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v0.8.0.15 — the reference documents, and a card that advertised what it cannot do

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The four hand-written references brought up to the game as it actually runs,
ahead of the next testing round, plus a Quickstart to hand a tester who has never
played. They had not been touched since v0.6.2 — a month and two minor versions —
and each now says at the top which build it describes.

ONE LIVE BUG CAME OUT OF THE PASS. mainlineDescription told players "Cars may be
sorted into any new order here" on the Interchange. It is the printed capability
and has never been implemented: nothing reads sortsCars to permit a sort, and its
one live use is marking the card an Extra may be made up on, because it is the
Mainline card with a yard. That sentence is not only documentation — view.ts
renders it as a Mainline card's `what`, so it is what a player reads on the
board, and the generated reference printed a "Sorts cars: yes" column beside it.
A card advertising a button that does not exist sends a player hunting for it and
then concluding the game is broken.

What the documents had wrong, all of it verified against the code rather than
read for tone: the victory model in the Rules book (firstToTarget /
highestAfterDays and the target-bearing length presets stopped existing in
2026-08 — it is a free days count and a combined floor of 3 x players x days);
"there is no lobby, no server, no multiplayer"; crossing time in mph rather than
regions; Extras launched automatically eastbound; the Uncontrolled Siding listed
as a passing card; industry track length taken from the box count; and a
"Sister Trains" optional rule that never existed. The Home deck's counts table
came out under TODO #15a — Jesse's own ruling that counts move with balance —
and it had been wrong for a month, which is the argument made twice.

The Home and Mainline deck references are restructured to explain how a deck is
USED and to defer every per-card table to rules/as-built.md. Duplicating it by
hand is precisely the drift #15a was raised about: as-built needed no correction
beyond the Interchange, because build:cards regenerates it and a test fails when
the checked-in file disagrees. Everything hand-maintained around it had drifted;
it had not.

docs/design.md, the index everything starts from, said v0.4.3, "what is not: the
server", and 493 tests. It now also lists the player-facing references, which it
never has, so the Quickstart is findable at all.

999 fast tests and 35 sim tests pass.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01DmdqqCNoiqE7GBo6wthBnR
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co-authored by Claude Opus 5
parent a6657241de
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# Station Master — Home Deck
**Rules implementation reference: v0.4.5**
**Scope:** every card associated with the Home Office deck, including cards catalogued in the source but deliberately excluded from the dealt deck.
**Describes the game as built at v0.8.0.15** (2026-09-20). Previously stamped "v0.4.5", the
prototype rules edition these references were first written against; the filename keeps that stamp
because `src/`, `CHANGELOG.md` and `docs/rules/` all cite this file by name.
## Dealt card catalogue
**Scope:** the Home Office deck — how it is dealt, drawn, discarded and reshuffled, and what the
rules are for playing each kind of card out of it.
The live Home Office deck contains **213 cards** in every currently supported mode. The rules for its setup, drawing, discarding, reshuffling, and hand limit are in the rules book, section 4.2.
> **Per-card facts live in [`rules/as-built.md`](rules/as-built.md)**, which is GENERATED from
> `src/engine/content.ts` and checked by `test/card-reference.test.ts`, so it cannot disagree with
> the game. Read it for every card's name, effect, placement and whether its printed effect actually
> resolves yet. This document is how the deck WORKS; that one is what is in it.
>
> **No card counts appear here, deliberately** (TODO #15a, Jesse's call 2026-08-22): counts move
> with play balance, so a document printing them is answering a question that has a different answer
> after the next retune. Where a count matters it is rendered as a yes/no — whether the deck deals
> the card at all — which is a fact about the design. This page used to print a full counts table
> and it was wrong for a month before anyone noticed.
| Active category | Cards |
| --- | ---: |
| Track | 96 |
| Office upgrades | 14 |
| Freight facilities | 27 |
| Facility modifiers | 23 |
| Train cards | 22 |
| Enhancements | 18 |
| Mainline modifiers | 7 |
| Maneuvers | 6 |
| **Total dealt** | **213** |
## The piles
The catalogue also contains 12 space-use cards and 10 action cards. All 22 are excluded from every v0.4.5 dealt deck because their opponent-directed play rules are not implemented. They are listed at the end of this document for completeness.
