In the world of PC or Console peripherals dedicated to simulators, there is a category that appears to be the poor relation: that of trains. The market is undoubtedly smaller than that of flight simulation or sports driving, so far no major manufacturer has offered peripherals to reinforce immersion by reproducing the controls on board a cockpit. of a train (except the Raildriver released more than 20 years ago now). Based on this observation, an active member of the Train Simulator community, CobraOne, has developed an interface allowing you to use any joystick to control your trains.
At the beginning, there was only the keyboard + mouse tandem or the Raildriver
The veterans of Train Simulator Classic and Train Sim World at Dovetail Games know well that to drive your favorite trains, for a very long time, there was only the keyboard and mouse or… the raildriver. Let's say it right away, when it was released in 2002, with all of its programmable levers and buttons, it represented the ultimate peripheral for any train simulation enthusiast. Indeed, even if primarily designed to reflect the driving of an American locomotive, there were enough different levers to adapt it to all types of locomotives.
It is therefore quite natural that Dovetail Games but also other train simulation publishers have supported this dedicated peripheral. Support for console controllers only came much later to make the game playable on XBOX (for Train Sim World in particular).
The RailDriver is still manufactured today and represents a valid option if you are ready to shed at least €400 by purchasing it from the European partner de XKEYS-UK (itself an English reseller of the official manufacturer PI Engineering). It can be found cheaper elsewhere (notably at Amazon US) but be careful, because once imported, you will have to pay VAT, customs taxes and management fees (in short, you will ultimately arrive at more or less the sum of 400 €). Not to mention that it will arrive with a power supply in English/American format. The European importer guarantees to send you the power supply in the correct format.
Alternatives at your fingertips: the use of joysticks or flight simulation peripherals
As we saw in the introduction, there is a multitude of flight simulation-oriented peripherals which could very well be used to simulate control levers and buttons found in train cabins. The only BIG problem so far was that none were supported by Train Simulator or Train Sim World.
The solution: Ts World Raildriver And Joystick Interface
CobraOne, an active member of the Train Simulator Classic community then Train Simulator World, managed to use the control library available in-game and in principle reserved only for the RailDriver to develop software now capable of supporting any peripheral recognized in Windows as a controller game.
To put it simply, it will emulate the presence of a RailDriver in the eyes of Train Sim so that your device can be recognized in the different locos.
How to install it and how does it work?
1ʳᵉ step: Retrieve the ZIP file (we have successfully validated version 2.0.0.4) available on the official software show, hosted on the Dovetail forums.
2nd step: Unzip the zip into a folder, for example, on C:\
3rd step: Make sure you have installed the DirectX SDK June 2010 then .Net 4.8 (in principle already present on Win10 and Win11)
4th step: Ensure that your Joystick or throttle equipment is recognized under Windows then launch the “TSW Raildriver And Joystick Interface.exe” file
However, you will probably have to uninstall the control software supplied with your throttle lever otherwise it will conflict with the utility.
5th step: follow the getting started guide available in PDF in the “manuals” sub-folder or further down in the article (translated into French).
Things to know Once in-game, you may need to perform a calibration via the Settings/Commands/Advanced commands menu.
The getting started guide and user manual available in French
To help you, and with the agreement of its author, we have translated the manual and the getting started guide into French.
And at Univers Simu, what do we use?
We chose the Logitech G Saitek Pro Flight Throttle Quadrant available for €65 at Amazon and which deserves to offer three levers each identified with a different cap visually and to the touch. This will cover almost all locomotives. There are also 6 programmable buttons at the base.