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Station Master — Rules v0.2

⚠ Superseded in part. Four design files recovered on 2026-07-30 (Deck cards2.xlsx, Mainline Cards.pdf, Trains3.pdf, tracks.png) replace much of §12 and parts of §7, §8 and §11. Where they conflict, the design wins. Read implications.md alongside this document — it records what changed, the nine answers that settled the open questions, and what is implemented.

Status: working ruleset. This is rules-v0.1.md — the faithful transcription of the prototype PDFs — with the seven gaps from open-questions.md resolved and integrated in place.

Every passage that differs from v0.1 is marked [Gap N], so the provenance of each change stays visible. Section numbers match v0.1 wherever a section existed there; §11 and §12 are new. open-questions.md cites v0.1 numbering throughout.

Numbers marked provisional are calibration targets to be retuned after the game is played.

1. Historical Setting

Between 1840 to 1950, trains operated without radios in their cabs, racing in the dark against oncoming traffic, relying on timetables and pocket watches to avoid collisions. Station Operators physically passed engineers orders from the dispatchers and "OS" reported ("On Station") them through.

As the Station Master in your lineside Office, you'll manage a town's railroad connection, embarking passengers and gathering freight, meeting demands from all quarters. Can you manage trains and cargos effectively? The railroad depends on you!

2. Definitions

See glossary.md for the same terms as an alphabetical lookup table.

2.1 Along the right of way

Division Point: Where your railroad ties into other railroads. There is an Eastern Division Point and a Western Division Point.
Division: Your company's tracks that connect the Eastern and Western Division Points.
Mainline Card: Tarot-sized cards that represent roughly the hundred miles of tracks between train offices. [Gap 4b] Each Mainline card is divided into two regions.
Office: The location you (the Station Master) sit at to lord over your area. An Office is a Whistle Post, a Depot, a Station, or a Terminal — see §11.
Control Point: An office where trains are reported in to the distant (NPC) dispatcher. These include Division Points, Depots, Stations and Terminals. Whistle Posts are not Control Points. Control Points are denoted by a train order signal on their card.
Limits: The sign located on the track east and west of your Office's area that denote the limit of your control area. [Gap 4a] When you extend your Running Track, the Limits sign moves outwards with it.
Subdivision: The Mainline track between the Limits of opposing Control Points. Whistle Posts are NOT Control Points and are an internal part of a Subdivision, no different than Mainline Track.
Running Track: The "Mainline" that runs horizontally between your limits, including your office. It is the horizontal row of cards, Limit-to-Limit.
Secondary Track: All tracks in your limits that are not the Running Track.
Operational Rail: Any track (Running and Secondary) on which a train may sit, change direction, drop and pick up cars on. Operational Rail is marked with a wheel icon.
A/D (Arrival/Departure) Track: Short sidings in front of your office where trains arrive and depart from. A train at an Office occupies one A/D track. [Gap 2d] If a train arrives and no A/D track is available, it is a collision.
Office Area: [Gap 4a] The grid of track cards a player controls. It grows during play as track and Facility cards are placed (§11.2).

2.2 Train makeup

Crew Tray: The canoe-shaped holder that contains the train pieces.
Engine: The engine piece. A Crew Tray must have an engine piece. The engine may be pulling cars, pushing cars, or a combination of both.
Consist: A collection of Rolling Stock (cars) in a Crew Tray.
Rolling stock: The non-engine pieces representing rail cars that make up either a train (in a Crew Tray) or are left sitting on an Operational Rail card. Rolling stock may be…
- Coaches for passengers (blue or white)
- Boxcars for general freight (brown or white)
- Refrigerated cars (reefers) for field produce (brown or white)
- Hoppers for coal (brown or white)
- Tank cars for oil (brown or white)
- Cabooses for the conductor and switch crews (red)
- A colored car is loaded. A white car is empty.
Division Yard: A table-top pile of Rolling Stock. Rolling Stock for use for cargo, passengers or on trains are selected from here.
Classification Yard: Where used Rolling Stock is placed. Used engines and cabooses return directly to the Division Yard. When the Division Yard is empty, all Rolling Stock in the Classification Yard is moved back to the Division Yard.

