When we started working on Rails Across America, we wanted to build a great multi-player strategy game. We bought everything that we could get our hands on, and we played a lot of combat-style tactical RTS games. But with the more strategic or economic games, we just didn’t have time! The games were so long that it would take a day just to get comfortably into the game, let alone finish one. All of us had jobs or family, and taking that much time to play a game just wasn’t in the cards.

So we set out to create a game that would let us play once or twice in a single evening, yet still contain a wealth of strategies to explore and territories to fight over. We wanted it to be fast, in-depth, and fun. And we wanted it to be about trains.

We love trains, and we loved the original Railroad Tycoon. What could be more fun than taking a strategy game we loved, and making it multi-player? But we soon found that we had to throw everything out and start fresh. The reason was scale. We wanted to play a game that would let us build across the entire continent, and operate hundreds of tracks and thousands of trains. We needed to streamline the play to be able to accommodate this. A perfect example of this in action is that we originally had a whole screen devoted to hiring your crew to build your tracks. You could assign foremen, different specialists, argue over wages, etc. When we realized that we would be doing this for hundreds of tracks, at the same time as your opponent was challenging you in some distant part of the map, we knew it had to go.

But while streamlining play meant making some things simpler, other things became much more complex. Our traffic routing system is extremely sophisticated. It has to be, because even though the player doesn’t have direct control over it, it has to operate realistically and believably. Building a single track can have very interesting rippling effects on traffic throughout the entire rail network. As in SimCity, direct control is limited, but the subtleties that arise are immense.

We love Rails. Which is a good thing, because we’ve played thousands of games of it since we started. We like it so much that it’s even slowed us down at times, because we would start a game to test a bug fix, notice Vanderbilt moving towards New York, head him off, and suddenly an hour has passed and we haven’t even tested the bug!

We hope you enjoy playing it as much as we’ve enjoyed developing it, and we thank you for purchasing Rails Across America.

Paul Canniff & Russell Williams

Game Designers, Flying Lab Software

Introduction

Rails is a game of prestige, not cash. You want to build up your company’s prestige by accomplishing goals, such as building the first Transcontinental line, the first Gulf to Canada line, moving the most traffic in a region, building the most track every year, etc. Although cash will certainly help you accomplish these goals, it is only a means to an end.

Rails is a competitive game. While you are trying to build up your network, your opponents will be trying to build up theirs, and there will be conflicts over important cities and routes. In addition to developing a superior building strategy, you can also use Influence to put a crimp in their plans. Influence lets you marshal your various resources (such as newspaper editors, union bosses, and congressional committees) to cause a strike on your opponent’s line, force a financial investigation into their activities, or expose some of their dirty dealings to the public and hurt their prestige.

Finally, Rails is a high-risk game of investment. If you overextend yourself, and a recession comes on, you could find yourself spiraling down into bankruptcy. But as in the real world, it’s sometimes possible to emerge from bankruptcy and go on to win the game.

Your First Game

The following instructions step you through a basic game of Rails. Because the computer opponents can follow many different strategies, the game may not play out exactly as described here, but it should be very close.

After you start Rails:

Press Single Player.
Press Regular Game.
In the Name column, set all but one computer opponent slot to None. You should have your name listed, and one computer opponent (AI –Random or a specific computer opponent).
Set your starting city to New York, and the computer opponent’s city to San Francisco.
Set your start year to 1870, and your end year to 1890.
Set your initial cash to 10 million.
Set Attacks to Never.
Press Start.

After the game starts, you will see the map with New York centered in the middle. A flag of your player color will be flapping in the breeze.

Click on New York.
Click Lay Track.
Click Suggest. Philadelphia should be suggested as the destination city. If it isn’t, click Suggest again until Philadelphia is indicated.
Click Purchase. The Track Details screen is displayed.
Click OK to accept the suggested name for your Railroad, or type in a different name and click OK.
You must now assign engines to your track. There are two slots: the one on the left is for Freight, and the one on the right is for Passengers. Drag the Consolidation engine card to the Freight slot (on the left) and then drag the Prairie engine card to the Passenger slot (on the right). The Consolidation is a good choice for carrying freight, as indicated by the green card. The Prairie is good for both freight and passengers, which is why its card is blue.
Let’s make these the default engines for future track. Underneath each card is a shield and the text “Use this engine…”. Click the shield for both slots. Now when you build new tracks, these engines will be assigned by default.
Click Close at the top of the screen. You are now back at the map.

You should see your first track being built. If you don’t, press the Z key to zoom in until you see it. While you are waiting for the track to be built, you will start another one under construction.

Click on New York.
Click Lay Track.
Click on Hartford.
Click Purchase. Since you have already set default engines, you don’t need to go to Track Details to assign them, so you just stay in the map. You should see your track start to build.

If you don’t understand what a control does, simply position your mouse over the control. This displays a tooltip that describes the control. Most tooltips have both What and Why information. The first popup explains What the control does; if you press the Alt key, you’ll get another tooltip that tells you Why you would use the control. Tooltips contain a great deal of information, and should help you learn the game without having to go to the manual all the time. Let’s try it with Lay Track.

Move your mouse pointer over the Lay Track button and leave it there until the tooltip appears. This first tooltip describes what the button does.
Press the Alt key. The tooltip now describes why you would Lay Track.

You can lay track from a city that has track connected to it, as long as the track is currently under construction. Since your track from New York to Hartford is currently being built, you can lay a track from Hartford to Boston right now.

