I've discovered true happiness, and its name is Train Sim World 4

There are many ways to experience happiness. Some find it in friendship, food, or the warm embrace of a loved one. Others experience joy through fast cars, fine wines and private jets. There’s delight to be found in a crisp Autumn morning, or a child’s smile on Christmas morning. Happiness can be hard to define, harder to maintain, and evolves with age. Where once we found thrills in youthful mischief, now we map our runs on a Garmin watch. But for me, I think I’ve discovered what it means to be truly happy. And that comes in the form of Train Sim World 4.

I’ve long thought that when I grow older and the pace of life becomes slower, I’ll likely be a train guy. Not a trainspotter as such, more of a general rail enthusiast. I already find peace in long train rides through the British countryside. I can spend hours in a meditative state as I roll through English towns bafflingly named Chapel-en-le-Frith or Bognor Regis. In my eyes, there are few drinks more satisfying than a well earned train beer on a Friday evening.

But, short of going through months of training, meeting the competence, medical and psychological assessments, and completely devoting my life and work to the rails, I’ll always be just a passenger. That is, until I discovered Train Sim World 4.

Riding the rails

Train Sim World 4 puts you in the drivers seat of a fleet of locomotives. I can power a diesel crawler to the shores of Blackpool beach and charter the Flying Scotsman through the snow covered Swiss Alps. I’ve traversed the wheat fields of Somerset and manned the morning commute on the London Overground from Gospel Oak to Barking Riverside. I’ve chugged through the canyons of California at the helm of a London North Eastern Railway train, landing at my final destination 45 minutes late in true London North Eastern Railway style. I pull into a rainy Preston with a sense of achievement that simply can’t be replicated by pulling into a rainy Preston in the real world.

This is all done without the fear of repercussion and, more specifically, death. This can stem from departing a few minutes late from Dundee, to derailing a coal powered vessel just for the fun of it. I’ve ploughed head first into other trains on several occasion, something that would have severe ramifications in normal life. In Train Sim World 4, it’s just another day on the job.

Train Sim World 4 is not reinventing the wheel. From flying to farming, gardening to goats, there are no shortage of simulators out there. Yet I’ve been sucked into the joyful mundanity of Train Sim World 4, and that’s the beauty of it. I’ve found the greatest satisfaction in taking routes I travelled thousands of times before. I travel from Manchester not as a passenger surrounded by drunk men on the last train home, but as the ship’s captain. This time, I make the rules.