[Gap 4c] A Crew Tray holds a maximum of four Rolling Stock (§A.4), and a caboose is Rolling Stock. A train requiring a caboose therefore carries at most three revenue cars.

2.3 Train types

Timetabled Trains: Trains scheduled to run every day at the same time, denoted by a Number Board placed on the turn chart. Numbered 1-12, with odd-numbers westbound (left) and even-numbered eastbound (right). The train image on their card also defines its direction. Lower-numbered trains are more important and the dispatcher will give them greater seniority on the railroad.
Number board: The small tiles, numbered 1-12, that record which Stage (hour) the train should depart. [Gap 7]
Extra Trains: One-and-done trains, which run once with their card returned to the Salvage Yard deck upon completion [Gap 7]. Since their image on the card is head-on, the player drawing it may determine its direction. Their train number is denoted with an "X" designation, but the actual following number denotes their seniority.

2.4 General terms

East is to the player's right. West is to the player's left.
A Stage is a two-hour section of time.
A Phase is an operational component of a Stage.
A Day is a series of twelve Stages.
A Move is a Crew Tray moving from one Operational Rail card to another.
Highball: When a train holding at an Office automatically departs.
Revenue: Points gained and lost in the game to determine victory.

2.5 Passenger and Cargo elements

A Facility is a business which loads/unloads cargo and freight.
A Modifier Facility is a card placed adjacent to a Facility that increases its capacities.
A blue man-icon is a Laborer, who works cargo.
A black man-icon is a Porter, who assists passengers.
A green Outbound box holds all to-be-loaded freight/passengers of the indicated type.
A red Inbound box holds all just-unloaded freight/passengers of the designated type.
A blue "MEN | AT | WORK" turn track follows how quickly freight cars are loaded/unloaded.

2.6 Railroad management

Dispatcher: The imaginary person running the railroad and granting rights to trains to operate.
Superintendent: The Dispatcher's right-hand-man, who manages the division. The role is passed player to player; a Superintendent's shift is six hours (three Stages).
Home Office: The primary face-down deck cards are drawn from.
Departments: Three face-up slots beside the Home Office deck from which cards may also be drawn and to which they may be discarded. [Gap 4a] These are market slots fed from the Home Office deck, not separate decks with their own contents.
Salvage Yard: Where used cards are placed. They are face up to ensure that no cards that should not be discarded are. We're keeping an eye on you.

3. Game Mode and Victory · [Gap 6]

At setup the players choose a mode, a victory condition, and a length.

3.1 Modes

Solitaire — one player controls one or several Offices. A good way to learn the mechanics.
Competitive — players each control an Office and race each other.
Co-op — players each control an Office and work toward a shared pooled total.

3.2 Length (provisional)

Length	Revenue target	Days
Short	10	3
Standard	20	5
Campaign	45	10

[Gap 10e] These figures were lowered from 15 / 30 / 60 once the card faces were specified and the development ramp accounted for. A player earns nothing on Day 1 — no facilities exist and no trains run yet — so cumulative output is roughly 7 / 19 / 49 at those Day counts. The targets sit just under those figures: winnable by a player running well, missed by one who is not. See card-reference.md.

In Co-op, the Revenue target is multiplied by the number of players, since Co-op scores a pooled total.

3.3 Victory conditions

Mode	First to Revenue target	Highest Revenue after N Days
Solitaire	Reach the target → win.	Must reach the target by the end of N Days, or lose. Above it, the final score stands as the result.
Competitive	First player to reach the target wins.	All players' Revenue combined must reach the collective floor (§3.5), or everyone loses. Otherwise the highest individual Revenue wins.
Co-op	Pooled Revenue reaches `target × players` → the team wins.	Pooled Revenue must reach `target × players` by the end of N Days, or lose. Above it, the final pooled score stands as the result.

"Highest Revenue" is a comparison between rivals, which is meaningless in Solitaire and self-defeating in Co-op. In those two modes the timed condition is therefore pass/fail against the target figure: below it you lose regardless of score, above it your score stands and is what players compare between sessions.