Click on Hartford.
Click Lay Track.
Click on Boston.
Click Purchase.

Now you have two tracks under construction, and a third that will start building as soon as your track to Hartford is completed. After a little while, your track from New York to Philadelphia will be completed, and the trains will start running. Let’s check to make sure that we have enough engines assigned to it.

Click on the New York to Philadelphia track after it begins running trains. Above each engine are utilization lights. They tell you if you have enough engines assigned to carry the traffic. Right now, the light on the left side is red for both your freight and your passenger traffic. We need to add more engines.
Click on the center light for your Freight engines (the top train card). It immediately lights up, and you’ll notice that the number of engines assigned has gone up. You now have enough engines to carry the traffic.
Click on the center light for your Passenger engines (the bottom card). It doesn’t light up, but a light to the left of it does. That’s because there’s too much congestion on this track. Congestion occurs when there are too many trains on the track. The Congestion indicator lights are just above and to the left of your freight engines card. Because there is so much traffic between New York and Philadelphia, a lot of engines are needed to carry all that traffic. Unfortunately, they’re getting in each other’s way. We need to improve the track so it can handle all these engines.
Click on the up arrow for Signals, located below the engine cards. This replaces the signals with improved signals that allow you to run your trains closer together. This also allows you to run more trains on the track, thereby reducing congestion. If both congestion lights aren’t green, click the up arrow for Tracks. This double-tracks your line.

After all of this track building, you may be running out of cash. Check your cash at the top. If it’s less than one million, you should get a loan. Let’s get a loan right now.

Click the Financial button.
Click the Loans button.

You now see three loans on your left. They are all for the same amount, but the top one is a five year loan, the middle one is a ten year loan, and the bottom one is a fifteen year loan. The longer the duration of the loan, the higher the interest rate. Loans are structured so that you pay off the interest every month, but you only pay the principal at the very end, so you need to make sure you have the money to pay off the loan when it comes due.

Click on the 10 year loan.
Click Accept in the Loan Offer popup.
Click Close.

Soon your tracks will be completed. We should make sure that they have the right number of engines assigned to them. Rather than click each one, let’s do all of them at once.

Click the Track List button. This takes you to the Track List screen, which shows all of your tracks. The utilization lights for two of your tracks (New York to Hartford and Hartford to Boston) are red because they don’t have enough engines assigned to them.
Click on the middle light for freight and passengers for both tracks. If congestion for these tracks increases too much, you can improve your signaling and double-track from this screen using the controls on the right.
Click Close.

Now that you have your tracks in the green, you should be making quite a bit of money. Your Income at the top right of the screen shows how much you are making after you pay your maintenance costs. Maintenance costs go up when you improve your track, so only make improvements when you have to.

You now know how to purchase tracks, assign engines to them, balance those engines, and take out a loan. The next two things you need to learn are building toward goals, and using Influence.

Since you have started in the East, and your only opponent is in the West, you should be able to build the Gulf to Canada. This is a major project, and will earn you much prestige in the public eye when you have completed it. The Gulf to Canada requires you to have a route connecting a port city in the South to a Canadian city.

Build tracks to the following cities: Hartford to Albany, Albany to Montreal, Philadelphia to Washington DC, Washington DC to Raleigh, Raleigh to Columbia, Columbia to Augusta, Augusta to Montgomery, and Montgomery to Mobile. Once you have completed these tracks, an announcement of your completion of the Gulf to Canada pops up, listing the number of prestige points you have earned for completing this project. Don’t build your tracks more than two at a time, or you may run out of cash and require further loans. Keep in mind that you can’t have more than five tracks under construction at any time.

While you were building your track, your opponent wasn’t idle. If you scroll the map over to the west coast, you will see his tracks. Influence lets you directly interfere with your opponent’s plans. Let’s try it!

Click the Politics button. From the Politics screen, you can define your allies and enemies. You can also use Influence against them.
Click the Influence button next to your opponent’s name. You are now in the Influence screen. While playing the game, you may have noticed cards appearing in the top left of your screen and then going away. These are Influence cards. They represent special groups that you can control and use against your competitors. The buttons on the left indicate the actions that you can perform against your competitor. If a button is lit up, it means that you have enough cards to attempt that action.
Click on one of the lighted buttons. (If there are no lighted buttons, try coming back here later when you have more cards.) A description of the action is displayed at the bottom of the screen. The cards that will be used are automatically selected. You can click on cards to remove them from the attack, and click on them again to add them back.
Click Do It. The Influence Attack screen opens, and you see your cards attack your opponents. If you have more cards than your opponent, then the attack succeeds. If you don’t, the attack fails.

There is a lot more to the game, but this should be enough to get you started. Read on in the manual for more information, and be sure to use tooltips on controls that you don’t understand.

The Startup Screen

The Startup screen has the following sections:

Main Menu

The Main Menu shows the various launch options:

· Quick Start: Starts the game with the last settings used to start a Single Player game, or the default settings if no game has been played since it was originally installed.

· Single Player: Opens the Single Player game area. From here you can start a new single player game, play a specific scenario, or resume a saved game.

· Multiplayer: Opens the Multiplayer game area. See Multiplayer for detailed information about setting up a Multiplayer game.

· Encyclopedia: Opens the Encyclopedia. The Encyclopedia tells you all about the engines used in the game and when they were in service.

