Thought I’d weigh in on this old thread…
I just finished the first design iteration of my Miskatonic backyard empire (to be built subsequent to my upcoming lottery win), and am finding Trainplayer invaluable for scoping out the operational side of things.
Trainplayer is not really for simulating real railroad operation, it’s just for simulating model railroads–a sim of a sim, sort of. Because of that, it’s simple and easy. Once you have a sketch of your plan input as a jpg, you can draw up the entire thing in half an hour and start running. You can quickly tell if you’ve put a turnout in the wrong place, made a runaround too short or whatever. Can also practice switching and different kinds of operation to figure out what you like and what you don’t.
So, you can spend the equivalent of a single G turnout to potentially save thousands of dollars and plenty of labor.
I understand not everybody cares for sims. Same thing in the pilot world. But it’s interesting that over in the pilot world, the cost equation is even more one-sided, and flight simulators are now a recommended part of a student pilot’s education.