At the time, this led Edge to rank it as the country's 54th-best-selling computer game released since January 2000. These numbers rose to 330,000 copies ($11.6 million) in the United States alone by August 2006. Train Simulator achieved sold 191,952 units in the United States by the end of 2001, which drew revenues of $8.7 million. Players need to stop and start the train, couple wagons, using the computer mouse, keyboard or a hardware addition such as Raildriver to operate the controls.

The simulation allows players to operate a train on various routes in Europe, Asia, and North America. It sold one million units worldwide by 2005.

Microsoft Train Simulator is a train simulator for Microsoft Windows, released in May 2001 and developed by UK-based Kuju Entertainment.