It has been under development since 1996. It does feature accurate track and signals, quality sound and trains that react accurately to user control inputs.
Users can create their own route files with the editor available from the developers.
Many add-on routes are already available. The sim was designed for the Japanese version of Windows and does require some effort to make it run under English language Windows. It is primarily in Japanese. One of Japanese users of BVE has developed a support page for English speaking users here. This site offers unofficial English language support and versions of some of the software converted to work with English language versions of Windows.