One of the things I’ve been dying to see in BeamNG.drive is a fully functional train. As many of you know, the mod scene in BeamNG.drive is outstanding with so many amazing new creations being uploaded all the time. We’ve even seen things somewhat outside of the box appear, such as the Deathmyself bomb for the H-Series. This is why, to my surprise, there hasn’t been a true working train mod in BeamNG.drive.
There was chris_lucas’ Planet Class locomotive which quickly became outdated with the 0.8 update. This mod provided a very small steam locomotive which required the user to toggle the fireman, pumps, and cylindercocks before firing up the engine. Although the mod is now outdated, it did provide an early glimpse into the future of trains in BeamNG.drive
Recently I also played through the most recent version of Occam’s Razer’s Crash Junctions campaign. This campaign was designed to be similar to the classic Burnout games where the player tries to crash their vehicle and cause as much damage as possible. Points are scored based on the amount (money-wise) of damage caused to the other vehicles. In one of the later levels, the author included a street car running on street-level tracks that the player had to crash into to start a pileup. When I did a bit of research into how Occam Razer was able to get the streetcar running on the tracks, I found a response to one of the reviewers where he stated: “On the surface and above, like any other vehicle. Below the surface, however, there’s a rectangular cage with four wheels on each corner, and each of those located on either end of the vehicle, just below the regular wheels. The underground wheels push off of the walls of a subterranean tunnel, to keep it all in line”.
Although as part of the mod download the streetcar is included for you to play in free roam, it can be a little finicky to drive and difficult to place on the tracks. However, like the Planet Class locomotive above, it gives us another glimpse into what the future of trains in BeamNG.drive might look like. With it being a three-car setup as well, it also can be great for leaving in a stationary state and crashing other vehicles into it, as seen in my School Bus Crashes 5 video.
Lastly, and most recently, chris_lucas has once again provided us with another train mod. This time, it’s the 50’s New York Subway train. After playing around with this mod for a while, I’m finding it to be much easier to place on the tracks and simple to drive. Although it takes a few tries sometimes to get it lined up perfectly on the tracks, once it’s on and in position, you’ll be flying around the map in no time! In the below video, you can see the fun I was having crashing it into various vehicles that got “stuck” on the tracks.
Now that I’ve had a chance to see (and try) a few of the different train mods available, I’m very optimistic for the future of trains in BeamNG.drive! I think we’ll continue to see improvements to the train mods that are being released and hopefully one day we’ll finally have a full implementation of an easy-to-use train system in BeamNG.drive. For now, you can check out some of the current train mods available as discussed in this post below:
Planet Class Locomotive (Outdated): https://www.beamng.com/resources/planet-class-locomotive.1396/
Crash Junctions (includes street car): https://www.beamng.com/resources/crash-junctions.1558/
1950’s New York Subway Train: http://chris-lucas.rf.gd/
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