playtrains

A cozy top-down railway sandbox

Lay the track, put a station on it, build the town around it — then sit back and watch pixel trains run your circuit. A digital train set that runs in a browser tab.

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Free · no account, no install · touch and mouse

A pixel-art circuit seen from above: a steam train leaving one platform, an electric train at another, block signals along the line, and a river crossed by two green bridges with two boats on it.
A circuit mid-run — two trains, block signals, and a river with its bridges and its boats.
The same circuit in edit mode: a grid overlays the grass, the tool palette sits on the left, and ghost markers show where pieces would go.

Build the line

The editor is a palette of pieces you drop on a grid. Straights and wide curves, buffer stops, and the whole family of turnouts — diverging switches, quarter-turn ones, wye splits that go both ways, flat crossings and scissors crossovers.

Bridge the river, drive a tunnel, ramp up onto a viaduct. Put platforms where trains should call and signals where you want them: nothing is placed for you, and everything undoes.

The driving console: an auto/manual switch, a throttle, a direction lever, a horn, and a status display reading Departing from Leuven.

Drive it, or let it drive

Leave a train on automatic and it runs the line by itself — pulling away, reading the signals ahead, braking into each platform and waiting out the stop. Give it an itinerary and it works the stations in the order you set.

Or flip the console to manual and take the regulator yourself: notch the throttle in km/h, pick a direction, sound the whistle, throw the switch ahead of you. Steam pulls away like steam; electric doesn't.

Close-up of a platform: a black-and-red steam express standing at it, passengers waiting by a bench and a timetable board.

Stations that fill up

Platforms are named, and passengers gather on them. A train pulls in, the doors open on the platform side, people get off and people get on — then the departure signal sounds and it goes.

Send a goods train instead and the same platform works as a yard: a gantry crane runs the dock and loads containers onto the wagons. Tap anyone waiting, or anything standing about, and they have something to say for themselves.

A world that keeps going

The same circuit at dusk: the grass has gone dark, signal lamps and platform lights glow, and the trains' headlights throw beams down the track.

The day turns while you watch. Dusk falls, the signal lamps come up, headlights reach down the track, and the platforms light themselves. Then it's morning again.

And there's more to a layout than rails. Lay roads with traffic lights and cars that use them, put up houses from a thatched cottage to a block of flats, add a station building, a car park, pavements and footpaths, a park with its gates, a playground, trees, and a river to run under your bridges. People walk the paths you draw, wait at the zebra for the light, and most go home when it gets dark.

A river seen from above between wooded banks: a fishing boat and a blue pedalo passing each other, lily pads with a frog, reeds along the banks.

A river with a life of its own

Paint water and it starts to flow. A fishing boat works the stretch and stops to shoot its net, a pedalo potters about, and both pull in at a jetty for a while before carrying on. Fish, ducks, the odd swan and a frog on its lily pad come with the water.

Shape it with rocks that make the boats take turns, a ford of stepping stones people wade across, a beach with a swimming zone, a quay, an angler waiting for a bite and a mill whose wheel turns in the stream. At night the boats light up and the street lamps lay their trails on the water.

The collectible card for the BR 01: a side view of the locomotive with its tender and coaches, over its builder, operator, years in service, top speed, power and length.

Four trains, each with its card

Every model comes with a collectible card: side view, builder, operator, years in service, top speed, power, length. Its traction decides how it pulls away and how it sounds.

  • BR 01Deutsche Reichsbahn express steam
  • Type 12SNCB/NMBS streamlined steam
  • AM08SNCB/NMBS electric multiple unit
  • V 60DB diesel shunter, for the goods yard
The BR 01 express running east past a platform: the black locomotive with its red frames, the tender and two green coaches, a signal beside the line and a girder bridge over the river ahead.
The BR 01 on its way to the bridge.
The red V 60 shunter at the freight dock with its container flats, the yellow gantry crane straddling a wagon beside the warehouse.
The V 60 at the dock, under the crane.

Whatever you build, stays built

  • Runs entirely in your browser — nothing is uploaded anywhere
  • Autosaves as you go, plus named save points you can go back to
  • Export a circuit to a file, import it back on another machine
  • English, French, Dutch and German
  • Sound for each kind of traction, with a mute button
  • Built for touch as much as for a mouse

Go and build something

A circuit is already running when you open it — take it over, or clear the board and start your own.

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