- **Home Office deck** — face down. The pile a Draw comes from.
- **Three Departments** — face-up discard piles. A discard goes onto one, which is precisely so a
rival may take it; a Draw may take the top card of a Department instead of the deck.
- **Salvage Yard** — where a played-out card ends up. An Extra's card goes here after its run.
## Track cards — 96
When the Home Office deck runs out it is rebuilt from the Salvage Yard and **all three Departments
in full**, reshuffled from the seeded stream. A **spent timetabled train** is not collected — its
number is on the timetable and it cannot run twice — but a *discarded* train was never played and
is still runnable, so it comes back.
Track cards are ordinary Home Office cards, not a separate personal supply. A placed card must connect to existing rail. The Running Track is the horizontal row from Limit to Limit; cards there must carry an east–west through route. Placing track on a Limit extends the Running Track and moves that Limit outward.
## Hand and turn
| Card | Copies | Implemented placement facts |
| --- | ---: | --- |
| Straight track | 32 | East–west Operational Rail. |
| Curved track, right | 16 | A 45° curve; can rotate 180°, but cannot flip. Right-hand geometry is fixed to the `ne_sw` diagonal. |
| Curved track, left | 16 | A 45° curve; can rotate 180°, but cannot flip. Left-hand geometry is fixed to the `nw_se` diagonal. |
| Turnout, right | 16 | East–west through route plus one 45° branch. It may be passed through but is not Operational Rail, so a train cannot end a Move on it. |
| Turnout, left | 16 | Same operational rules; opposite fixed diagonal. |
| Sharp curved track, right | 0 | Catalogued but not dealt. |
| Sharp curved track, left | 0 | Catalogued but not dealt. |
The hand limit is **three**, or four while you hold a Red Flag. You may not end a turn over the
limit: play a card or discard one to a Department. Some cards cannot be discarded at all — an Extra
never can, and a timetabled train cannot when the `discardTimetabled` house rule is off — so a hand
of nothing but those has exactly one way forward, which is to play one.
A turnout may upgrade an existing straight, or a curve whose arc is exactly the turnout’s diverging arc. An upgrade is forbidden if the existing card holds standing cars or an enhancement. All other occupied squares are unavailable.
The opening deal is a house-rule choice made when the game is dealt. The default (`threeRandom`) is
three cards from one shuffled deck; `threeTrackThreeOther` deals three track and three others from
two separately shuffled piles, deliberately over the hand limit, so the first turn is spent choosing
which district you can afford to build.
## Offices — 14
Drawing is one of the three Local Operations options — see [Rules](StationMaster-Rules-v0.4.5.md)
§4.2. Taking the option lets you draw **and** play or discard within the same turn.
Every player begins at a Whistle Post, which is not drawn from the deck. Office cards are upgrades and must be played in sequence; they upgrade the existing Office rather than replacing its card or attached track.
## Track cards
| Card | Copies | A/D tracks | Porters | Passenger outbound/inbound slots | Other effect |
| --- | ---: | ---: | ---: | ---: | --- |
| Depot | 8 | 2 | 1 | 1 / 1 | Becomes a Control Point and Passenger Facility. |
| Station | 4 | 3 | 2 | 2 / 2 | Upgrade Depot only; Control Point and Passenger Facility. |
| Terminal | 2 | 4 | 3 | 3 / 3 | Upgrade Station only; Control Point and Passenger Facility. |
Track cards are ordinary Home Office cards, not a separate personal supply.
