpenLoco: Working on t...
• From Hamlet to Metropo...
• Chris Sawyer Locomotio...
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[@griffinrails]

FINALLY someone talks about this fantastic game! Hopefully this game can come back to life, it’s my favourite of all time.

[@844SteamFan]

I definitely want to get it soon, known about it for a long time, just haven’t had a device capable of playing it.

[@alecbasba]

I know, right?? I love this thing since I first played it in 04 or 05! Just yesterday I got distracted and played 7 hours straight!

[@luk3z517]

OpenLoco add some additional options to the game as keyboard shortcuts (built rails by Enter is much faster, delete windows by Del, Backspace for undo build rails) and options to change game resolution of course.

[@WH32R]

It's on steam now!!

[@844SteamFan]

From someone who has known about Chris Sawyer’s Locomotion since I was young, I’m glad to see a larger channel (compared to most channels with videos about the game) bring it up!

[@JacquesDufrene]

I'm 21 years old, and I've been playing this game since it came out when I was 4. I absolutely love this game and I will probably never stop playing, thanks for making a video on it

[@trainzmania2022ricardo]

I remember when i play Chris Sawyer's Locomotion, i installed new American steam & diesel locos and rolling stock as well, i even download the UK Steam Packs v3 & v4. But i lost it since my old computer wasn't working fine, this game really shows the match of railroading.

[@leftofzen]

You should be playing OpenLoco as we've fixed many of the bugs that are causing your game to crash, as well as added many QoL features, and we're always adding more. Also @6:00 whilst most of the company code hasn't been reverse-engineered yet (in OpenLoco) so I can't give you an exact formula, game rating is basically calculated from station ratings and profit. If your rating is low, find which stations have the most waiting cargo and optimise them. This works extremely well because it both fixes bad station ratings and increases your direct profit because you improve the station service. A second easy way to increase ratings is to simply delete any trains that aren't making a profit. If you like, you can send me a save file on the OpenLoco discord and I can show you how to improve the rating in the game.

[@sirrliv]

Having recently dipped my toes back into Locomotion after a multi-year hiatus, this came up as a pleasant surprise. While I feel some aspects are still better done by the older Transport Tycoon Deluxe (or specifically OpenTTD, which among other advantages is free and now supported through Steam) or the newer Transport Fever 2, Locomotion certainly has a charm all its own. Regarding loco diversity, I would mention that though other regions may have a greater selection than the USA, the Swiss catalog is pretty much all electrics after about 1910; I don't think the Swiss get a single diesel loco. At a guess, I'd say the major bias toward the UK stems from Chris Sawyer himself being British and thus having a greater personal familiarity with his country's railway history. Overall, while the diversity spread can be an issue, it can be augmented by mixing and matching vehicles from different regions, such as using more British steam to flesh out Swiss scenarios, or borrowing some Swiss electrics for American settings. If it looks close enough, then why not? Regarding the format, while I thoroughly enjoyed this style of video and would encourage you to make more, perhaps the banner of "At the Throttle of" isn't the right choice based on what's come before. Perhaps a new title would be in order, something like "Playing with Trains" for spotlighting train-centric games that aren't the Big Three Sims of MSTS/OpenRails, Trainz, and Railworks. Title aside though, I would love to hear you talk about more games like this, from overall successful and well-regarded titles like Transport Fever to perhaps more out there flops like Bounty Train. If you want to start out focusing on older titles, I would love to hear your thoughts on Railroad Pioneer; it's old, it's buggy, parts of it feel half finished, but it has a lot of gameplay aspects that I've never seen in any other railroad tycoon game.

[@HighIron]

I agree about the title change. There’s tons of possibilities with this.

[@844SteamFan]

I’m just going to say, adding mods to the game can help with the limited content.

[@TheTechCguy]

This game literally taught me how to run a transportation business, when I was in grade school that year. Nostalgia! :)

[@AleLGB]

Locomotion along with Railroad Tycoon 3 were probably the best games of my childhood, occasionally I still play them almost 20 years later. Surprised they still somehow work with nowadays hardware

[@Ty-yt3lj]

As an Avid player of its Mobile Sibling, Transport Tycoon '13, I found only one way to make that meter go up. NEVER Stop expanding. Connect every town, and when you run out of towns to connect with 1 line, build 2. 3. Hell build 7 if you're connected to industry.

[@nodustollens9183]

this was my first favorite game, always a spot in my heart for this game. runs great through Steam too!

