I'm playing around with OpenTTD at the moment. It's a clone of an original Transport Tycoon game, where you have to build a transport company taking goods and passengers using trains, trucks, planes, and ships, making as much money as possible. It's quite addictive, and Alex thinks watching all the trains is marvellous.

The officially released 0.5.3 runs quite happily on my FreeBSD 6.3 desktop system, but the betas of the 0.6 release haven't been ported yet. I've loaded them onto the dual booted Ubuntu Linux side of the desktop, and it's a huge improvement. It allows the use of improved graphics with different locomotives, industries, bridges etc. (including trams!) and allows for a lot variety.

As you can tell, it's quite addictive really. You spend ages trying to get your rail junctions and signalling just right so that everything runs smoothly without you having to watch it all the time, whilst the towns grow around you. My most successful company reached a bank balance of £165 million by the year 2030 (having started in 1950), but I've a long way to go yet. I'm still just learning how to built effective main line railways with proper junctions and signalling - rather than single use lines that just go to one town or industry and back again.

Anyway, if you're a frustrated model railway fan without the space (like me!) you might find it interesting. There are even versions for Windows.