The Whistle Post has one A/D track, no porters, and no passenger slots. An Office upgrade preserves modifiers already applied to it.
- A placed card must **connect to existing rail**: at least one neighbour must join it.
- The **Running Track** is the row from Limit to Limit. A card placed there must carry an east–west
through route, or it breaks the main.
- Placing track **on a Limit sign** extends the Running Track and moves that sign outward. The sign
is a physical card, so it moves rather than being left stranded mid-track.
- **Nothing may be placed outside your Limits** — track, industries and, since v0.8.0.14, Modifiers
too. Your district ends at its sign.
- Curves and turnouts are printed left- or right-handed. A card may be turned 180° but never flipped
over, so its 45° leg never changes diagonal.
- A **turnout may upgrade** an existing straight, or a curve whose arc is exactly the turnout's
diverging arc. Not if the card holds standing cars or an enhancement. Every other occupied square
is unavailable.
- A turnout may be **run through but not stopped on**: it is not Operational Rail, so a Move may not
end there.
## Freight facilities — 27
## Office cards
An industry may be placed only on a connected straight stub off the Running Track. Each facility begins with one Laborer and a three-box MEN | AT | WORK freight pipeline. Its industry track has capacity equal to its base outbound plus inbound capacity, with a minimum of one car.
Every player begins at a **Whistle Post**, which is not drawn from the deck: one A/D track, no
Porters, no passenger slots, and not a Control Point.
No Office Area may contain a duplicate industry, or both ends of a listed lockout pair.
Office cards are **upgrades in strict sequence** — Whistle Post → Depot → Station → Terminal — and
each upgrades the Office in place rather than replacing its card or its attached track. Modifiers
already beside it are preserved. Each tier adds an A/D track, a Porter, and an outbound and inbound
passenger slot; a Depot and above is a Control Point and a Passenger Facility.
| Card | Copies | Cars handled | Flow | Base boxes | Lockout in same Office Area |
| --- | ---: | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Freight House | 6 | Boxcar | Outbound and inbound | 1 out / 1 in | Freight House; Grocer’s Warehouse |
| Mine Tipple | 6 | Hopper | Outbound | 1 out / 0 in | Power Plant |
| Refinery | 3 | Tank car | Outbound | 1 out / 0 in | Power Plant |
| Power Plant | 6 | Hopper or tank car | Inbound | 0 out / 1 in | Mine Tipple; Refinery |
| Packing Sheds | 3 | Reefer | Outbound | 1 out / 0 in | Grocer’s Warehouse |
| Grocer’s Warehouse | 3 | Boxcar or reefer | Inbound | 0 out / 1 in | Packing Sheds; Freight House |
An upgrade takes no placement: the Office is where it already is.
## Facility modifiers — 23
## Freight facilities
A modifier occupies an empty square adjacent to an eligible facility. It is unique by modifier type within an Office Area. The implementation attaches it permanently to the first eligible adjacent facility found; it does not implement a per-Stage choice when one modifier touches more than one possible facility.
An industry is placed on a connected straight **stub off the Running Track** — never on the Running
Track itself, and never outside the Limits. A Facility carries its own rails, so placing one places
track.
`+ out` adds green outbound capacity only where the host can load; `+ in` adds red inbound capacity only where the host can unload. A capacity increase at a freight facility also lengthens its industry track by the usable number of added slots. Worker increases always apply.