[@emresonkaya3033]

My first game too

[@RandomBusNerd]

Even though we now have the likes of Transport Fever 2. This game still has features that make the game far more enjoyable, such as the competing companies. Also there was a mobile version of this game published that was sold as ‘Transport Tycoon’. That was the version that I personally used and have spent many hours spread across many maps.

[@Sleeper____1472]

I'm only a pre-teen though I have so much history with this game and to finally see a video on it that's not from 2015 earlier excites me so much.

[@CentralJerseyRailfan]

Many players of the game will have heard of Plastikman's North American Megapack. Brings so much life to the USA region for many American gamers and is significantly larger than the base game US stuff

[@N00N01]

dipping into mods of OPENTTD can become quite expansive very fast

[@HighIron]

One day… : P

[@N00N01]

Nice :)

[@raymondchason2877]

god i miss playing this game

[@yelloweyeball]

We started with stuff like this, and now we have stuff like Transport fever and Railroads online. I love visually mapping progress.

[@pikgears]

I've been trying off and on to get into locomotion since the day it came out, but i always find myself coming back to (open)ttd

[@Sixshotz1337]

I bought this game at a scholastic bookfair in Mississippi when I was in elementary school and I remember blocking the AI rails with road crossing to become the only company capable of transporting goods. This game and age of empires 3 was my PC gaming childhood.

[@munchnerkindl7480]

I love this game.❤ It's my childhood.

[@daveblythman8842]

I love playing this game and I still do. When the notifications popped up in the video I defiantly clicked the X on some straight away as muscle memory.

[@Mr.RailYard-LJLRailYard]

This game is cool. I use to watch Chris Sawyer's Locomotion video all the time.

[@tibbers3755]

I didnt know there was a whole community around this game. Been playing since i found it at a book fair in 2005, and ive been dying to find more rollingstock in the game

[@Edsel-fd4yp]

I grew up playing this game. Thank you for the happy remembering.

[@TheOklahomaHotrail]

Another great video. Nice job High Iron!

[@HighIron]

Glad you enjoyed it

[@JacquesDufrene]

As for the future of the series, I like the shorter format of the video, but a mini let's play video to accompany it that isn't as formal may go along well with it, I'd love a let's play series on the serpent map

[@ChaplainDMK]

Locomotion was such a missed opportunity. The graphics were nice, though it was missing the character of RCT and TTD, but still, could have gone far with a bit more work. The scenarios always felt a bit weak imo, and the biggest problem to me was how time intensive terraforming was. But the biggest and basically for me game breaking issue was the railroad pathfinding/routing. Any complex network that would work flawlessly in TTD/OpenTTD would inevitably start collapsing in Locomotion at some point due to trains turning around at signals, stations, issues with waypoints because there were limits how far two stops could be apart etc.. On top of that taking care of a large amount of trains if you didn't disable breakdowns was another absolute nightmare. Hopefully OpenLOCO doesn't die out and is developed to a point where these issues get solved and the game can finally be what it could have been with a bit more work.

[@OutbackCatgirl]

Well, a year later and it's still going strong :D

[@Unknown_Ooh]

As a huge fan of RTC as a kid I can't believe I've never heard of this game. I've gotta try this one out.

[@chrisc1168]

God i loved this game so much as a kid.

[@advancedapproachproduction2394]

Locomotion is one of my favorite games of all time.

[@HighIron]

First.

[@N00N01]

Ahahahaha XD

[@Sleeper____1472]

Cheater

[@e-train765]

I've never heard of this game and I'm a RCT 1 and 2 vet!! Might have to hunt this down and give it a try! Tbh though my favorite railroad game is Railroad Tycoon 3

[@ZILOGz80VIDEOS]

You should give Transport Fever 2 a try, it does a great job of recreating that same Railroad Tycoon/OpenTTD macroeconomics plus historical rolling stock gameplay but with a more modern more intricate simulation model.

[@damianmatras8568]

Nostalgia.

[@RamsFan93]

High speed electrified line from one side to the other, as straight as possible and only using the largest curves that have a max speed of 110mph (I think maybe 120mph), passengers are the biggest profit over long distance and short time. As soon as you can build a large airport, dont do so, save half over the top for a second, buy the first and then ramp up your loans until you can afford the second. If you have good enough income, you can pay off the loan and at the same time save for your first aircraft. 737 is a good start. The money generated quickly pays for the airports and 737. But I would recommend focusing on a second airport as well as reducing the loan

[@guythatpaysforyourhandouts2478]

I use to have this it was fantastic

[@Buynot]

I really liked the formatting for both this and the previous at the throttle of videos. If possible, it would be great if you find a way to combine the two formats for future stuff in this series.