· GameSpy: Closes Rails and launches GameSpy. GameSpy is a free matchmaking service on the Internet that will help you find your friends and start a game of Rails with them. GameSpy is the easiest way to start a multiplayer game across the Internet.

· About: Opens the credits screen where you can learn who did what on Rails.

· Quit: Quits the game back to your Windows desktop.

Single Player Area

This area has the following elements:

· Player Name: Shows the name by which you will be known in the game. Click in the box to edit your name.

· Regular Game: Opens the New Game screen, where you can configure and play the standard game.

· Scenarios: Opens up the Scenarios screen where you can select a game already configured based on an historical situation. You can also choose to focus on a particular aspect of Rails.

· Resume Game: Opens up the Resume screen where you can continue a saved game.

The New Game Screen: Single Player

This is where you configure the game that you are about to play.

· Player List: This area contains all the slots that can be filled with players along with all the settings that can be made on a per-player basis. Each slot has the following elements:

Player Dropdown: This dropdown lets you select your computer opponents.

o None: Select this option to limit the number of your computer opponents.

o AI-Random: Select this option to use a random computer player for this slot.

o AI-Select: Select this option to go to the Competitors screen. Click on a portrait to view information about an opponent, and then click the OK button to confirm the currently selected computer player and return to the New Game screen. Click Cancel to return to the New Game screen without making any changes.

Starting City: Use the arrows to select starting cities for you and your opponents. (Use the mouse wheel to move quickly through the cities.) You can also select a region or country (such as the Northwest or Canada) as your starting point. When you select a starting region, your starting city is randomly selected from one of the cities in that region or country. If you select “Random”, you may start almost anywhere on the map.

Note: Some of the cities that appear on the map are not available in the list. These cities have so little traffic that they’re prohibitively difficult to start from. These cities are also not used when picking a city randomly.

Logo: There are 30 different logos from which to choose.

Color: There are 12 different player colors.

Start: Starts the game with the settings that you’ve chosen.

§ Game Settings

§ Map: Change the game map to any installed map.

§ Start Year: Determines the starting date of the game. Initially set to 1870, you can choose any year in the range 1830 – 2015.

§ End Year: Determines the end date of the game. Initially set to 1885, you can choose any year in the range 1835 – 2020.

§ Initial Cash: Defines the starting cash for players. The increments are 500 thousand, 750 thousand, and 1, 1.5, 2, 2.5, 3, 5, 7.5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 40, and 50 million.

§ City Select: This option can only be used in multiplayer games.

§ Influence Attacks: Common, Rare, and Never. This control allows you to reduce or turn off the computer opponents’ use of Influence attacks. They will only use the cards for defense or sell them for extra cash. This setting does not affect you or other human players.

§ Difficulty Level: Very Easy, Easy, Normal, Hard, and Very Hard. This allows the players to make the game easier for humans and harder for the computer players. It changes the amount of cash made from traffic carried, and changes the cost of Managers. The following table shows the effects of difficulty level on cargo income and manager salary:

Difficulty Level	Cargo Income		Manager Salary
	AI	Human	AI	Human
Very Easy	92%	120%	100%	50%
Easy	96%	110%	100%	80%
Normal	100%	100%	100%	100%
Hard	110%	96%	100%	100%
Very Hard	120%	92%	100%	120%

§ Bankruptcy is Fatal: Turning this option on results in any bankrupt player being put out of the game. If this option is off, the player can exit bankruptcy and possibly go on to win the game.

§ Strict National Borders: In order to protect domestic competition, foreign railroad companies are not allowed to build from a domestic city to another domestic city, although they can connect from a foreign city to a domestic city. The only way that you can break into a foreign country is to buy a track that is within the foreign borders. Turn this option On to protect against competition, or Off to allow free access into a foreign country.

The Scenarios Screen

You can choose to play pre-designed historical and alternate history scenarios from the Scenarios List.

· Scenario List: Click on a scenario to select it.

· Scenario Description: Briefly explains the selected scenario.

· Play Scenario: Selecting Play Scenario takes you to the New Game screen with the settings defined by the chosen scenario.

· Cancel: Returns you to the Main Menu.

The Resume Game Screen

The Resume screen is used to play a previously saved game. It contains the following elements:

· Saved Game List: This box contains all of your saved games, shown with the most recently saved game at the top of the list.

Rails automatically saves your game every five years of game time. Only the most recent of these automatically saved games are listed. as Automatically saved games are called “AutoSaved Game”.

· Game Name: When you select a game from the game list, the name appears here.

· Delete Game button: Deletes the selected saved game.

· Mini-Map: When you select a game, a map showing the tracks constructed by all companies is displayed.

· Player Status: This panel displays each player’s logo, name, Company, Prestige, and Net Worth at the time the game was saved.

· Load button: Resumes the selected game so you can continue play.

· Cancel button: Closes the screen and returns you to the Main Menu area or to the game in progress.

Multiplayer

The Multiplayer area has the following elements:

· Connection Type: Choose the method you will use to connect to other players. The options are Local (LAN) – TCP/IP, and Internet – TCP/IP. The default option is Local. If you select Internet, then click the Connect to… button to open the dialog box that allows you to connect to a computer on the Internet. You will need to know the host’s IP address. Players can find your IP address on the New Game screen when you host a Multiplayer game.

· Connect To: There are two main elements to this box:

§ Previous Hosts: Lists the last eight hosts that you have connected to.

§ Enter Host Machine Name or IP Address: Type the machine name or the IP address that you wish to connect to, and then click OK.

