After the 1.7 beta started in early March, it progressed rapidly to its final release on the default branch, 1.7.15. The game gained a variety of features during the 1.7 beta, like fixed departure times, an in-game shared games browser overlaid on the world map, shared game likes, and a couple mod cleanup tools.
After 1.7 was done work started immediately on 1.8. The main feature of 1.8 is a rework of train pathfinding, to solve long standing issues with how exactly train paths origin and destinations are represented by the game. If this effort is successful, it will lead to important improvements like making line timing more in line with real life. This work is ongoing as 1.8 is under private development, but in other areas a couple of new features have been implemented: an unified track append and branch tool and a shared games browser with a sortable listing. Read more in the March devblog:
https://carloscarrasco.com/nimby-rails-march-2023/