3.4 Collision floor — Competitive only

Three collisions within a single Day and every player loses immediately. Collisions are counted Division-wide, across all players and the Superintendent alike. The counter resets at the start of each Day.

This applies under both victory conditions. Solitaire and Co-op have no collision limit.

3.5 Collective Revenue floor — Competitive, timed games only

All players' Revenue combined must reach 3 × players × Days by the end of the game. If it does not, every player loses regardless of individual scores. (Provisional — roughly half the expected output of a functioning Division.)

Players	Days	Floor
3	3	27
3	5	45
4	5	60
4	10	120

3.6 Note on the floors

The two floors make Competitive play partly cooperative: players race each other inside a railroad they all need to keep functioning. This is the mechanical expression of the game's premise.

Be aware of one consequence: a player who is clearly losing can deliberately wreck trains to trip the collision floor and deny the leader a win. The saboteur loses too, so it is mutually assured destruction rather than a free grief, and the per-Day reset means three wrecks must land inside a single Day.

4. Game Setup

The game begins in the early days of railroading. The Division has just been spiked down and no trains are officially running yet. The future awaits!

Choose mode, victory condition and length (§3).
Each player places a Whistle Post card (representing his Office) in the center of his play area. A Limits card is placed to either side, east and west. These three cards represent his Running Track. All remaining Whistle Posts and Limits are set aside.
A Mainline card (tarot size) is drawn at random and placed between each player, forming a chain of Offices. [Gap 4b] With N players there are N+1 Mainline cards — one between each adjacent pair, and one beyond each end.
Players are assumed to be in a chain of Offices running east to west. Each player rolls a D12. Highest is the Eastern Division Point; place that card just right of the player's eastward Mainline card. The player at the opposite end of the chain gets the Western Division Point card to the left of his westward Mainline card.
Each player rolls the D12. Highest begins as the Superintendent (his shift runs three Stages). [Gap 7] Place the Fedora piece before him. A Pocket Watch piece is placed on the "midnight" hour on the turn sheet.
The Home Office deck (52 cards, §12.1) is shuffled and placed face down.
Starting from the Superintendent, each player draws three cards off the Home Office deck. Then three cards are drawn from the Home Office deck and placed face up next to it, forming the three Department slots.
Space should be provided for the Salvage Yard deck (discards).
All available train car pieces are placed in the Division Yard pile. Crew Trays and Number Boards are placed near the turn sheet.
(Optional rule — Emergency Toolbox) Each player is dealt one Red Flag card from its separate supply, bringing his hand to four. He must play or discard down to three on his first turn.

5. Order of Play · [Gap 1]

Each Stage runs its Phases in order. Within a Phase, players act one at a time starting with the Superintendent and proceeding to his left. Once all the Phases for that Stage are complete, the Stage ends [Gap 7] and the Pocket Watch advances. After twelve Stages, the Day ends.

Every three Stages the Superintendent's Fedora passes to the player on the current Superintendent's left.

STAGE N
├─ 1. Local Operations   P(super) → P(+1) → P(+2) …   one at a time
├─ 2. New Train          per train: super → left, ONE car each
├─ 3. Mainline           ALL trains move, train-number order (global)
├─ 4. Load / Unload      P(super) → P(+1) → P(+2) …   one at a time
└─ 5. Shift Change       Stages 3, 6, 9, 12 only

5.1 Phases

Phases are, in order:

Local Operations Phase
New Train Phase
Mainline Phase
Load/Unload Phase [Gap 7]
Superintendent Shift Change (at 4am, 10am, 4pm and 10pm)

[Gap 1] Phases are resolved phase-major: every player completes Phase 1 before any player begins Phase 2. The Mainline Phase is global and automatic, with one exception: §8.1's fourth condition requires the Superintendent to rule on whether a following train may depart. No other player acts during it. Per-Stage resources (Laborer and Porter usage) reset at the start of each Stage, not each Phase.

6. Local Operations Phase

A player may do one of three things in this phase:

6.1 Switch with a train

The player may move trains about his station area.
He has six Moves to move his Crew Trays about, divisible between multiple Crews in any fashion.
See Appendix A for how trains move and switch.