When you exit the Connect To screen, any games currently in progress are displayed.

· Game List: Lists the various games that you can access based upon your connection. Keep in mind that you can only play against a player with the same version of the game, so if one player is running the game with a patch, all players must run the same patch to play.

The list is updated every three seconds. If you have chosen Local, then all of the games currently waiting for players on the same LAN subnet are displayed.

· Host Regular: Click to host a regular game. This takes you to the New Game screen.

· Join: Click to join a game. This takes you to the New Game screen.

The New Game Screen: Multiplayer

This screen is the same as the New Game screen for a Single Player game, with the following exceptions:

· Player List: You can have both human and computer players. You can only modify your own slot, unless you are the Host. The Host can modify any slot, which makes him solely responsible for adding computer opponents and changing the Game Settings.

§ Player Dropdown: This dropdown menu has additional options: Open, and Closed. A human player joining the game is assigned to the first Open slot, and the player’s name is added to the dropdown at the top. Closed means that this slot is closed to both human and computer players.

§ If there are no Open slots available when a human player attempts to join a game, the player will be rejected.

§ Ready: Checking this box indicates that you are satisfied with the settings, and you are marked in the Players List as being ready to play. The game cannot start until all players indicate that they are ready. If other players make a change that could affect the game, then your Ready checkbox will be automatically unchecked, and you will have to click the Ready button again. For example, the Host may change the starting money value, or a player may change his starting city.

§ Ignore Changes: This checks the player’s Ready checkbox. It will stay checked regardless of any changes made by the Host or other players.

§ Start: This button is only seen by the Host. When all players have checked their Ready to Start checkbox, the Host can start the game by clicking the Start button. The Start button is disabled until at least one player has joined. It also remains disabled if any of the players have not checked the “Ready” box.

§ Ping: Displays the last checked ping time in milliseconds.

· Game Settings:

§ City Select: Choose, Host, or Random. Choose allows players to pick their own cities. Host prohibits players from picking their own city (only the Host can change cities). Random starts everyone at a Random city.

§ Allow Cheat Codes: On or Off. Allows the players to use cheat codes in the game if they have them.

§ Anyone Can Pause: On or Off. If this control is On, any player can pause the game. If the control is Off, only the Host can pause the game.

§ Anyone Can Set Speed: On or Off. If this control is On, anyone can set the speed of the game. If the control is Off, only the Host can change the speed of the game.

Chat Area

Players can send messages back and forth to each other while they are waiting to start the game. To send a message, click in the box at the bottom of the screen and type your message. Press “Return” or “Enter” to send the message.

Players can also chat during a multiplayer game. Click on the Chat button near the bottom of almost any screen (or press Tab) to bring up the Chat dialog. In the New Game screen, all messages go to all players listed in the player list. During the game, you can send messages to everyone or select specific players. Naturally, you cannot exchange messages with AI players.

Playing the Game

The Main Screen

Most of the action in Rails takes place on the Main Screen. The largest element of this screen is a scrollable map. It shows details such as lakes, oceans, cities, and, of course, railroads.

Zooming

There are two zoom controls: one to zoom in (a magnifying glass with a + sign), and one to zoom out (a magnifying glass with a – sign). You can also press Z to zoom in and X to zoom out, or you can use the mouse wheel to move in and out. There are four levels of zoom:

Territory View

This view shows the broadest map area, and gives you a good overview of a larger railroad, showing it as a schematic outline. This is the widest zoom view.

Regional View

This view is zoomed in closer than the Territory view, but the track is still shown schematically.

Track View

This view shows a close-up of the countryside with the trains running along the track.

Train View

This view shows the countryside in greatest detail, and is the best view for watching trains or looking at the various animations.

You can select items on the map and see details about them on the right side of the screen in the Switchboard.

The Switchboard

This is the main interface for Rails. It includes the following information:

· Date: Displays the current date as Month, Year (e.g., August, 1822).

· Cash: Indicates how much money you currently have.

· Committed: Indicates how much money you have committed to spending on track under construction. This is not taken out of your Cash reserve until it is actually spent, so it is a reminder of future capital expenses.

· Income: Indicates your cash flow over the last month, and can be either a positive or negative number (a negative number is displayed in red). Your cash flow is calculated using the following formula:

Revenue from Delivered Cargo – Maintenance Cost of Trains and Tracks – Interest Paid for Loans

Your Income is not affected by capital purchases or expenditures; that is, track construction/improvements and train purchases are not counted against Income.

· Prestige: Prestige is a numeric representation of how well known, respected, and feared a company is. It is the basis by which victory is determined. For more information, see Winning the Game.

· Track List: Displays the Track List screen where you can manage all of your tracks at once.

· City List: Displays the City List screen where you can examine all cities.

· Financial: Displays the Financial screen where you can manage your loans, analyze trends, pay dividends, and manage bankruptcy.

· Politics: Displays the Politics screen, which allows you to determine your friends and foes and use your influence against them.

· Shortlines: If there are any shortlines in the game, Find Shortline moves the map to center on the most lucrative shortline and selects it. Pressing the button again goes to the next most lucrative shortline. If there are no shortlines currently in the game, the button is disabled. For more information, see Shortlines.

· Controls: Displays the Control Panel, where you can set game speed, sound volume, save the current game, etc.

