Card Rails
Card Rails Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Pieces
- 45 Track cards
- 5 Railroad Shares cards
- 60 cubes in 5 colors
- 1 Starting City card
- 2 Rules cards
- 1 Priority Deal card
Setup
Playing 3 players? Remove from the game: one of the Railroad Shares cards, its 12 cubes, & all cards with a matching symbol.
- Place the Railroad Shares cards in a row.
- Place each Railroad's matching cubes on the empty spaces of their card.
- Place the Starting City in the middle.
- Shuffle the remaining Track cards and deal cards face down per player count:
- 3 players: 12 cards each
- 4 players: 11 cards each (discard extra)
- 5 players: 9 cards each
- Randomly give someone the Priority Deal card. They start the game with play continuing clockwise around the table.
Editor's note: the source prints no heading above the turn-flow text that follows Setup; none is added here.
Beginning with the first player, players take one turn at a time until the game ends.
The game ends when all players have the same number of cards in hand:
- 3 players: 3 cards
- 4 players: 3 cards
- 5 players: 2 cards
On your turn, you will choose a card from your hand. You will either play it onto the table to expand the map or discard it. You have to choose one of two possible actions to perform: Take a Share or Build.
Take a Share
Discard the chosen card from your hand and take the next available cube from any Railroad Share card. Place the cube in front of you. This is a Share in the Railroad.
If there are no cubes on the card, you can't take a Share of that Railroad. Choose a different one.
Note: You can only ever have a maximum of 3 Shares cubes in front of you.
Build Track
Instead of taking a Share, you may build track. When you build track, place 1 or 2 cubes in hexes on the map. All cubes come from Railroad Shares cards. If you build with 2 cubes, they can come from 2 different Railroads. If you only build track into a full-sized hex, discard your chosen card.
Notes on Building Track
- All Railroads begin in the Starting City.
- Your 1st build will be adjacent to that city.
- Track must be built next to its own color.
- Each hex can only hold one cube.
- Blue Lake hexes cannot hold any cubes.
- Red Swap hexes force you to exchange a card in your hand with a card in the discard. You can look through the discards.
What About 1/2 Hexes?
If you want to build track into a 1/2 Hex, you must play the card you chose instead of discarding it. Place it onto the map where you want to build. Rotate it how you like. The two 1/2 hexes must match, but nothing else on the edges has to. You can only place track in a whole, matched hex.
Railroad Symbols
Each Railroad has 9 cards associated with it. These cards have one hex that contains the Railroad's symbol shown on their Share.
When matching two 1/2 hexes, Railroad Symbols never have to match. A 1/2 can have a Railroad Symbol and the other 1/2 can be blank, or be from a different Railroad. If so, either Railroad can build into it.
Endgame & Scoring
When the game is over, calculate the total value of each Railroad:
- +1 for each empty box on Railroad card
- +2 for each purple hex entered
- +5 for each matching symbol hex entered
Each card you still have in your hand at the end of the game is worth 1 Share in the Railroad whose symbol is showing.
Players multiply the total value of each Railroad with the number of Shares they own, both from cards and cubes.
The highest total wins. Tie? Last tied player in turn order wins.
Variants & Such
Final Dividend Payout
If you want to shake up things quite a bit, don't score the full value of each Railroad at the end of the game. Instead, calculate the total of each Railroad, reveal everyone's Shares in hand, and divide the total amount evenly between shareholders, rounding up.
Open Hands
Some train gamers might not like that there is hidden information in the game. You can be wrong; that's fine. Just play with your hand or cards open instead of hidden.