Lets remember this is a very ambitious deep realistic simulator that no traditional publisher would touch. I’ll deal with the UI annoyances and gameplay quirks. This game is still remarkably complex and deep, not to mention beautiful.
A note about station/track upgrading, I know when a local station gets upgraded, that station shuts down for several months while the lengthen the platform or add a track. This ads an element of realism, you not only have to weigh the benefits of the cost of the new station vs the limitation of the old one, you also have to factor in down time just as in real life. They got this right! …though a little cumbersome.
City growth is very dynamic, I like that I am not in control. The cities as far as I can tell, build in a very realistic pattern. Much more realistic than I would build a city. Commercial tends to increase for cities receiving large volumes of passengers, industrial grows if u feed alot of cargo. New development seems to spawn around bus stations. Feels very believable to me. I also like the fact that all trade comes from within the world based on real demand, not supply. There are no out of state visitors, commuters or cargo. This ads alot more control over growth than most people realize. Again, well done and ads a complex layer to decision making. If I build a train station here, will the town develop around it?
No X intersections, or no double forks?… There is a very simple reason for this. Signalling would be very complex. A signal protects the following block of track. It does not account for other lines or priority. In real life, this is all computerized with rules defined by engineers. I like the no X-ing rule.
I agree, the running costs of trains is excessive but that’s likely to be fixed with a patch. My only complaint is that trains can “turn around” which in real life is a very complex process. A wish list, is to have a freight train loco decouple the front, drive around and recouple the back after turning around or a multi head unit, just as they do in real life…. And slow time down.