The Tickertape Bar

The tickertape bar at the bottom of the screen reports all news, chat (in multiplayer games only), and alerts. The Up/Down buttons allow you to move through the last 50 lines of messages. Messages may have a “Goto” button that appears in front of them. This Goto button lets you take the appropriate action for each message. For example, if the message is about a city, clicking on the button will take you to that city. If the message is a chat message from another player, clicking on the button will reply to that message.

Goals

Click this button to view the goals for the current game, including:

· Any specific instructions for the scenario.

· Any specific settings used for this game (such as difficulty level).

· A detailed list of the Prestige awards in the current game.

Details

You can get more information on cities or tracks simply by double-clicking them. Double-clicking one of YOUR tracks will open up the Track Details screen for that track, and double-clicking ANY city will open the City Details screen for that city. These screens are covered in more detail below.

Tooltips

Tooltips are revealed by positioning your mouse over most buttons, controls, a map object such as a city, and other areas of interest. That area can be a control (button, list box), a graphic (player logo), text (bankruptcy description), or a map object (tracks and cities). Position your mouse over the item until a blue box appears containing information about the item. The first tooltip that pops up explains the function of the selected object. Press the Alt key to view a more detailed tooltip that explains why you would use that object.

Building Your Network

You can only build track from a city that you're already connected to. At the beginning of the game, this means you need to start from your Home city (the one with the waving flag). If you’re having trouble finding your home city, press “H” and the map will center on your home city and select it.

Laying Track

With your home city selected, press the Lay Track button. Next, select the city that you’d like to connect to, or press the Suggest button to automatically select the most desirable city based on traffic. Press Suggest again to cycle through all of the recommended cities. Selecting a city displays the potential traffic waiting to move that would now be deliverable by connecting the two cities, and how much revenue you will earn if you carry it.

Depending on your goals, it may be wise to consider the cities marked in yellow. The green cities recommended by the game are the best economic choices, but may not be the best choice if you are in a hurry to reach a specific destination city.

Generally, it is best to complete profitable lines to key locations early in the game. This will generate income, which is necessary for the continued operation of your railroad. Once you have established your major routes, build feeder lines to local towns that have something to offer. Keep in mind that towns change with time, and may generate more or less traffic for you to carry.

In addition, the Build Track section at the bottom-right of the Main Screen indicates the following:

· Cost of Right of Way: You pay this amount immediately upon purchasing the track

· Construction Cost: The amount that it will cost to actually construct the track. You pay this over time as you are constructing your track.

· Build Time in Weeks

· The value of a land grant if one is available. A land grant is an incentive to build to a city that may not have enough traffic to otherwise make it worth your while. Land grants are shown as dollar signs next to the city. If you position your mouse over a dollar sign, a popup informs you how much the land grant is for and when it expires. If you have not completed the track to the city before the grant expiration, you won’t collect the grant. Land grants are very prevalent in the West between 1830 and 1880.

· Transit Time: The time it will take your current average train to cross the track. If the transit time is long, consider pressing the Fast button to build a more direct (but expensive) track.

Cities on the map are color coded to indicate their desirability:

· Green: There is traffic waiting to be moved between the cities. Although this will generate some income, there may not be enough traffic to make the track profitable once you account for maintenance costs.

· Yellow: There is no new traffic waiting to move, although you may get a share of existing traffic by carrying it on your rails instead of a competitor’s. You may not profit from this track until traffic becomes available.

· Purple: You cannot afford the right of way cost needed to purchase the land for this track. More money is required to build to the city.

· Red: It is illegal to build to this city, usually because the city is too far away, or because it does not have any available access slots. Each access slot accommodates one railroad company, although that company may have multiple tracks to the city. If a city has two access slots, for example, only two railroads may connect to it, although each railroad may have multiple tracks. For more information, see Access Slots.

Limits on Laying Track

There are two limitations on laying track:

· You can only have up to five tracks in progress at any time. You cannot lay another track until one of the five is completed.

· You can only lay tracks from cities that have connecting track that is either completed or is currently under construction. You cannot lay track from a city that only has a right of way connecting to it. Example: If you lay a track from New York to Hartford, and then immediately lay a track from Hartford to Boston, you will not be able to lay track from Boston until the New York to Hartford segment is completed.

Deciding the Path of Your Track

Once you have selected a city that you want to build to, you can decide the exact path that the track will follow. The default path chosen for you by the computer is generally fine. However, you can also use the Cheap, Medium, and Fast buttons to change the track route. Cheap will build the track as cheaply as possible, but it may be longer or have severe gradient changes that will slow down your trains. Fast will build the shortest track with the fewest gradient changes, so that your trains will run as fast as possible. Unlike Cheap, Fast will not avoid expensive squares such as tunnels and bridges, always taking the most direct route. The differences between Cheap and Fast are more dramatic when you build through mountainous areas. Clicking a different option immediately redraws the track according to the new setting.

To force the track to build through a specific area, click anywhere on the dotted line track and, while still holding down the mouse button, drag the cursor to the area that you want to build through. This creates a key square, which is an area that the track must build through. You can also click on the track, click the Add Key Square button, and then click in the map. You can add up to 9 key squares to make the track go exactly where you want. Whenever a new Key Square is created, the track is automatically drawn to accommodate all the Key Squares. To delete a Key Square, simply click on the Key Square, at which point the Add Key Square button becomes the Remove Key Square button. If the Key Square is removed, the track is immediately redrawn to accommodate the new Key Square arrangement.

