Railways Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
• Goal of the Game
• Setup
• Tracking Markers, Card Anatomy and Iconography
• Turn Structure
  • Phase 1
  • General Rules for Taking Actions
• The Actions
  • Buy a Complete Rail Link
  • Build a Building
  • Move a Passenger
  • Hire a Railworker
  • Increase Your Capital
  • Decrease Pollution Level
  • Add a Passenger
  • Upgrade a Rail Link
• Phase 2
• Record a Decade
• Game End
• Objectives
• Decade Summary

Components

• 8 Map/Action cards
• 1 Tracking card
• 9 Cubes
• 9 Dice

Goal of the Game

Create a railway network in 120 years by building rail links and new buildings, and moving passengers, to earn as much profit as you can.

Setup

(See the illustrated setup example on the next page of the rulebook.)

1. Shuffle the 8 Map/Action cards, and draw 4 of them, map side up. These are the cards for the map, showing buildings, lands, and railways.
2. Place the 4 Map cards in a horizontal rectangle of 2 cards by 2 cards. It is fine if the railways do not connect at the card edges.
3. Use 4 dice to place Passengers on the map. These dice are placed on the buildings shown on the cards. Buildings are labeled R - Residential, L - Leisure, C - Commercial, and I - Industrial, as depicted on the cards.
4. Of the 4 dice, place 1 die on each card. 2 dice must show a 1 and 2 dice must show a 2. You can choose which building gets which die/value.
5. Draw the next 3 cards from the Map/Action deck and turn them over to the Action side. This is your hand showing Action icons.
6. Place the final Map/Action card off to one side, map side up.
7. Place the Tracking card to the right side of the map.
8. Place 3 cubes near the Tracking card. 1 cube is used as a marker to track Capital, 1 is used to track Profit, and 1 is used to track Pollution. Place the Pollution marker on 1. The other two are not yet placed on their tracks.
9. Place the last 6 cubes in front of you as rail link markers in the game.
10. Place 1 die on the left side of the map showing a 1. This is the Decade die, used to mark the rounds in the game.
11. Place 1 die on the right side of the Tracking card showing a 2. This is the Railworker die, used to track how many rail workers you have.
12. Place the last 3 dice in front of you, showing a 1, a 2 and a 3 as your Building dice. Numbers on the dice represent Passengers in those buildings.

Tracking Markers, Card Anatomy and Iconography

The rulebook labels these diagrams as follows (labels transcribed from the printed setup example and icon page).

Tracking Markers: Decade die; Railworker die; Building dice (1 2 3); Link Markers; Tracking Card.

Card Anatomy:

• Map Card: One Railway link space; Land; Building; One complete link between two buildings.
• Action card with 4 Action slots: One Action icon in one slot; Two Action icons in one slot.

Iconography of Action Icons:

• Ticket: One rail link unit.
• Two rail link units.
• One Passenger.
• One Railworker.
• Destination Icons: R, L, C, I.
• Upgrade a rail link.
• Decrease pollution.
• Build a Building.
• $X Gain Capital.

Turn Structure

Each turn consists of 3 phases:

1. Take a first action.
2. Take a second action.
3. Record a decade.

Phase 1

You must now take one SINGLE action. There are 8 available actions:

• Buy a Complete Rail Link
• Build a Building
• Move a Passenger
• Hire a Railworker
• Increase Your Capital
• Decrease Pollution Level
• Add a Passenger
• Upgrade a Rail Link

General Rules for Taking Actions

• Performing an action requires playing cards from your hand and placing them in your discard pile (right side).
• When you perform an action, you choose one or several action icons on the card to complete the action.
• You can use several cards from your hand to perform an action.
• If you use two different slots on one card to perform the action, you need to increase the pollution level by one space. It can never exceed the track's maximum of 13.
• If you use two icons in one single slot to complete the action, you do not increase the pollution level.
• Each icon is only used once to perform a single action (one of the 8 listed).
• Important: If you are missing the Destination needed, you can play any 2 Destination icons of your choice to replace it.

The Actions

Buy a Complete Rail Link

• Use as many Rail icons as the number of rail link units you want to buy.
• If you play 3 Rail icons, you must build one 3-unit (3-space) rail link between two buildings, not shorter, not longer. The buildings can be on different cards of the map, but must be connected with the rail link between them.
• You must play a Destination icon matching the building on one end of the link.
• Reduce your Railworker die by 1. If it goes to 0, set it below the Tracking card until you gain rail workers again.
• Place a Link Marker cube on the link, orthogonally aligned with the cards and grid of spaces.