Each begins with one Laborer and a three-box **MEN | AT | WORK** pipeline. No Office Area may hold a
duplicate industry, or both ends of a lockout pair — a producer and the consumer of the same
commodity cannot be built in one district.
| Modifier | Copies | Eligible host | Actual grant |
| --- | ---: | --- | --- |
| Waiting Area | 3 | Any Office | +1 outbound passenger slot; +1 Porter |
| Restaurant | 2 | Any Office | +1 outbound passenger slot; +1 Porter |
| Hotel | 1 | Any Office | +1 outbound passenger slot; +1 Porter |
| Truck Dock | 2 | Freight House, Packing Sheds, Grocer’s Warehouse | +1 **inbound** slot; no Laborer |
| Railroad Express Agency | 1 | Freight House | +1 outbound slot; +1 Laborer |
| Forklifts | 2 | Freight House, Packing Sheds | +1 outbound slot; +1 Laborer |
| Prep Plant | 1 | Mine Tipple | +1 outbound slot; +1 Laborer |
| Coal Piles | 1 | Mine Tipple | +1 outbound slot; +1 Laborer |
| Conveyor Belts | 1 | Mine Tipple | +1 outbound slot; +1 Laborer |
| Pipelines | 1 | Refinery | +1 outbound slot; +1 Laborer |
| Oil Depot | 1 | Refinery | +1 outbound slot; +1 Laborer |
| Viscosity Breakers | 1 | Refinery | +1 outbound slot; +1 Laborer |
| Transmission Lines | 1 | Power Plant | +1 Laborer |
| Rotary Dumps | 1 | Power Plant | +1 Laborer |
| Steam Turbines | 1 | Power Plant | +1 Laborer |
| Ice House | 2 | Packing Sheds or Grocer’s Warehouse | +1 outbound slot; +1 Laborer |
| Local Small Groceries | 1 | Grocer’s Warehouse | +1 Laborer |
**An industry track holds four cars, like any other card.** It is *not* sized by the industry's box
count. That distinction was a real bug: box count is how much WORK an industry can hold, not how
much RAIL it has, and conflating the two invented a printed siding no industry card carries.
A bonus beside a facility that cannot use its direction is not usable and does not create a slot or lengthen the track — an outbound bonus beside an inbound-only facility, or the Truck Dock's inbound bonus beside the outbound-only Packing Sheds, which leaves that card with no effect at all. Likewise, passenger modifiers beside a Whistle Post add Porters but do not create an outbound slot until the Office becomes a Passenger Facility.
## Facility modifiers
## Train cards — 22
A Modifier sits on an empty square among the **nine spots around its host Facility** — and, since
v0.8.0.14, **inside your Limits**, like everything else. It may not stand in the Running Track row.
One of each kind per Office Area.
Playing a timetabled train card rolls the seeded D12 and places its number in the first open timetable slot at or after the result, wrapping around the 12-slot chart. It then runs at that Stage every Day. An Extra is queued and made up when a Crew Tray becomes available; v0.4.5 automatically launches Extras eastbound from the Western Division Point.
**A Modifier adds a BOX, never room for a car.** A Truck Dock beside a Grocer's Warehouse gives it a
second red box — somewhere for one more arriving load to be cleared to — and changes nothing about
how many cars may be spotted there.
The listed consist is a maximum, not a minimum: a train may depart with fewer cars, but must not exceed the listed categories, put a car behind a caboose, or leave with the engine buried among cars. A Crew Tray holds no more than four rolling-stock cars.
**A grant the host cannot use does nothing**, and the game says so rather than pretending. An
outbound bonus beside an inbound-only facility, or the Truck Dock's inbound bonus beside the
outbound-only Packing Sheds, is discarded — the latter leaving that card with no effect at all.
Passenger modifiers beside a **Whistle Post** add Porters but create no outbound slot until the
Office becomes a Passenger Facility; the panel reports that as DORMANT rather than claiming the
facility "only receives", which was wrong in both directions.
> **Changed 2026-08-22 (Gitea#7), Jesse's call:** the coach counts on **1/2 Crack Limited** and
> **5/6 The Sparrow** were swapped — the Limited drops from three coaches to two, the Sparrow rises
> from two to three. This is a change to the CARDS, not a correction to this table: `Trains3.pdf` and
> the transcription in [`rules/implications.md`](rules/implications.md) §5 still show the original
> numbers, and are right about what the printed cards said. `src/engine/content.ts` and this table
> carry what the game plays.
