You have unlocked the Central Bank!
You can now construct the Bank for $5,000,000 via the Upgrades tab.
How it works: The Bank generates a "Dividend" based on your company's Average Income Per Second. Once the funds are prepared, any train that routes over the Bank will instantly collect the lump sum!
Upgrade the Bank via the Inspector to make it prepare funds faster and pay out larger dividends.
You have unlocked the secrets of Spike Alchemy!
For $1,000,000,000, you can now construct a Spike Pit and a Sluicer from the Upgrades tab.
The Supply Chain: The Pit slowly generates Sludge. Deliver Sludge to the Sluicer to get Ore. Deliver Ore to a Steel Mill to get an Ingot. Finally, deliver the Ingot to a Factory to forge a Golden Spike!
Collection: The Bank is not a destination. To collect the Spike, a train carrying it must simply drive over the Bank tile.
Note: Spike facilities only hold ONE item at a time. AI trains will likely fail this process. You must build a dedicated Custom Route!
You have braved the harsh elements and established your company in the unforgiving desert.
Water is Life: Towns here will not grow without a steady supply of Water. Without water, passenger generation will grind to a halt.
The Black Gold Rush: Oil is the foundation of the modern frontier. Transport Crude to Refineries, and use the Fuel to power advanced factories.
A New Beginning: Your Achievements, Photographs, and Prestige Upgrades have been wiped clean. It is time to prove your logistical mastery all over again.
Welcome, Director. The Board has appointed you to lead our newest expansion effort into this untouched territory. Your objective is simple: build a sprawling, profitable rail empire from nothing.
Getting Started: You have been granted seed capital. Click on any unconnected Town or Resource camp to build a rail line to it. The cost depends on the distance and the terrain. Hills and rivers are expensive; plains are cheap.
Rolling Stock: Once you have connected a few locations, purchase a Train from the side panel. Trains will automatically analyze the supply and demand of your connected network, load cargo, and deliver it for profit.
Corporate R&D: Use your profits to upgrade your trains, expand your nodes, and hire specialized Conductors to grant massive temporary bonuses to your fleet.
The whistle is blowing, Director. Time is money.
Your rail network is only as strong as its connections. A town that demands Wood will pay handsomely for it, but only if you have built a track connecting that town to a Forestry Camp.
Click on any node to view its specific Demands (what it buys) and Production (what it sells). Building track costs money, and rough terrain like hills or water drastically increases that cost.
Advanced goods like Furniture or Machinery require a multi-step supply chain. For example, you must deliver Wood to a Sawmill to create Lumber, and then deliver that Lumber to a Factory.
By default, newly purchased trains operate on Random AI. They will look at the available cargo, pick something at random, and deliver it wherever it is demanded.
As your network grows, this becomes inefficient. Use the Inspector panel to unlock and assign specific AI Protocols to your trains. A train set to "Lumber AI" will ignore passengers and food, focusing exclusively on moving Wood, Lumber, and Furniture.
You can also use the Custom Route editor to manually force a train to travel back and forth between specific nodes, overriding the AI completely.
There are two types of upgrades in the game. Global Upgrades (found in the Upgrades tab) affect your entire company. These provide endless, scaling bonuses to ticket prices, freight values, and train speed.
Local Upgrades are purchased directly at specific nodes using the Inspector panel. You can upgrade a town's population to generate passengers faster, or upgrade a factory's machinery so it processes goods more quickly.
Conductors are powerful, temporary hires that dramatically alter how a train operates. A "Smuggler" might secretly load high-value contraband onto your train, while a "Concierge" will increase passenger ticket prices.
Conductors work in "Shifts." When their shift timer runs out, they leave the company. You can extend shift durations via Global Upgrades in the R&D tab. Check the Conductors tab frequently, as new applicants arrive regularly.
The wilderness is alive. Every few minutes, an animal will spawn somewhere on the map (usually far from civilization and loud trains).
If you spot one, click on it immediately! Snapping a photograph grants an instant cash bounty. More importantly, every unique animal you photograph adds a permanent +2% Global Profit Multiplier to your company. Open the Photos menu at the top of the screen to view your album.
Eventually, your expansion will plateau. When this happens, click the Spikes button at the top of the screen to declare bankruptcy and Prestige.
Prestiging wipes your map, trains, money, and upgrades, but rewards you with Golden Spikes based on your total lifetime earnings. Each spike grants a permanent +1% profit bonus.
You can also spend spikes on permanent, game-changing upgrades, like starting maps with more towns, or unlocking entirely new scenarios like the Desert.