If you click on a section of track that could use a tunnel, the Tunnel checkbox will appear. Checking it will add a tunnel to that section of track. If you decide that you want to remove a tunnel that’s been added, click on it and uncheck the checkbox. Tunnels cost quite a bit of money, but will help your trains move much faster through steep gradient changes, and may be required in more mountainous terrain.

Once you’re done making your changes, click Purchase.

Changing Conditions

Until you confirm your track purchase with the final press of the button, other players may build tracks to the same cities. There are two specific issues which may force you to change your plans:

A competitor builds out of the Destination city, taking the last Access Slot available. Any time this happens when laying out the track, you will receive a message telling you that the city no longer has any Access Slots.
A competitor may buy some of the right of way that you were intending to use. If this happens, you will need to redo your track.

After You Purchase Your Track

When you purchase your first piece of track, the game automatically suggests a name for your railroad. If you want to use a different name, type it in the field and click OK.

When you purchase a piece of track, you are immediately charged a Right of Way cost, after which construction of the track begins. As the track is built, you pay the Construction Cost for the piece of track that you’re working on.

The Track Details Screen: New Track

As soon as you purchase your track, you are taken to the Track Details screen. From here you assign trains from the Engine Pool (the engine cards on the right hand side of the screen) to your track. There are two slots for your track: the Freight slot and the Passenger slot. To assign an engine type to a slot, drag an engine card from the Engine Pool to one of the slots. Each train is composed of an engine, possibly a tender, and a variable number of cars behind it. The engine types are color coded:

· Green: Good for freight.

· Purple: Good for passengers.

· Blue: Good for either freight or passengers.

· Yellow: Electric engines. Requires that the track be electrified. Usually good for both freight and passengers.

Adding Engines

There can be up to ten different classes of engine available to choose from at any one time. Each engine has the following characteristics:

· Engine Name: The name of the train.

· Engine Picture: A picture of the engine.

· Upgrade: Click to replace the engine with a different engine. See Upgrading Engines.

· Number: The number of engines assigned to the track. Use the up/down arrows to set the number. When the card is in the Engine Pool on the right, this is replaced by a box with two numbers. The top number indicates the number of engines currently in the Pool. The number on the bottom indicates the total number of these engines that you own. So, if the numbers are 35/90, then you have 35 engines currently unassigned to any track sitting in the Pool out of a total of 90. This means that you have 55 engines currently assigned to track. In general, it’s not a good idea to leave a lot of engines in the Pool, since you do pay a small maintenance cost for them. However, if you don’t have money to buy new engines, you may want to keep a few unassigned engines around to put on new tracks under construction.

· Cost per engine: The current cost to purchase a new engine.

· Maintenance: The maintenance cost per engine per month.

· Efficiency: This is a rating of how much time the engine spends actually pulling carloads versus how often it is in the shop being maintained/refueled. If one engine is twice as efficient as a second engine, then running the first engine is like running two of the second engine. Efficiency is why electric engines are so useful, because they are much more efficient than any other engine.

· Carrying ability: Displays the number of cars that can be pulled and the speed in miles per hour. For example, 45 @ 30 mph. 45 is the number of cars that can be pulled, and 30 is the miles per hour. There are ratings for both Freight and Passenger cars. Freight cars tend to be heavier than Passenger cars, and therefore slow down the train.

When dragging a card, you can hold down the shift (5 engines), Control (10 engines), and Ctrl-Shift (50 engines) keys to move multiple engines at once. Once you have a locomotive assigned to a slot, you can add more engines by using the up/down arrows on the card. The number of engines that you have assigned to the track is reflected in the length of the trains on the map. If you have a few engines assigned, the train will only consist of a few cars. If you have a lot of engines assigned then the train will be much longer.

The most important information about each engine is available on the cards.

You can find out more background about each engine by clicking on the engine name, which will take you to the Locomotive Encyclopedia.

Using Default Engines

The “F” and “P” shields beneath each train slot allow you to automatically assign an engine to the Freight slot (F) or the Passenger slot (P) for new tracks. This means that you do not have to open the Track Details screen to assign new engines every time you lay track.

Once you’ve assigned your engines, click the Close button. If you want to implement your changes without leaving the screen, click Apply. Construction of the track begins, and when it is complete, the trains that you assigned to it will begin to run.

Track Under Construction

While your track is under construction, you can double or triple-crew it to increase the speed of construction. Click on the track and then click the up arrow next to the shovels. Each shovel represents a crew shift, up to a maximum of three. Running two crew shifts will increase construction speed to 150% of normal, and three crews will work at 200% of normal, but the costs are double and triple. Double- and triple-crewing costs a lot of money, so use this option wisely.

If you run out of money while you’re building a track, you’ll get a warning alert and construction on the track will stop. You can see the status of a track under construction by clicking on it and then noting the Track Status button in the bottom right of the Switchboard. If it says “Working”, then construction is proceeding normally. If it says “Stopped”, then the workers are halted. As soon as you get some cash the work will start again. If you’re low on money, you may want to halt work on less important tracks to save cash for the important ones. To do this, click on the Track Status button so that it says “Stopped”. It will remain stopped until you click the button again. Track construction may also stop if your rail line is hit with a Safety Inspect or Sabotage, instigated by a competitor.

The Track Details Screen: Existing Track

Freight and Passenger slots each have their own utilization indicator. Utilization indicates how well the potential of the track is being exploited, and is indicated for both passengers and cargo. Utilization is your Capacity divided by your Traffic. You want your capacity to match your traffic, so the best utilization that you can get is 100%. If you run more trains than needed, then you are paying more than you should for maintenance. If you are running fewer trains than needed, then there is traffic that is backing up that may go to a competitor. If traffic backs up too much, it won’t even be shipped, and you won’t make any money from it.

