Boso View Express, or BVE for short, is one of those train simulators that have been around for a very long time but never quite managed to establish themselves at the top of the food chain, at least not here in the west. But if you want to simulate Japanese railways, BVE is essentially the holy grail.

You can find a huge variety of routes and vehicles, all of them with appropriate train protection and signalling systems courtesy of a highly-flexible plugin interface, for absolutely no money a...