TrainController sales have ended in the USA: what it means and what your options are
TrainController sales in the United States ended on 30 June 2026. If you own it, nothing stopped working that day. If you wanted to buy it, add a module to it, or move up a version, that door is closed. Here is what actually changed, what did not, and the options in front of you.
What changed
What ended is the ability to buy. New licences, the separately licensed modules that make up a full TrainController installation, and paid version upgrades are no longer available to buyers in the USA. For a hobby where a complete setup is normally assembled over years, one module at a time, that matters more than it first sounds: the shape of your installation on 30 June 2026 is the shape it keeps.
What did not change
Your installation still runs. Your project file is still yours, still on your disk, and still opens. Your command station has not changed, your wiring has not changed, and your next operating session does not need you to do anything at all. Anyone telling you that you have to move this month is selling something.
We would rather say this plainly, because we are one of the people who would like you to move: a working railroad is not a reason to change software. The reason to look at alternatives is that you want something your current setup cannot grow into, or that you have lost the ability to buy the piece you were about to need.
Your options
Keep running what you have
A legitimate answer, and the right one for a lot of layouts. Take a backup of your project file, keep a copy of your installer and your licence details somewhere that is not the layout room computer, and carry on.
JMRI
Free, open source, and runs on Windows, macOS and Linux. It is the best answer in the world if what you want is a throttle, decoder programming and panels you author yourself, and it has an enormous community behind it. It asks more of you in setup than a commercial product does.
iTrain
A commercial, cross-platform program with schematic layout control and automatic operation, licensed by edition. Familiar ground for a TrainController user, because it works the same way: you author the blocks, routes and schedules.
LocoLink
Native on iPhone, iPad and Mac, with a Windows app, from EUR 3.99 a month. It is a good product doing a focused job: driving trains, a track plan editor, shuttle and timetable automation, and CV programming. If you want a throttle in your hand rather than an operating department, it is the shortest road. We wrote a straight comparison with LocoLink, including the rows where it wins.
RailScanPro with RailCommand
Ours, so read this one with the appropriate suspicion. RailScanPro is the operating system for model railroading: one platform that drives the hardware, enforces the operating rules, runs the operating session with its paperwork and its crews, and keeps the collection. It runs in a browser and on RailCommand Desktop for Windows, macOS on Apple Silicon and Linux, and it starts at $19 a month with a 30 day free trial.
The part that matters to a TrainController owner is that we read your file. Upload a .yrrg or .yrl layout up to 50 MB on the web and it is decoded into a staged preview you review one object type at a time: turnouts, toggles, signals, sensors, blocks, routes, connectors, controls, and your roster and trains when the file carries them. Whatever the decoder could not settle is shown to you as a row that needs an answer rather than filled in with a guess: a signal head whose facing is not readable, a train member whose orientation is not readable, a turntable ring size, an accessory address that two objects both claim. Nothing is written to your account until you press Create layout, and your TrainController installation is not touched at any point, so you can run both while you decide.
We also tell you what we cannot do. The public hardware page lists every command station driver that ships and rates each one by evidence rather than by how finished the code is, so you can see before you buy whether anyone has run your system on a real layout yet.
What to do this week
- Back up your project file, and put a copy somewhere off the layout room machine.
- Write down what your installation is: the edition, the modules, the version.
- Write down which command station and which detection bus you run.
- Then, and only then, look at alternatives against that list rather than against a feature grid someone else wrote.
Comparing your options
We keep a comparison of RailScanPro against TrainController, JMRI, iTrain and LocoLink, with a section on who should stay where they are.
Sources
The 30 June 2026 date is the vendor's own announcement of the end of USA sales. We have carried it since it was made, in the cost comparison footnote on our home page, and that footnote is where the figure on this page comes from. The links below are where other modelers are working through the same question, plus the alternatives directory and the vendor pages we read for the comparison, so you can check the landscape rather than take our word for it. Read on 12 September 2026.