## Train cards
| Train | Speed | Direction | Listed maximum consist | Implemented special rule |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1/2 Crack Limited | Fast | 1 west / 2 east | **2 coaches** | No switching; passenger work only at Terminals; expedited. |
| 3/4 Express | Fast | 3 west / 4 east | 2 freight | May exchange at most one freight car at each grid location during its switching turn; expedited. |
| 5/6 The Sparrow | Fast | 5 west / 6 east | **3 coaches** | No switching; expedited. |
| 7/8 Local | Slow | 7 west / 8 east | 1 freight, 1 coach | Its coach may not be set out during switching. |
| 9/10 Heavy Freight | Slow | 9 west / 10 east | 3 freight, 1 caboose | — |
| 11/12 Drag Freight | Slow | 11 west / 12 east | 2 freight, 1 caboose | — |
| X13 Appleseed Extra | Slow | Player choice printed; v0.4.5 launches east | 3 empty freight, 1 caboose | May drop cars but cannot pick up. The engine enforces no pickup, but does not enforce the printed empties-only consist restriction at make-up. |
| X14 Fruit Growers Express | Fast | Player choice printed; v0.4.5 launches east | 2 reefers, 1 caboose | Expedited. The code enforces reefers-only; the printed extra loaded-reefer pickup is not a separate rule. |
| X15 Yard Xfer | Slow | Player choice printed; v0.4.5 launches east | 2 freight, 1 caboose | — |
| X16 Light Engine Move | Fast | Player choice printed; v0.4.5 launches east | No cars | No switching. |
| X17 Campaign Train | Fast | Player choice printed; v0.4.5 launches east | 1 coach | No switching. First Office arrival lays over for speeches; later arrivals are expedited. |
| X18 Circus Train | Slow | Player choice printed; v0.4.5 launches east | 2 freight, 1 coach, 1 caboose | No switching. The first Mainline Phase in which it remains stopped awards its current Office’s player 1 Revenue. |
| X19 Military Train | Slow | Player choice printed; v0.4.5 launches east | 1 freight, 2 coaches | No switching; no passenger work; expedited. |
| X20 Director’s Private Car | Slow | Player choice printed; v0.4.5 launches east | 2 freight, 1 coach | No passenger work. |
| X21 Freight Extra | Slow | Player choice printed; v0.4.5 launches east | 3 freight, 1 caboose | — |
| X22 Pee-Dee | Slow | Player choice printed; v0.4.5 launches east | 1 caboose | May pick up empty cars only. |
Playing a **timetabled** train rolls the seeded D12 and puts its number in the first open timetable
slot at or after the result, wrapping around the 12-slot chart. It then runs at that Stage **every
Day**.
## Enhancements — 18
Playing an **Extra** queues it; it is made up when a Crew Tray comes free, and **the player who
played the card chooses where it starts and loads it as they choose** (§7). Where it may start is a
house rule — `divisionPointsOnly`, `ownOffice`, or `anyOffice` (the default) — and the Interchange is
also available, because it is the one Mainline card with a yard. An Extra runs once and its card
goes to the Salvage Yard.
| Card | Copies | Placement | v0.4.5 behavior |
| --- | ---: | --- | --- |
| Interlocking | 2 | Bare Running Track straight | When the Office is full, an inbound train is held at the Limits instead of colliding. |
| Facing Point Locks | 2 | Any card; requires an Interlocking somewhere in the district | Blocks Derail. Derail is unavailable in v0.4.5, so this remains dormant. |
| Yard Office | 1 | Bare Secondary Track straight | A coachless inbound train is diverted to this track instead of occupying an A/D track. |
| Small Yard | 1 | Bare Secondary Track straight | A train may spend one switching Move here to reorder its entire consist and put the engine at the nose. |
| Water Column | 2 | Bare Running Track straight | Removes a Watertower. Watertower cards are unavailable, so this remains dormant. |
| Overpass | 1 | Any card | No implemented effect. |
| Telegraph | 3 | Bare Running Track straight | Once per Day, the Superintendent may add 4 to an opposing train’s number when that makes a facing clearance safe. |
| Telephone | 2 | On a Telegraph | Same dispatch mechanism, +8 once per Day. |
| Radio | 2 | On a Telephone | Same dispatch mechanism, +12 once per Day. |
| ABS Signals | 2 | Any Mainline card | Prevents rear-end collisions and holds a following train short. |
> The v0.4.5 behaviour of launching every Extra eastbound from the Western Division Point was
> replaced in v0.6.2. The number no longer decides an Extra's direction; the start does.
