MY BRITISH RAILWAY GAME. THE WORK BEHIND IT.
Making a British
Railway Game.
I’m Ross, and I’m making ERA 8 Network Britain. It brings together my love of trains, the 1980s–1990s, games and graphics. I have a first playable railway to build from, and this is the work behind it.
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The problems, research and progress, with a new blog draft every three days.
ERA 8 Network Britain My development diary
Accepted first playable: 0.1.3 · Unity 6.6 · Real railway scale
Steam approval pendingCURRENT WORK / 14 OCTOBER 2026
Where the Game
Is Now.
The accepted checkpoint and the work that follows
I have saved 0.1.3 as my first playable milestone: one 1,500 by 800 metre railway, a tunnel and bridge, and a locomotive collecting three Mk2b coaches for the journey from A to B and back. I am keeping that player and its saves while the next work develops.
Editor Track Tools First
The current track work uses BS113A timber rails, snapped nodes and smooth curves. Fixed turnouts and joined ballast need to fit the shared building grid without stretching the pointwork. Gameplay integration follows this Editor review.
Separate Terrain and Water Reviews
A separate three-kilometre by one-and-a-half-kilometre map brings landscape brushes, tunnel digging and live surface water together. I am checking collision, Undo, saves and the costs of editing and loading. The newer map-wide water trial is still under review.
The Art and Material Work
I want clear shapes, broad colours and selective detail, with proper response from glass, brick, paint and metal. Ground defaults, model revisions and local dirt or paint decals have their own reviews. The reference set guides the work; the pictures here remain my own development material.
Keeping Content and Saves Manageable
I am giving used content a clear loading and cleanup path and keeping draft assets labelled. Review content stays separate from shipping content. SQLite works with the game's existing systems to keep terrain, water and trains saved together.
The next gameplay direction is saved unfinished construction, then a visible crew, track layer and tamper doing the work over time. The wider freight game and linked places come later. I have not chosen the next numbered version.
Read the current game overview01 / THE IDEA
A Railway With
Something to Do.
The game I am making
I want to build a useful British railway, look after its trains and give them work to do. My love of video games and the 1980s–1990s is why I started this project.
The setting is a colourful British landscape, with the character of a carefully made model and railway parts built at real dimensions. Clear shapes and selective detail should make it enjoyable to explore close up and understandable when you step back to manage the railway.
Your fictional operator should have its own name, colours and identity. The ambition is a railway that feels like yours, shaped by the places and customers it serves.
Read why I am making ERA 802 / THE GAMEPLAY
Build the Line.
Keep Things Moving.
Gameplay direction · In development
This is the wider management game I want to make. The current work starts with the playable railway and Editor tools above; the service, freight and fleet systems below are the longer-term direction.
Build Around a Purpose
Plan track, stations, yards and depots around the towns and industries in your scenario. Land, connections and room to work should influence the railway you build.
Follow the Goods
The freight reference follows bricks from a brickworks by lorry to a depot, then by train and onward to the customer. Storage, wagons and loading capacity give the journey decisions to solve.
Know Your Fleet
I want each train to retain its identity, condition and history. Storage, washing and maintenance should matter, alongside choosing the right stock for the job.
Manage or Take Control
The plan combines managing services with opportunities to drive and take part in physical freight handling. Hired staff should let you step back as the railway grows.
The current first-playable milestone demonstrates a bounded construction and train journey. The complete freight chain, staffing and wider management systems are still being developed.
Read the freight design03 / THE ENGINE
Making the Railway
Hold Together.
Working foundations · Separate development trials
A railway needs more than rails on screen. Construction, moving trains, changing ground, water and saved progress all need to agree.
A Connected Railway
Track alignments and connections have their own data. Smooth curves, junctions and ballast are being developed together, so the railway the tools build is the railway the train follows.
Trains That Work Together
The train work combines a rail-guided force model with physical coupling constraints. Development checks exercise pickup, detaching, running round and returning with the same stock.
A World That Can Change
Separate terrain trials combine landscape shaping, local excavation and live surface water. Edits need coherent ground, collision and river-bed updates, with undo and saved continuation.
