All aboard! TripGeo Trains has left the station.

It's a cheerful 3D transport game that runs in your browser. You lay the track, build the stations, open the lines and buy the trains, and then the network runs itself while villages grow into cities around it. There's nothing to install, it's free to play, and there are no signals to set and no crashes to clear up, so you can get on with the fun part: building.

See it in motion

Here's a three-minute tour. Every shot is the real game: steam trains crossing iron bridges, airships drifting over skyscrapers, paddle steamers in the bay and, to finish, a fireworks display over the town.

Build it, then let it run

Drag out a line of track between two towns, drop a station at each end, open a line and buy a train. That's it. The train drives itself, picking up passengers, coal, iron ore, steel and more, and every delivery puts cash in the bank for the next stretch of line.

Railways are only the start. Run buses and lorries on the roads, send ships across the water and airships over the hills. There are 23 vehicles in all, from the 1830 Teakettle steam engine to the Comet high-speed train, the Paddle Steamer and the Sky Whale airship. The towns notice too: serve them well and they grow, from a handful of cottages to a skyline.

There are five landscapes to build on: Rolling Meadows, Coast & Bay, Archipelago, Highlands and Flatlands. Each one asks something different of your engineers, from bridging a winding river to climbing out of a deep valley.

Ride along

When you've built something you're proud of, go and look at it properly. Orbit any train, chase it down the line, sit up front in the cab, or drop to street level and watch the traffic go by.

Lessons, challenges and fireworks

Nine short lessons take you from your first dirt road to an export empire. After that, nine timed challenges award more stars the faster you finish, and five new daily challenges appear every day, the same for every player, so you can compare notes. Or skip the clock altogether and build whatever you like in Free Play.

And when the town has something to celebrate, deliver the fireworks and light up the sky.