6.2 Draw a card

The player may draw a single face-down card from the Home Office deck, or take the top face-up card from any of the three Department slots.
He may play any or all appropriate cards from his hand. [Gap 3a] This includes Office upgrade cards (§11) and [Gap 4a] track and Facility cards placed into his Office Area (§11.2).
Any played cards are placed on the table or into the Salvage Yard deck, face up.
Before concluding, the player must reduce his hand to no more than three cards. If he must (or wishes to) discard, that card is placed face up on top of one of the three Department slots.
If drawing a card has depleted the Home Office deck, immediately collect all cards from the Salvage Yard and three Department slots, reshuffle, and reestablish the Home Office deck and Department slots.
If any Department slot is empty, draw a Home Office card and place it in the empty spot.

6.3 Freight Agent Operations

Select one Rolling Stock from the Division Yard pile and place it onto a Facility's green Outbound box.
Or select one Rolling Stock from a Facility's red Inbound box and place it into the Classification Yard pile.
Or if your Facility is hopelessly jammed, remove one car from the Outbound / Inbound / "MEN|AT|WORK" areas and place it into the Classification Yard.

7. New Train Phase

There are only a limited number of Crew Trays and engine pieces [Gap 4b: player count + 3]. If all are in play, keep any train cards due out near the turn sheet to remind you of these "held trains". As soon as a Crew Tray frees up, build the train as specified below. The lowest numbered train goes out first.

If there is a Timetabled Train (one with a number board on that Stage) and a crew is available, set the crew on the appropriate Division Point (based on the train card image's direction). Put an engine piece on the "front" of the train. Then, starting with the Superintendent and working left, each player may place ONE car (loaded or empty) on the train, within the car types and numbers specified on the train card (§12.4), from the Division Yard pile. The person placing the Rolling Stock must make every effort to find a suitable car.

[Gap 9] The round repeats. Play continues around the table — Superintendent, then left — until the consist is full or no suitable cars remain in the Division Yard. A single pass would tie consist length to player count, leaving trains permanently short at two or three players and overrunning the consist at five or more.

4-coach Limited, 2 players
  round 1:  P0 → coach   P1 → coach
  round 2:  P0 → coach   P1 → coach
  full — departs with 4

5 players: the round ends mid-way, when the consist fills

If no appropriate cars exist, the train runs short — Rolling Stock may be added enroute to bring it to its maximum length.

For new Timetabled Trains (when a player draws that card and plays it), roll 1D12 and place the Number Board in that spot on the Timetable column of the turn chart. If that slot is occupied by a scheduled train, work down the column to the next available space; if you reach the bottom, continue from the top. This train is now scheduled and will run every Day at that time. If a new Timetabled Train is placed on the current Stage, refer to the paragraph above for determining the consist.

Once all Timetabled Trains are created, if there is a played Extra Train card and an available Crew Tray, the player who played the card may place the Crew Tray at either Division Point for immediate departure and may load the consist as he chooses, subject to the criteria listed on the card (§12.4).

8. Mainline Phase

Any train holding at a player's Office (Whistle Post, Depot, Station, or Terminal) or at a Division Point must attempt to move. These trains move automatically, with no player input, in numeric order based on the white number board pictured on the train's image (lowest first). Remove the "X" from Extras to determine their true number.

[Gap 5] When an Extra ties a Timetabled train on number, the Timetabled train moves first. Extras carry no timetable authority and yield to every scheduled train. Sort by (number, isExtra) ascending.

At the start of the game the entire railroad, consisting of nothing but Whistle Posts, is one big Subdivision. Upgrading an Office to a Control Point (§11) splits the Subdivision in two at that point.