Progress Worth Keeping
Save work checks that construction, trains, terrain and water return together. Failure and recovery tests matter as much as a successful save.
These are bounded development results. Separate trials do not yet establish a finished combined game, unlimited worlds or performance on every computer.
Read the engine diary04 / THE TECH
The Tools Behind
the Workbench.
Current development setup
I am developing ERA 8 for Windows PC and Linux, using Unity alongside railway, construction and save systems made for the game.
- Windows PC & Linux
- Both platforms are part of the development direction. Current build testing focuses on Windows; Linux validation remains ahead.
- Scalable Graphics
- The aim is to scale from a lightweight “potato mode” for modest PCs through to path tracing on capable hardware. That range is a development goal; the full set of modes and hardware requirements are still being worked out.
- Unity & HDRP
- Unity 6.6 and its High Definition Render Pipeline provide the Editor and rendering foundation. Current Windows development checks use DirectX 12, with DirectX 11 fallback checks.
- Railway Simulation & PhysX
- Railway data guides the train along the track. A fixed-step force model and native PhysX coupling constraints handle the connected stock.
- Terrain & Surface Water
- Voxel-based digging in a hybrid Unity Terrain and mesh system is being tested alongside live surface-water simulation in separate review maps. Landscape shaping and local excavation retain distinct roles.
- SQLite & Owned Content
- SQLite coordinates persistent state and recovery. Addressables gives used content an owned loading and cleanup path; review assets remain separate from shipping content.
I check what the tools actually do, what a save restores and where the time goes. Installing a package does not settle those questions.
Follow the development work13–14 OCTOBER 2026 / RECENT WIP
From the Current Workbench.
Source models, native Editor tests and material reviews.
Development images, with the rough edges kept in view.
These twenty views show work in progress. Blender renders show source models; Unity prefab reviews and test-map captures have their own labels. They are separate studies, rather than a finished combined game. Select an image to enlarge it.
FROM MY WORKBENCH
The Dev Diary
The decisions behind the railway.
The rough edges as well as the milestones.
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MAKING THE RAILWAY
The Journey So Far.
The first playable came after several changes of direction. I keep the earlier work so I can explain what I learnt and what I decided to leave for later.
Editor railway authoring first. Then I want unfinished construction to survive saving, with the crew, track layer and tamper building and commissioning the line over time. Freight and the wider network follow later.
Starting the Engine
Track data, construction, saves and the early lighting problems in Unity 6.6.
Train Physics and Couplings
A train force model and PhysX coupling prototype, including joining, separating and restoring the formation.
The Early Water Work
Channels, flow, volume checks and the problems with keeping ground and water in step. Some of this custom work was later set aside.
- EARLY MODEL STUDIES
The Railway Kit
Research into rails, sleepers, pointwork, buffer stops and platform layouts, with unresolved dimensions kept as drafts.
The Earlier Bracken Vale Setup
A recovery of the previous map and toolbox. I preserved that work during the later first-playable reset.
My First Playable Milestone
The accepted 0.1.3 checkpoint: a tunnel, bridge, locomotive pickup of three coaches and A–B–A railway operation.
The Current Workflow
Editor-first timber track, separate terrain and water reviews, PBR model work and owned content loading. The next numbered version is still open.
ABOUT ME / THE PERSON BEHIND THE RAILWAY
A Passion for Railways.
A Background in Making Things.
I’m Ross, the developer of ERA 8 Network Britain. My love of video games, trains and the 1980s–1990s is why I want to make this railway.
I bring more than 15 years of experience in research and development and product development, working with 3D software and engineering as well as scripting and coding.
I have led a team in a large company, managing the scope of retail-facing product design and development.
ERA 8 brings those disciplines together: designing the experience, building and researching the models, writing the systems and managing the work that connects them. I can draw on that professional background while developing a game around something I care about.
Ross Developer, ERA 8 Network Britain
FOLLOW THE GAME
Next Stop: Steam.
The store page isn’t live yet. Once it is, you’ll be able to wishlist ERA 8 Network Britain here. For now, the diary is where I’m sharing the work.