[@mrtrainstudios]

Openttd=locomotion Locomotion=openttd the loop never ends

[@BlindingLight]

Looks like an interesting game, I might check it out

[@fondlebuddies2982]

I loved this game, it's one of my favourites I love how you mention the lack of US locos, while true the, the man is from Scotland so a bias towards the UK is understandable 😁 however it does suck as the US maps are usually pretty huge so having so few removes the thrill of unlocking more as you move through the years I myself like to make custom maps and tick as many of all of the locos I can possibly choose

[@SouthernKansasRailfan]

I prefer the more, on the fly type gaming videos, and keep them coming! I love these videos! Never even heard of this game so it was cool to learn a bit about it!

[@notknightbean]

I would love a retrospective going through and reviewing various train games. Locomotion and railroad tycoon 3 were huge parts of my childhood, and I will sometimes boot them up for nostalgia alone (if not the fun gameplay). I am not great with modding but guides on modding do help a lot even if they are often outdated or very old. If there was something I wish there was in locomotion, I would love an ability for trains and locos not to time out. there is just something fun about watching my steam trains run across the map even if it is not as effective. is there a mod for that? because I have yet to find one. That said, I really enjoy the mod that includes many of the UP giants, and Creating routes for them to haul goods on in long trains is just fun.

[@Drockthe3rd]

I'd like a mix of both scripted and unscripted for "At The Throttle Of"

[@TringsTrainsProductions]

The mechanics remind me a lot of the later Sid Meier's Railroads, using 3d sprites and higher quality maps. Again, this also crashes on one particular map due to the steam port not being given enough memory.

[@HighIron]

I had a feeling. In my experience, it still performs better than the Atari CD version, which was prone to crashing more often, and would also invert the colors probably because of a graphics card thing.

[@TringsTrainsProductions]

@@HighIron I might be imaging it, but I thought you could get that version as a free pc download? I was told a way to fix the crashing issue is to use a hex editor, but I wouldn't know where to start with something like that.

[@offrails]

I bought this game back when it came out around 2004 and played it for many years after it passed its prime (though even when it was new, it was considered "dated" due to its 2D graphics and everything else going 3D). The AI was sometimes a bit annoying and it even cheated at times (e.g. plopping down a couple of large airports and a slew of Concordes right at the beginning of the game without actually paying for all of it - Concorde itself in the game was also unfairly balanced, being able to carry more passengers than a 747. Loved the APT (Advanced Passenger Train), which in real life was a bit of a flop due to being ahead of its time and having teething issue I did not know about OpenLoco - I'm hoping that at the very least it will allow for easier fleet renewal like TF2 allows, as when you have a long route with a dozen trains having breakdowns all the time, you had to manually stop, replace, and then restart each of them one at a time.

[@Jonny_Productions]

This is a classic

[@zyancuerdo8367]

I try the game before but I honestly prefer openttd it has a more easier gameplay lets you make your own map and with the rigth newgrf vehicle mod you can go back as far as the 1700's the devs also added a cheats as a custom sandbox

[@Gameprojordan]

Openttd is far better than locomotion.

[@thedesigner00]

I love this game

[@triplej755]

YES, this game is never talked about. It's understandably overshadowed by Roller Coaster Tycoon, but I do like some trains once in a while! Edit: The performance index is calculated by how much cargo you transport times the distance that cargo is carried. When the performance index is increased, it becomes harder to increase it anymore.

[@SouRwy4501Productions]

Can we talk about how the American 4-6-2 pacific is based on the Southern railway ps-4 heavy Pacific

[@zacscurlockshobbies2133]

I think it's pretty interesting tbh

[@TheWizardGamez]

whats your opinion of railway empire? Personally for me it captures the charms of sid meirs RAILROADS!. but i find that many are discheveled from the game in favor of transport fever or other games

[@HLTrains5003]

Where did you find your wallpaper? I love it and will replicate it on my HO layout

[@johnarnehansen9574]

I have a nostgalcig feel for this game!.. :,)

[@mistermadmachine6311]

I haven’t played since I was a kid 😃

[@jonathanlochridge9462]

Great game. How does it compare to Transport Tycoon in your view? I played Locomotion as a kid, although I play openttd now. Which basically seems like the same game but with less missions and more mods. Locomotion seems like it has better graphics though. Open ttd seems more single space focused rather than using segments like rollercoaster tycoon does. I am not sure if that was the case for the original TTD openttd actually has automobiles. But, busses are the only land vehicle that are any good. Although, they can work as good feeders for a rail route.

