From this city, what single track can I build that will make me the most money?

The “Suggest” button on the switchboard is fantastic for this. When you’ve got the city that you want to build from selected, hit the “Lay Track” button on the SB. Next, you’ll notice a “Suggest” button. This button was designed to help you figure out the most profitable single track you can build from the current city. Hit the Suggest button once, and it will show you the track that will give you the most money right off the bat. Hitting it again will cycle through the list, from most to least profitable connections.

Things to keep in mind with the Suggest button.

· It only takes into account your current network, and the networks of any competitors you have connected to

o As your networks grow, you may end up making more money off that city than it originally indicated because you and your competitors connect to more of its cargo destinations.

o For instance, you start in Hartford, and hitting the Suggest button does not indicate New York as a good choice. Clearly this is ridiculous. New York is a huge city, and has an enormous profit potential. However, if Hartford doesn’t share any cargo with New York directly, the Suggest button will not choose New York as a good destination.

· It has limited predictive ability.

o If you start in New York, and connecting to Montreal (two tracks North, beyond Albany) will net you $100 million dollars a month in revenue, but New York has no cargo for Albany, the Suggest button will never suggest Albany as a good choice, even though with one more track you’d be rolling in cash.

· It can be misleading when other people are already in the destination city.

o When someone else is in a city, it can be a little complicated trying to figure out how much money you stand to make by building a connection. The number that it shows is sometimes $0, and sometimes an amount higher than you will ever get. This is because it’s trying to calculate a rough estimate, based on your current network and competitor connections, whether or not anyone will ship anything on the route you construct, and if they do, how much on your track versus the competing lines. This is an extremely complicated guess to make, compounded further by the fact that the situation is changing constantly – new tracks are being completed all over the network, strikes and safety inspections are happening all the time, trade partnerships and rate wars swing the balance – requiring constant re-evaluation.

o Based on the difficulty of estimation when another railroad is present, you should take the figure it gives you as a good guess. It won’t be 100% accurate, but it will give you a ball-park figure.

How do I make the most money I can from this city?

This is a more involved, long-term process than “what is the most profitable immediate connection I can make?” In order to figure out how to milk a city for all its worth, you must understand its cargo delivery needs. Click on the city you wish to exploit, and then click on the “Details” button on the Switchboard.

Now you’re in the City Details screen. The majority of the screen is taken up by a scrolling list of all the cities that your city has cargo for. Say you selected New York – you are now looking at a list of places New York would like connections to. New York doesn’t really care if those connections are through you, or through a competitor, or a mixture of both. New York just wants to get its cargo to these other cities as fast as possible.

If you want to win in Rails, you must understand this concept – connect the major cities to their desired destinations with faster routes than your competitors, and you’ll make more money than them. So when you are looking at your network, find your largest cities and figure out where they want to connect. Keep analyzing your network as you expand, building connections as necessary, and you’ll find yourself making piles of money.

One further note: for the sake of simplicity, cargo shippers like to stick with just one railroad if they can. The paperwork of transferring cargo between railroad companies is a hassle that they will go out of their way to avoid. So if there is a very fast route between two distant cities, but it’s over the tracks of several different companies, the shippers may consider your slower but simpler route instead. Remember this when New York has cargo for New Orleans, and you’ve got track all the way to Mobile. Don’t stop there, connect all the way to New Orleans – open up access, collapse a shortline, anything you have to – uninterrupted service is well worth the effort.