How to play

The game in a minute

Each player runs a railroad company on one continent-sized map. You draw your own track between mileposts, buy bigger locomotives, and earn money by carrying goods from the cities that produce them to the cities that want them. Every stretch of ground takes only one line, so the railroads you race against shape the one you can build.

Starting money

50Mplus a Freight locomotive (an Express if the game was set up as a fast game)

Your hand

3 demand cardseach card lists three possible jobs; fast games deal four cards

Spend per turn

20Mon new track or on one upgrade

Goal

6 of 7 majorsjoined by your own track, with 250M+ in the bank

First, two rounds of building

The game opens with two building turns of up to 20M each and no trains on the map. Seat order goes forward for the first and then reverses for the second, which means the last seat builds twice in a row while the first seat waits. The app labels all of this the build phase; trains first roll on Turn 1.

Your turn

Every turn has the same two halves in the same order: you run the train first and build afterwards. Anything you lay this turn is ready for your train next turn.

1. 1 · Operation

   Drive your train up to its movement allowance. Along the way you can load goods where they are produced, unload them anywhere, and complete a demand card when you arrive with the right cargo. Loading and unloading use no movement, and you can mix them with moving in any order.

2. 2 · Building

   Spend up to 20M on track, or spend 20M on one locomotive upgrade instead — an upgrade uses up the turn’s whole allowance. There are no loans: you can only build what you can pay for today.

Laying track

A section of track joins two neighbouring mileposts. Its price is set by the milepost you build into — the one at the far end — so the same section can cost different amounts depending on which way you draw it.

One railroad, grown from one place · house rule

Your track is a single connected network. Your first section may start from any milepost of any major city. From then on, every new section must begin where your own track already reaches.

Reaching a major city gives you all seven of its mileposts to build from, since the city counts as one place. A major you have not reached yet is not a starting point — you get there by building.

Each turn you may lay at most 2 sections out of major-city mileposts per turn, added up across all the majors you build from.

A line, not a web · house rule

An ordinary milepost can hold at most 2 of your own sections. In open country your track is a line, not a web: it can bend but not split. Split it at a city, or at a junction city’s ring (see below). A rival’s track through the same milepost does not count against your two.

Sharing the map

• Between any two mileposts there is room for exactly one section, whoever builds it.
• A small city can be entered by 2 players and a medium city by 3; each player may run at most 3 sections into one.
• Nobody builds inside a major city’s hexagon, and no section may shut another player out of a major city. The app simply refuses a section that would break a rule, so an illegal line can never be drawn.

Moving freight

A train’s movement is counted in mileposts, not money: a mountain costs more to build across but no more to drive across. The cheapest line to build is often the slowest to run, which is why the app shows both the cost and the distance whenever it prices a route.

• Trains can only turn around in a city; any milepost of a major counts.
• A major city joins every player’s track that touches it, so any train may pass through, and goods may be loaded or delivered at any of its seven mileposts. Each milepost you pass through costs a movement point, the centre included.
• Cargo does not need a buyer to be carried, and you may leave a load in any city for free. Trains never get in each other’s way.
• To deliver, arrive at a city named on one of your cards with the goods it asks for. You collect the payoff, discard that card, draw a new one straight away, and keep playing your turn.

Junction cities

A small or medium city is forked once 3 or more sections run into it — all players’ track counted together, whoever built it.

In a forked city, your ring — the far ends of your own sections into that city — is exempt from the two-section limit, so your line may split there. Nothing else about the city loosens: you are still held to 3 sections into it.

You still grow only your own network. Rival sections help make a city forked, but you can never start building from their track.

All the usual limits still apply: the city admits 2 players if it is small and 3 if it is medium, prices are unchanged, bridges still add 2M, and you still have 20M a turn.

Winning

At the end of a round you qualify to win if both of these hold:

1. Network

   6 of the 7 major cities linked by one unbroken run of your own track.

2. Money

   Cash at or above the bar, which begins at 250M.

The round is always played out, so everyone gets the same number of turns. Then:

• No one qualifies: keep playing.
• One player qualifies: that player wins.
• Several qualify: look at the highest 50M line each one has reached (250, 300, 350…). A single player on the highest line wins. If two or more share it, the bar rises one line and the game goes on.

How the app plays fair

• It never suggests a route or a target. It prices whatever you point at and refuses what the rules forbid, but it will not highlight cheap ground or mark the cities your cards want.
• Everyone’s cards are public — you just have to look. Tap a player to see their hand, locomotive and cargo. The app will not plot their jobs on your map or bring them up for you.
• Money is public, but not pinned. The turn recap tells you who earned and spent what, and standings are one tap away; the map keeps the screen.
• No random events. No storms, strikes or breakdowns: the game is decided by the cards and the players.