BT Studio’s announcement last month about bringing animated trains to Microsoft Flight Simulator’s North American scenery was met with enthusiasm from the community. True to their word, in less than a month, this vision has become reality with the release of FS Trains: North America, now available on the MSFS Marketplace for PC and Xbox at $14.99 USD.
This exciting add-on introduces a feature previously seen only in limited scenery packages. FS Trains: North America covers over 100,000 miles of railway tracks spanning the United States, Canada, and Mexico.
Flight simmers can now spot Amtrak trains operating on all their real-world routes, offering a variety of passenger journeys. The add-on also includes Class 1 freight trains traveling along mainline tracks.
The development team has struck a balance between visual fidelity and performance. They’ve used simplified train models to minimize system resource impact, and optimized the train logic to ensure smooth simulator performance.
This release is just the beginning, according to the developer, who plans significant updates in the future. Early user feedback on the MSFS forums suggests it might be challenging to quickly spot trains after installation. The developer responded that currently, only a single train spawns near the user to avoid immersion-breaking scenarios like trains passing through each other.
Despite these initial limitations, FS Trains: North America looks like a very cool and interesting addition to the simulator. It promises to breathe new life into the scenery and offer virtual pilots a more dynamic and realistic environment to fly over.
FS Trains: North America is now available for $14.99 on the in-sim Marketplace for both PC and Xbox platforms.