Note: If you have no more rail workers (i.e. your Railworker die is below the Tracking card), you cannot buy a rail link. You need to hire one before buying a rail link (see Hire a Railworker) but this counts as an entire Action. If you have no more Link Marker cubes, you cannot buy rail links for the rest of the game.

Example (as printed in the rulebook): These 2 buildings are connected by a 2-space link. Option 1 requires playing 2 Rail Link Unit icons, a C or a R Destination icon, and one rail worker. Option 2 is another option, a 3-space link which requires 3 railway icons and either a C or I Destination icon, as well as a rail worker. As with Option 1, you would add a link marker to the link and decrease your Railworker die by one.

• To pay for Option 1: you could play the first card, using Slot 2 to get 1 rail link unit + a C Destination icon, and the second card, using Slot 2 (or 3 or 4) for the other rail link unit. Because you only used one slot from each card, you would not generate pollution.
• To pay for Option 2: you could play only the second card, using Slots 2, 3, and 4 to get the I Destination icon and 3 rail link units; however, using 3 slots from the same card would generate 2 pollution. Instead, you could play all three cards, using Slot 2 of the first card, Slot 2, 3, or 4 of the second card, and Slot 1 or 2 of the third card; no pollution, but you played all three cards, leaving you with no icons for the turn!

Build a Building

• Use the Build a Building icon on one of your Action cards.
• Pay Capital equal to twice the number of passengers shown by the Building die (e.g. the Building die with 3 passengers costs 6 Capital).

You have the opportunity to build 3 buildings during the game, as represented by the 3 Building dice. The color of the dice you use in the game does not represent the color of the buildings.

You can build the Building die wherever you want on the map, except on existing buildings (R L C I printed on the cards, and Building dice you've already built), even on a rail link space, which would make that space no longer a railway. The color of the building depends on where you build the Building die:

• If you build the die orthogonally adjacent to an existing building (either a building already printed on the card, or a Building die), the die becomes a building of the same color as the adjacent building and has the number of passengers as shown on the die.
• If you build the die where it is not adjacent to an existing building, the building is an L Building and has the number of passengers as shown on the die.

As soon as two (or more) buildings are orthogonally adjacent, these two adjacent buildings are considered as one single building and the Passengers belong to the big building (Passengers can be moved later during the game).

Note:

• You cannot build a Building die if this action will merge several buildings of different colors.
• It is possible to build several Building dice to merge different buildings if they are all of the same color. If you build a second (or third) Building die next to the first Building die, the second Building die has the same color of the first Building die.

Examples (as printed in the rulebook):

• You can build a Building die here, it will be a C building. The 2 C adjacent buildings are now a large C building of two squares.
• You can build two buildings here (in 2 actions), all these buildings will be merged and will form a big C building of 4 spaces.
• You can build a Building die here, it will be an L building. It will be connected by rail to the other L building on the south portion of the map.
• You cannot build a Building die here because it will merge two buildings of different colors.

Move a Passenger

• Use the Ticket icon on 1 of your Action card slots.
• Use the Destination icon on 1 of your Action card slots.
• Decrease the departure Building die by one. If this reduces a 1 to 0, place the die as a Passenger die above the map. This Passenger die can be used later in the game (see Add a Passenger).

The pip you removed from the die represents a Passenger. The Passenger only uses rail links with a Link Marker cube. They stop their trip at the first building along their route that matches the Destination icon you played. There are no loops and you cannot cross the same building twice.

Example (as printed in the rulebook):

1. You play the Ticket icon and the Green Destination R icon. These icons are on the same card but in two different slots, so you must increase your Pollution level by one space (but not past 13).
2. You decrease the departure building's die by 1.

The passenger is travelling through one C, one I, and one L and arrives at the first R Building (final destination). You get 4 Profit, then you decrease your Pollution level by one (but still on the Pollution track), and finally you get 2+3+2+4 Capital or up to the Capital track's limit of 20.

