— a transport management sandbox for Windows PC, coming soon

A railway, a loan and a map

NewCaptains is a transport management sandbox. You lay track and roads between towns and industries, buy vehicles at a depot, give them orders, and get paid for whatever arrives. The calendar moves through five eras, and the vehicles on offer change with it.

1. Lay track and roads

   Join a mine to a power station, a forest to a town. Drag a curve and see its cost and its safe speed before you commit.

2. Buy and run vehicles

   Buy a locomotive and wagons at a depot, write their orders and timetable, and send them out.

3. Haul cargo as the decades change

   Coal, wood, goods, food, water and passengers move between towns and industries while the years go by.

What is different, and how sure we are

The genre has rules everyone knows. Here is where this one bends them, graded by how much of it you could click on today. Jokes never outrank grades.

Tally: 6 run today · 2 built, not shown · 3 drawn, not built. The evidence-grade legend is the fine print; the fine print is the point.

Seventeen real captures, in two flavours

Real captures from the build’s own test runs. Nothing here is concept art. Some of the interface shows a “Proof world” badge, because these runs come from the test harness. Click one to enlarge it.

ShowcaseShowcase render. Two red electric trains on separate catenary-lined tracks between forest and a lake. One passes behind a tree. ShowcaseShowcase render. A steam locomotive hauls red open coal wagons round a curve of track across grassland, with a lake beyond. In-gameIn-game capture. The first-delivery celebration: fireworks over a train, and the guide reads ‘First delivery — 6.32 in the bank!’ ShowcaseShowcase render. Oblique aerial view of terrain: forested hills, small lakes and pale clearings, with sea at the top of the frame. In-gameIn-game capture. Looped and siding tracks laid in forest, with the ‘Your first route’ guide at step 1 of 9. In-gameIn-game capture. A green freight train at dusk on a narrow strip of land between water, with the toolbar and alerts panel around it. ShowcaseShowcase render. Close view of a black-and-red steam locomotive with an open wagon, smoke rising from the stack. ShowcaseShowcase render. A green diesel locomotive and boxcar beside a level crossing, with a red-and-white barrier and a road at lower right. ShowcaseShowcase render. Red and grey electric railcars on a raised track, overhead wires crossing the frame, water beyond. In-gameIn-game capture. A purple train and a green train on parallel tracks through forest, with the first-route guide visible. In-gameIn-game capture. The Town Actions panel for a town of 9,000: advertising, funding new buildings and exclusive rights, each with a cost. In-gameIn-game capture. Finances window, Vehicles tab: profit, income and running costs for two steam trains. In-gameIn-game capture. The depot panel: a steam locomotive and wagons with a BUY button. Plain debug-style text, for now. ShowcaseShowcase render. Close view of a road level crossing: concrete deck, two red-and-white barriers, a signal post and a single track. In-gameIn-game capture. Night view from height: a lit town grid and an oval of track picked out in lights beside a dark coastline. ShowcaseShowcase render. A green locomotive and boxcar, followed by log wagons, curving along a pale beach with the sea beyond. ShowcaseShowcase render. A low-poly cargo ship on a built channel, not open sea: open-water navigation is not switched on yet.

Day 3 vs day 18 the same project, fifteen days apart

The first commit was on 16 September 2026, so 18 September is day 3 and 3 October is day 18.

Debug viewerDay 3 · 18 SepDebug viewer, not the game. Debug viewer drawing a rail network as coloured lines and station markers. No terrain, no vehicle models. 18 Sep 2026. In-gameDay 18 · 3 OctIn-game capture. In-engine overview of looped tracks in a forested landscape, with the toolbar and the first-route guide. 3 Oct 2026.

Day 4 vs day 18 the same test shot, then and now

In-gameDay 4 · 19 SepIn-game capture. The earliest in-engine test shot: a plain light-blue box stands in for a locomotive on straight track. 19 Sep 2026. In-gameDay 18 · 3 OctIn-game capture. The same test shot, later: a red diesel locomotive on tracks at a crossing, with the interface around it. 3 Oct 2026.

How it works, with the covers off

Two halves that never reach into each other, one rule for curves, and a clock. Then the instruments: what we measured, when, and what it does not mean.

Two halves, one rule grade A · built and running

The curve rule grade A · slice one

The curve you drag is rounded to one of eight radii: 16, 32, 48, 64, 96, 128, 192 or 256 m. Max safe speed is the lower of the track class ceiling and a limit that grows with the square root of the radius.

