Railroad Tycoon 3 is a video game, part of the Railroad Tycoon series, that was released in 2003.

With nearly 60 locomotives in the game (nearly 70 in the Coast to Coast expansion), the game has the most locomotives of the Railroad Tycoon franchise with locomotives from the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, South Africa, Poland, Russia and more even fictional locomotives like the E-88 and the TransEuro, the latter of which is a fictional name for the Eurostar.

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By May 2003, the game had been in development for one and a half years, after another one and a half years were spent on its game engine.^[3] In 2002, Phil Steinmeyer had expressed his dislike of 3D graphics in strategy games, and felt that his company's next project after Tropico "would probably look better in straight pre-rendered 2D".^[4] To manage the popping inherent to level of detail systems in 3D graphics, the team created as many as six variants for the game's vehicles, buildings and other objects. Steinmeyer gave the example of a building that went as high as 931 or as low as 55 polygons, based on the closeness of the camera.^[5] According to Steinmeyer, the Railroad Tycoon 3 team comprised 13 people and development lasted roughly two and a half years.^[6]

A port for Mac was published and developed by MacSoft, and released in 2004.^[7]

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Review scores

Publication	Score
Computer Gaming World	[9]
GameSpot	8.7 out of 10[10]
GameSpy	[11]
IGN	8.8 out of 10[12]
PC Gamer (US)	88%[13]
PC Zone	68/100[14]
X-Play	[15]
PC Format	71%[16]
Computer Games Magazine	[17]

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Railroad Tycoon 3 received "generally favorable" reviews, according to the review aggregation website Metacritic.^[8]

Johnny L. Wilson of Computer Gaming World praised Railroad Tycoon 3's visuals, as well as the detail of its "marvelous" economics simulation. He considered the sequel "more than a face-lift" that simultaneously possessed "all the features that made its predecessors great". However, Wilson criticized its use of certain train models in countries where they had historically been absent.^[9] Writing for X-Play, John Duggan called Railroad Tycoon 3 "a serious time suck and highly addictive." While he criticized its changes to the ledger interface from Railroad Tycoon II, he noted the sequel's "more sophisticated economic model", and summarized it as a "rewarding" experience.^[15]

GameSpy named Railroad Tycoon 3 the tenth-best computer game of 2003,^[18] and the year's best "PC Empire Builder" game.^[19] The editors of Computer Gaming World nominated it for their 2003 "Strategy Game of the Year" award, which ultimately went to Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic. They wrote that "PopTop Software has done an amazing job updating this venerable series", but found Railroad Tycoon 3 too lacking in innovation to win the award.^[20] The game was also a finalist for IGN's "Best Economic Simulation Game" and GameSpot's "Best PC Game" and "Best Strategy Game" awards, but lost to SimCity 4 and Rise of Nations in these categories.^[21][22][23]

Loco Commotion is a train-based puzzle game included on the play disc as a 141 MB optional extra. Loco Commotion involves solving routes and shunting puzzles by moving trains at precise times over increasingly difficult environments throughout the multiple levels.

The freeware expansion pack Coast to Coast contains some new locomotives, maps and scenarios. Among the scenarios are Imperial Russia and the People's Republic of China. There are unusual scenarios as well; including one in which the United States never underwent the Revolution, instead divided into seven separate nations. With the release of the Coast to Coast expansion pack, in addition to creating maps and scenarios, players were provided with tools to create custom logos, locomotive skins, and players.