Overview

Players invest in train companies to amass the most profits before the game ends. 2-6 players take turns either auctioning shares, developing locations or building trains to amass the most amount of money.

Game End

- one of the following ends the game

- the game ends after a dividend, not immediately

List of Conditions

- 3 companies runs out of shares (most common)

- 3 companies runs out of trains

- 3 or less development pieces are remaining

- players end the 8th round (Detroit's marker will exit the 8th space)

Actions

Auction

- minimum bid is the current value of the company divided by the shares out + the share being auctioned

- players bid in turn order

- passing means you are out of the bid

- winner places their money into the company's coffers

Develop

- developing a city/mountain/forest places a development house onto that space

- any company in a developed city or mountain increases their value by the number indicated in the development symbol

- any company in a developed forest receives $2 that goes into the company directly from the bank

- developing the industrial cities Pittsburgh or Wheeling slides the development marker to the next space on the right, meaning they can be developed multiple times

- Detroit cannot be developed by players and develops itself by 1 at the end of each dividend phase

Build

- players take 1-3 trains of a company they have a share of and place it anywhere on the board as long as it is connected to another train of the same color

- the company pays the cost of building which is the red number in the space it is entering

- only one company can be in an individual forest or mountain space

- cities and plains with companies in them increases the cost to place a train into that space which is the space's cost multiplied by the amount of companies already there

- companies increase their income value by the number indicated in the train symbol to the right of the red cost number, increased further if the space is developed

- the value of the industrial cities Pittsburgh, Wheeling and Detroit is located on a separate area near the bottom of the board

- only cities, industrial cities and mountains increase a company's income value

Null

- players can always take any action that's available and not do the action that corresponds with it

- particularly effective with the auction action to control game length

Wabash Railroad Company (black train)

- not available to auction until one of the other four companies enters Chicago

- one share is immediately auctioned when the first company enters Chicago

- starting train is placed in Fort Wayne with its marker being the value of the Fort Wayne space

Chicago Dividend

- when a company reaches Chicago, it pays a dividend only to that company after its value is increased by 7 (the income value of Chicago)

- only happens once for each company