Rule: max safe speed = the lower of (track class ceiling, √(radius × sideways acceleration)). Halve the radius and the speed falls by about 30 per cent. Tighter curves also cost more to lay, in proportion to (R + 2) ÷ R per cell step.

The clock grade A

The workings, in the game eight captures

Interface and instruments from the running build. The last one is the simulation’s own debug viewer, which is not the game and does not pretend to be.

In-gameIn-game capture. Curve-drag preview: a pale ghost curve across forest, and a ‘Curve plan’ graph of capital, cost per km and max safe speed. In-gameIn-game capture. A red preview where the layout is refused; the status line at the top says the track cannot turn 90 degrees here. In-gameIn-game capture. Orders panel: ‘Industry Hold 0 (plant 18) full load’, then ‘If load ≥ 80%, skip to order 1’, plus edit buttons. In-gameIn-game capture. Timetable tab of the orders window: headway groups, shared orders with another train, and travel and dwell time per order. In-gameIn-game capture. Finances, Payment rates tab: how payment falls with days in transit, one curve for each of six cargos. ShowcaseShowcase render. A signal post showing a red aspect beside curved track, in a test render of the model. ShowcaseShowcase render. Top-down test render of an S-bend, two curves of opposite hand, showing ballast and rails. Debug viewerDebug viewer, not the game. The simulation’s own debug viewer, not the game: stats, line manager, company ledger and speed telemetry around a yellow train.

On paper only grade C · drawn, not built

Telemetry as of 3 Oct 2026

Seven readings, each with where it comes from. The benchmark line is a benchmark of the simulation alone; it is not what the game window shows.

This is not NewCaptains. It is a small toy for passing the time on this page: two trains, one single track and one passing siding. Throw the switch before the red train reaches the points, so it takes the siding and the blue train can get by.

What we are trying to build

Seven pillars, and a list of things this will never be. Where a pillar is only partly real, it says so.

Eighteen days, in plain words

What happened, when. Everything below has been built; how much of it you could click on is what the grades above are for.

1. 16 Sep

   First commit. The simulation kernel runs 1,000 trains. Stations, orders, payment, signals and timetables follow the same day.

2. 17–18 Sep

   World generation, towns, water, air and vehicles by era; a fifty-year balance run; a first debug viewer.

3. 19 Sep

   The Unreal Engine client boots. First box on rails.

4. 20–22 Sep

   Terrain, water and the first vehicle models.

5. 21 Sep

   Buy a train from a depot. Save and load.

6. 23–27 Sep

   Switching, labour and inflation (on the simulation side), day and night, curved track, bridges, the first-route guide and town actions.

7. 28 Sep

   A quality programme starts with 94 work orders. It has since grown to 120.

8. 29 Sep – 3 Oct

   New-game options, undo, towns made of buildings, a front end, level crossings, free bridges, and an independent review of the whole project.

The schedule, arithmetic showing

A date with no working is a wish. This is the sum, the assumptions behind it, and the ways it goes wrong. It is arithmetic on stated assumptions, not a promise, and there is no store page yet.

What we observed

So the net burn-down is slower than the closure rate. Closing 6.7 a day while adding 4.5 a day leaves far less than 6.7 a day of real progress. That is the whole reason for the three scenarios below.

Three scenarios

Rates are rounded to one decimal; days are computed from the unrounded rates, so a hand subtraction on the rounded figures can differ a little. Dates run from 3 Oct 2026. The headline is the likely case; the window runs from fast to slow.

What would move it

• Scope growth. The list grew faster than it shrank this week. If that continues, every date slides.
• One change at a time. Only one change to the simulation core can be merged at a time, and most of what is left is that kind.
• One graphics test slot. Only one copy of the game engine can be tested at once on the one development machine.
• Store review. The plan allows four to six weeks, and it is outside our hands.
• Name clearance. The name has to be cleared before a real launch, and clearance takes as long as it takes.
• The art pass. The vehicles still read as programmer art with good silhouettes, and that is a job in itself.

Plainly: this is arithmetic on stated assumptions, not a promise. There is no store page, no price and no release date. If the list keeps growing as fast as it did this week, the sum gets worse, and this page will say so.

Station announcement: the Early Access service is delayed by an unspecified amount of scope.

Questions at the information desk