Destination bonuses. In the order listed below, you receive the following bonuses:

1. Increase your Profit marker by the number of stops during the trip. Each Building crossed counts for 1 stop, including the final destination, but excluding the building from which the Passenger departed.
2. Take a Destination bonus matching the icon and destination:
   • Commerce C: Receive +5 Capital (if it exceeds 20, stop at 20) and increase your pollution level by one space (never above 13).
   • Industry I: Increase your Railworker die by one (limit 6) and increase your pollution level by one space (never above 13).
   • Residence R: Decrease your Pollution level by one (never below the leftmost 1).
   • Leisure L: Convert Capital into Profit once, using the following rate:
     • Spend 1 Capital to receive 1 Profit.
     • Spend 1+2=3 Capital to receive 2 Profit.
     • Spend 1+2+3=6 Capital to receive 3 Profit.
     • Spend 1+2+3+4=10 Capital to receive 4 Profit.
     • Spend 1+2+3+4+5=15 Capital to receive 5 Profit.
     • Your Capital track is limited to 20, so you can never convert more than 15 Capital at once.
3. Receive Capital equal to the number of Railway spaces traversed during the trip (buildings don't count; upgraded links count double, see Upgrade a Rail Link).

Note: The Profit track is unlimited, but exceeding the printed track is extremely unlikely.

Hire a Railworker

• Use the gray Railworker icon on 1 of your Action card slots.
• Increase your Railworker die by 1 (limit 6).

Increase Your Capital

• Use as many money icons as you like on Action card slots (no cards have more than one, so you don't need to increase Pollution).
• Increase your Capital according to their total value (limit 20).

Decrease Pollution Level

• Use the decrease Pollution icon on according to their total value. (Transcriber's note: the printed sentence is incomplete, with no slot reference after "on"; transcribed as printed.)
• Decrease your Pollution level by one space (but not off the track).

Add a Passenger

• Use the white Passenger icon on 1 of your Action card slots.
• Add 1 Passenger to 1 building. If there is no die on the building, and if you have a Passenger die at the top of the map, add the Passenger die to an empty building, showing a 1 on the die. If there is already a Passenger die on the building, rotate the die to increase the number of Passengers by 1 (limit 6).

Upgrade a Rail Link

• Use the Upgrade a Link icon on a slot on 1 of your Action card slots.
• Use a Destination icon matching the building on one end of the link.
• Rotate the Link Marker cube 45°. It is now an upgraded link.

An upgraded link is worth 2 times the Capital when you Move a Passenger (e.g. an upgraded link of 4 Rail spaces is worth 8 Capital).

Phase 2

If you still have enough Action cards in hand to play Phase 2 after playing Phase 1 (remember that all cards played during Phase 1 are going in your discard, Action side up), you may play Phase 2 according to the same rules as Phase 1.

Record a Decade

• Refill your hand with the cards from the pool (in the first round of the game, this is the 8th Map card you did not use during setup) to start the next round with 3 cards in your hand. If you do not have enough cards to draw back to 3 cards, shuffle all the cards from the discard pile (right side), place them in your pool (left side) Map side up, then draw the remaining cards to start the next round with 3 cards.
• Increase the Decade die by 1. If this means increasing a 6 for the first time, rotate the die to again show a 1. When you must increase a 6 for the second time, then the game is over (12 rounds have now been played).

Game End

After 120 years (12 rounds of up to 2 Actions each), the game ends.

Your score is your Profit + 3 Profit per rail link with a marker on it (regardless of its length and whether it is upgraded) minus the current Pollution level number.

Objectives

If you would like to play with different objectives, choose from the list below during the setup phase. For the first game, it is recommended you play with the Economist.

1. The Economist: Score the highest Profit possible on a given map.
2. The Mayor: Move all Passengers to their Destinations.
3. The Train Conductor: Deliver Passengers to all 4 building types R L C I at least once.
4. The Engineer: Build and upgrade all complete rail links on the map.
5. The Rail Baron: Any combination of objectives 1, 2, 3, and 4.

Decade Summary

• Refill your hand with the cards from the pool (in the first round of the game, this is the 8th Map card you did not use during setup) to start the next round with 3 cards in your hand. If you do not have enough cards to draw back to 3 cards, shuffle all the cards from the discard pile (right side), place them in your pool (left side) Map side up, then draw the remaining cards to start the next round with 3 cards.
• Increase the Decade die by 1. If this means increasing a 6 for the first time, rotate the die to again show a 1. When you must increase a 6 for the second time, then the game is over (12 rounds have now been played).