Utilization is shown as a series of lights laid out as a horizontal scale. 100% is located in the middle of the scale. The following table indicates the appearance of the lights as they reflect Utilization:

Condition	Light
0%	The light is replaced with a box that says “No Service”
1 – 74%	First light on left is red
75 – 89%	Second light is yellow
90 – 99%	Third light yellow
100 – 119%	Fourth light green
120 – 149%	Fifth light green
150 – 199%	Sixth light green
200 – 299%	Seventh light yellow
300 – 999%	Eighth light yellow
Greater than 1000%	Ninth light red

One quick shortcut for adding/removing trains is to click on the specific Utilization light that you want to run your track at. For example, if the left-most light on the Utilization light is glowing, and you click on the center green light, enough additional engines will be assigned (and purchased if necessary) to get the Utilization up to that green light. Adjusting the trains via the Utilization lights errs on the side of too many trains, so it will always assign a minimum of one train as long as there’s any traffic at all.

Managers

You can hire a manager (at a fixed monthly salary) to automatically add or remove engines as needed to your track, although you must still perform major track upgrades yourself. Managers are particularly effective when you have a lot of traffic on your track, or when you need to focus your attention on a strategic goal that does not require direct supervision of a particular track. It’s generally wise to manage your tracks yourself during the start of a game. This allows you to “keep in touch” with your railroad’s development, and will save you precious money early in the game.

You can automatically assign Managers to new tracks by clicking the Hire Managers for New Tracks button. You do not pay a fee for this Manager until the new track is constructed.

When you hire a Manager, the Hire Manager button turns into the Fire Manager button. There is no penalty for dismissing a manager.

Congestion and Track Improvements

Congestion indicates the amount of traffic on your track. If your congestion is high, traffic will move over your track much more slowly, and your route will be less desirable to shippers.

The congestion indicator is made up of two lights. If they are both green, then you are running well under your track’s capacity, and your trains will move at full speed. Two yellow lights means you are running at or close to maximum capacity. Your trains will run a little bit slower to make sure they don’t collide with one another. A red light indicates that trains are being forced to slow down significantly due to congestion. With two red lights, your track has a very serious congestion problem, and your trains are running a lot slower. More engines and greater speed increase congestion. More tracks, improved signaling, and longer trains lessen congestion.

Congestion is rated from 0-200%, where 100% is the full capacity of the track segment. Congestion is color coded by range, and appears in the signal lights:

Congestion Range	Color
0 – 99%	Both green
100-110%	Green over yellow
111 – 125%	Both yellow
126 – 150%	Yellow over red
> 150%	Both red

The controls to improve your track to reduce congestion are immediately below the congestion lights. You can:

· Double-track, triple-track, or quadruple track: This builds extra parallel tracks, allowing you to run trains in both directions simultaneously. This is a very expensive option, but it dramatically increases your capacity.

· Upgrade your signaling: Each upgrade allows you to run your trains closer together and faster, which decreases congestion. Upgrading your signaling is the cheapest way to reduce your congestion.

· Electrify your track (if available): this will allow you run electric engines, which are much more efficient than normal engines. Electrification is extremely expensive to purchase and maintain, but it’s cost effective for extremely high volume tracks.

· Upgrade your trains: Upgrading to more powerful trains (if available) will allow you to pull more carloads with each train, which again reduces congestion. Upgrade your engines by clicking the up arrow on the engine card. More powerful engines will often pull your trains faster, which makes your route more desirable to shippers.

The cost of any improvement is automatically reflected in the Cost column. The Maintenance column indicates the long-term cost of ownership.

· Cost Per Car Mile: Shows how much you are paying to move one carload one mile. A good number is usually below one dollar. If you’re paying more than two dollars per car mile, you should consider selling the track unless you are holding on to it for strategic reasons.

· Cars Carried: Shows how many carloads were carried over the last month.

· Miles of Track: Indicates the length of your track.

Selling Engines

You can only sell engines from within the Pool. Click the Sell button. A popup appears with the following Sell controls:

· Number of engines: This is initially set to the number of engines in the Pool. If you click All engines, it will include both the engines in the Pool and engines currently assigned to track. You cannot sell a number that is above the pool number but below the total number of engines that you own.

· All: Sets the number of engines to all the engines that you own, including those assigned to tracks and those in the Pool. If you sell All engines you should check to see if you need to add new engines to the tracks from which engines were sold.

· Extra: Sets the number of engines to all the engines currently in the Pool. Selling engines always sells out of the Pool first.

· Sell Price: How much you will earn from each engine that you sell.

· Total: The current total of your sale.

Upgrading Engines

It is a good idea to upgrade your engines from time to time, with the intention of keeping the cost per car load as low as possible. You can upgrade either the engines in a slot on a track, or all the engines of that type in operation. If you want to upgrade only the engines in a specific slot, press the Upgrade button (the up arrow) on the card in that slot. If you want to upgrade all engines of this type, click the Upgrade button on the card in the Train Pool.

The Upgrade box shows the old engine on the left and the new engine on the right. The two arrows on the new engine allow you to scroll through all available engines. The best replacement engine is selected by default, although you can specify any upgrade. The light at the bottom of the new engine card lights up to indicate the quality of your new engine. A green light indicates a good replacement, while a red light indicates an inferior replacement. If no light appears, your replacement is similar in quality to the original engine.