An enhancement requiring a bare straight cannot share that straight with another such enhancement. Telephone and Radio are the explicit stackable chain.
The listed consist is a **maximum, not a minimum**. A train may depart with fewer cars, but not with
more, not of the wrong category, not with a car behind the caboose, and not with the engine buried
among its own cars. A Crew Tray holds four pieces, and a caboose counts toward the four.
## Maneuvers — 6
A train made up short of what its card calls for is reported as such, with what it wanted and why
the yard could not supply it — see Rules §4.4.
| Card | Copies | Behavior |
| --- | ---: | --- |
| Red Flags | 5 | May be played at any time on a train stopped on a Mainline card. An approaching following train is held instead of moving into it. |
| Flying Switch | 1 | During the owner’s switching option, spend one Move to roll a tail-end cut into a track-connected freight facility without moving the engine there. |
| Poling | 0 | Catalogued but not dealt; no rule is implemented. |
**Per-train consists and printed rules: [`rules/as-built.md`](rules/as-built.md) § Trains.** It
carries the `empties only`, `reefers only`, `drop only` and `pick up empties only` restrictions,
every one of which the engine enforces.
## Catalogued but not dealt — 22 opponent-directed cards
## Enhancements, Mainline modifiers and Maneuvers
### Space-use cards — 12
- **Enhancements** are played into your district and change what a square does — the **Small Yard**
(re-order a consist for one Move), **Interlocking**, **Yard Office**, **ABS Signals** and the rest.
`as-built.md` marks each one `live`, `dormantSolo` or `unbuilt`, which is the part only the
implementation knows.
- **Mainline modifiers** are played onto a Mainline card: the Heavy Grade helpers and Realignment.
See [Mainline deck](StationMaster-Mainline-Deck-v0.4.5.md).
- **Maneuvers** are held and spent: **Red Flags** and **Flying Switch** have their own actions.
Poling is catalogued but its effect is recorded as "TBD in the source", so there is nothing to
implement.
Bean House (1), Flop House (1), Watertower (1), Hobo Jungle (1), Section House (1), City Blocks (4), Engine Shops (1), Tenderloin District (1), and Engineer Cemetery (1) are excluded. Their source descriptions say they consume table space; Hobo Jungle additionally describes vandalism looting a passing boxcar. No placement or effect is available in v0.4.5.
## Opponent-directed cards — not dealt
### Action cards — 10
Derail (2), Broken Coupler (1), Railroad Crossing (1), Per Diem Inventory (1), Demurrage Charge (1), Customer Complaints (1), Vandalism (1), Hotbox (1), and Outlawed (1) are excluded. Their printed target/effect text is catalogued in the code, but `card.play` rejects the categories as not implemented. Consequently, no card can currently be played on another player.
There are also two **Facing Point Locks** listed among Mainline modifiers. They are treated as the same grid enhancement as Facing Point Locks above, require an Interlocking, and are included in the active 213-card total.
The **Action** and **Space-use** categories are opponent-directed and are **excluded from every
dealt deck**, because their play rules are not implemented. They are catalogued in
`as-built.md` so the composition is on record, and `check` refuses to play one. This is deliberate:
silently accepting them would make a card look playable while doing nothing.