A bit surprised no one (I think) has mentioned this.... https://store.steampowered.com/app/2192500/Train_Operator_377/ Basically a cab ride video you can control, but has things such as varying signalling/weather which I think is pretty cool. £8.50 as well which is not bad really, may have to purchase this... edit..well I did buy it, and first impressions are very good, quite a lot of cab functionality available and the driving experience feels v good! Fair play to the devs.
Sadly it's another video clip sim (from what I can see) so not really going to beat BML in TSC or TSW.
I stumbled across this on the British Ace channel. I have also purchased it, it is quite fun and the sounds are good. Obviously it has drawbacks, for example I got held at a red signal at the same time as the train was overtaking a six car class 171 formation, which of course also stopped when I stopped! It is okay for £8.50, I wonder if more routes might be added. There were some of these based on Railscene cab ride videos going back over 20 years, this is far better although as said it isn't going to usurp TSW or TSC, it is quite effective though.
Cab View Driver by Ashley Greenup. Very expensive and not that good, probably the worst of the video clip based sims. They were only popular because the choice up to then was either Simudrive with very basic text graphics, the SIAM driver offshoots also text based (both silent) or, if you could get it to work on an emulator, Paul Robin's Train Driver 3 which had a very rudimentary cab view (sort of chunky Minecraft style view) and some sound.
Yes, I'm enjoying it actually but there are the drawbacks as mentioned. I'm wondering if those kind of issues could be addressed by some sort of clever programming, will be interesting to see how they develop this. Maybe eventually a 360 camera? It's great to see real trains, people, scenery etc. It actually made me laugh seeing the signals overlayed by another signal, the signal bouncing around a bit to cover it up, but I actually like it as we get variation in each run.
Yes I only bought one and thought it was pretty naff. I think MSTS may have come out a couple of years later as that was much better of course. It would be good to see other routes, maybe Victoria to Gatwick or maybe some of the other routes out of London Bridge but I guess it is down to what videos are available. I wonder how many have been used to make this. Does open up other possibilities for other routes.