[@willberestartingthischanne9984]

Nice!

[@dadestocks6134]

This is my game, and lol, I never had save problems

[@Sleeper____1472]

Me neither

[@NERRP2017]

I’ve played transport tycoon which I think has parts of this as mobile version of it but it was fun but I got rid of it due to storage

[@zyancuerdo1615]

I'll admit locomotion definitely has its limitations like the American rolling stock and mod limitations aside from that chris sawyer locomotion is a preety neat game the grandad of the transport fever line and the dad of openttd

[@TheOriginalJphyper]

I love this game. I've often thought about making a guide for it, but I have been unable to find any sources of information that go in-depth on the mechanics. For example, what do the Intelligence and Competitiveness stats for the AI companies do? Why are some companies willing to go all the way to a 100% performance index while others are willing to settle for 20-30%?

[@Joshua31301]

I feel this type of presentation is better

[@aunulimansfield3277]

Never played this but it looks very similar to OpenTTD

[@Gameprojordan]

This is quite literally the sequel to the original TTD. Both are made by the same person. That being said, OpenTTD is far better of a game than Locomotion. Way more content, custom content etc etc and mod support fully integrated into the game via an in game window that you can add and remove mods whenever you want, and they will auto sort on the list to work properly, aswell as inform you when mods clash with eachother, if they do clash with eachother the game will automatically disable them to stop crashes or bugs from happening

[@Arturino_Burachelini]

At the throttle of Open TTD, Transport Fever

[@juliustrackmasterproductio7208]

Can you do what if series for San Juan West

[@patrickmcarter6244]

i got this game on steam.

[@mitch9521]

Childhood af

[@luk3z517]

Don't forget about OpenLoco.

[@benlahrman4149]

Where are the links to the DLC and mods shown in the video?

[@emresonkaya3033]

I guess this is the latest video about Locomotion and someone can see me and answer my question at here.Digidampfman_station_kits mod is really nice but I cant see the goods station base plate and passanger station base plate except this 2 I can see every thing.I select in scenario editor but while playing it I cant find them.Please help me

[@Mr.RailYard-LJLRailYard]

Where can I find DLC for Chris Sawyer's Locomotion?

[@somethingsomethingkv2]

Its sad, i had to move the game instal and lost all the mods i had. Including the way to have more then 240 vehicles

[@stiviw6714]

I still have a lot of ObjectData but cannot find the install.exe for a n installation on my PC - I dont want to play online

[@RoyxlPhxntom]

Woah!

[@GamingRailfanner]

This game is kinda like OpenTTD but more realistic

[@Hotboxphotography]

Hello how yall doing

[@reeharley3419]

I lost my code to install to my pc

[@simonbrooks399]

Is this much better than transport tycoon?

[@thehoraceshow1921]

Why is the game so gray?

[@Retrofire-47]

Locomotion's magic sorta wore off once you learned how to "game" the system, probably after you grow up - same with the Civilization games... Once you are sapient enough to understand that rampant expansion is the only viable strategy to win then it feels formulaic. I really, really wish games like Locomotion and Civilization rewarded *smarter* gameplay strategies more, like if you could create a cultural superpower in Civilization with a single city, or if you could construct some incredibly lucrative obscure supply chain in Locomotion - and get rewarded for it. I just get frustrated that you are essentially forced into a very specific playstyle. edit: I still love it to bits, literally.

[@runarvollan]

Another genre but THE best train game: The Last Express (1997)

[@staringcorgi6475]

Why does it look like transport tycoon why not call it transport tycoon 2

[@JimmyTheBear]

It really pales in comparison to ttd

[@a-person_0]

Skill issues

[@sittingduhk]

this game is so much fun to play, far far better than even OTTD, but maaan its butt ugly. Just drab grey pre-rendered and extremely visually unappealing

[@bleedfrequency]

The ugliest looking game from Chris Sawyer catalog. I was a huge fan of Transport Tycoon and was always hoping for a new game, but when this came out 2004, it was looking incredibly dated and artistically uninspired. Even the 10 year older predecessor had a more polished and pleasant Pixel look.

[@munchnerkindl7480]

Great game.👌