When you are upgrading all engines of a certain class across your network, you are offered three choices:

· All Engines: Upgrades all engines of this class currently assigned to tracks, regardless of whether they are assigned to cargo or passenger traffic.

· Cargo: Upgrades all engines of this class currently assigned to pull Cargo trains.

· Passenger: Upgrades all engines of this class currently assigned to pull Passenger trains.

The Upgrade box also includes estimates for how much the upgrade process will cost. If there are some of the new engines in the Train Pool, they will be used up before any additional trains are purchased. The Scrap Old checkbox allows you to sell the old trains. Checking this box indicates how much you will make from selling these engines. Unless you have specific plans for the older engines, you should always sell them.

The Set Default button allows you to specify the new engine as the default engine for all new tracks.

Engine Expiration

Engines can be so far behind in technology that they become too expensive to maintain and too unsafe to be certified to run. The following occur when one of your engines is about to expire:

You receive a message indicating that you must replace or sell the engine within a certain period of time.
Expiring engine cards turn red in the Track Details screen.

If you attempt to purchase engines that are expiring, you will receive a message indicating that the engine is no longer available. If you still own expired engines by the specified expiration date, you will receive a message indicating that those engines have been scrapped. You receive a small salvage sum for any expired engines.

Map/Money Widget

The Map/Money widget can be found in the upper-left corner on most game screens.

1) Allows you to center the map on either the city or track that you’re currently viewing in the City or Track Details screens.

2) Shows your current cash.

3) Shows the current date.

4) Shows a light that indicates the likelihood that your usage of influence will result in a public scandal, which will cost you prestige. The light is either green (low risk), yellow (medium risk), or red (high risk).

Pressing the List button takes you to the Track List screen, where you can see a summary of all your tracks.

The Track List Screen

The easiest way to manage all of your tracks is to open the Track List screen. To do this, press the Track List button in the Switchboard. The Track List screen shows you a list of all your tracks, and lets you add/remove engines directly from this screen. Each track has the following information:

· Track: The name of the track.

· Congestion: How efficiently your trains run without overcrowding.

· Utilization: How efficiently you have allocated your trains to carry the traffic. Clicking on a light to set your engines also works from here.

· Cars Carried: Shows how many carloads were carried over the last month.

· Cost per Car Mile: Shows how much you are paying to move one carload one mile. A good number is usually below one dollar. If you’re paying more than two dollars per car mile, you should consider selling the track unless you are holding on to it for strategic reasons.

· Track Improvements: Shows the current improvements for the track. You can make improvements in your track here as well as assign a manager for the track.

· Track Details Button: Opens the Track Details screen for that track.

You can click on the column headers to sort the list by that column. Sorting by Utilization is a very useful technique to bring all the tracks that require your attention to the top of the list.

Cities

Cities generate traffic, and for a railroad, that means cash. Since you can only build to existing cities, they also represent choke points across the map that you can use to make it harder (or even impossible) for a player to build one of the prestigious routes, such as a Transcontinental line.

In order to encourage development of under-populated areas, some city governments will offer bonuses to the first railroad to connect to their cities to help offset the cost of track construction. Cities with these bonuses show a gold $ sign next to them. These bonuses eventually expire, so you have to make sure that you complete your track to the city before the bonus expires. If you position your mouse over the $ sign a Tooltip informs you of the bonus amount and when it expires.

Every five years traffic changes according to the city's real world population growth. Therefore, tracks that once were unprofitable can suddenly become inundated with traffic. When you’ve selected a city that you want to return to later, press Ctrl-[Number]. This creates a bookmark for that city. You can now return to the city from anywhere on the map by pressing the number you assigned to it.

You can click on any city in the Main Screen to view the following information:

· Rates: The current pricing structure for traffic leaving the city. If there is a Monopoly, the rate is 150% of the normal price. If the rate is normal, it is 100%.A state of War results in a 70% rate. All players at the city use the same rate.

· List of most valuable cities: Indicates the top five destinations for traffic leaving this city.

· Connecting Railroads: This is the list of railroads that currently have track (built or under construction) to this city. The presence of a blank square indicates that there is a free Access Slot that can accommodate a new railroad.

Resources

Freight traffic from a city represents manufacturing, parcel delivery, components, and other items. This traffic is usually proportional to the size of the two cities involved.

Resources represent major natural or industrial resources which require rail transport. These appear near cities and are served by connecting to that city. If you're not sure which city the resource is associated with, position your mouse over the resource and read the tooltip. Resources generate fairly large amounts of cargo, even when located near a small city. The cargo will most often need to be delivered to larger distant cities or ports.

Resources appear over the course of the game. If you are starting in a later year, you may find many resources already on the map. You can also use Influence on a city to Add A Resource, which will immediately contribute to the traffic at that city.

Traffic Flow

Each city has traffic intended for a specific destination. Once a connection is made between two cities, the traffic starts flowing between the cities. For example: Cincinnati has traffic for Augusta, Columbus, Detroit, New Orleans, Louisville, and St. Louis. Connecting it to Columbus will enable you to start moving traffic and collecting money. Connecting it to Charleston will result in a track that doesn’t make you any money (assuming that Charleston doesn’t have any traffic for Cincinnati).

Traffic is automatically routed by a third-party shipper, which tries to find the quickest and most direct route for its shipments. The shipper will route traffic over mu