8.1 Highball conditions

The imaginary dispatcher will Highball (clear) a train out of an Office under the following conditions:

The train must be sitting on the A/D track before the Office, or at a Division Point.
The train must be in the order listed on the train's card (engine on the front, Rolling Stock, and possibly a Caboose). It may depart with fewer Rolling Stock than listed, but not out of order.
If there is a train in the next Subdivision moving towards the considered train, the considered train will not depart.
If there is a train in the next Subdivision moving in the same direction (i.e. the considered train would be following it), the Superintendent determines whether it is safe for the following train to depart.
[Gap 2b] If the Subdivision contains a Whistle Post (a non-Control Point) and a train is occupying Secondary Track there — that is, standing clear of the Running Track — that train does not count as occupying the Subdivision. The Superintendent has no grounds to withhold clearance and must Highball the considered train. A train on Secondary Track is not itself eligible to be highballed; §8.1's first condition requires an A/D track or a Division Point.

8.2 Movement along the Division

Trains are placed on the appropriate "Start" point of the Mainline card and must move one region (vertical bar) every Stage [Gap 7]. [Gap 4b] Each Mainline card has two regions. Once a train runs off the end of a card it enters the adjoining player's Limit, and is then moved immediately to the Office, where it stops for orders.

Keep each train's card near it for reference to its number and operating details.

8.3 Collision triggers · [Gap 2a]

Collisions are automatic. If any of the following holds at the moment a train moves, the collision occurs — there is no die roll and no judgment call:

Cars or trains are sitting on the Running Track between the Limits and the Office when a train arrives.
[Gap 2d] There is no room at the station — every A/D track is occupied by a train or Rolling Stock — when a train arrives.
A train is ready to Highball and the track between it and the Limits is occupied by a train or cars.

Trains in the Mainline Phase run at speed and are not expecting anything on the line (§A.4). This is the counterpart of local switching, where a Crew Tray automatically couples to whatever it meets.

9. Load/Unload Phase [Gap 7]

Loading and unloading of Rolling Stock (passengers and freight) takes place in this phase.

Passenger Facilities: Depots, Stations and Terminals — that is, any Office above Whistle Post (§11). A Whistle Post is not a Passenger Facility, so a player who has not upgraded has no passenger business at all.
Freight Facilities: Mine Tipples, Produce Sheds, Grocer's Warehouses, Oil Refineries, Power Plants. Per-card values in §12.5.
Freight House: [Gap 10d] not a facility type of its own, but the collective term for a freight facility permitting both directions — the Grocer's Warehouse and the Oil Refinery.
Modifier Facilities: Cards that, placed adjacent (on any of the nine nearby spots), increase a passenger or freight facility's capacities. If two Facilities are adjacent to the Modifier, its effects may only be used on one Facility per Stage [Gap 7].
Some Freight Facilities allow only outbound cargos (loading), some inbound (unloading), and some both. Passenger Facilities always allow both.

9.1 Special Icons

Loading boxes are green, with the icon of the car type that can be loaded from there.
Unloading boxes are red, with the icon of the car types unloaded from there.
A number touching a box denotes how many cars can be held in the Loading/Unloading boxes. If it touches both boxes, that is the total of all loads/unloads on that card.
Human icons in denim blue are Laborers, used for handling freight.
Human icons in uniform black are Porters, used for assisting passengers.
Laborers and Porters may only be used once each in a Stage.
For Freight Facilities there is a blue "MEN | AT | WORK" sign, used as a turn track for loading/unloading cars. Only one Load may exist on each of the three blue boxes. You may "move past" another load if you have enough Laborers to hop past it.

For each Facility, add up the icon resources (Laborers and Porters) you have at that site. Resolve them one at a time.

9.2 Passenger Operations

One Porter allows one of the following:

Assist passengers to board. Requirements: a blue coach occupying a green Loading Slot, and a train at the Office's A/D track with a white empty coach. Action: replace the white empty coach on the train with the loaded blue one, discard the empty coach into the Classification Yard, and earn a Revenue point.
Assist passengers to de-train. Requirements: a white empty coach in the Division Yard and an unoccupied red Unloading slot. Replace the blue coach on the train with the white one. Place the blue coach on the red Unloading Slot. Earn a Revenue point.

9.3 Freight Operations

Passengers self-load and unload; freight can take hours to work manually. Each Laborer may do one thing:

Load the car. Requirements: a load in the Green Loading Box and an empty car of the required type on the industry's track (maximum four cars). One Laborer moves the cargo one spot: Green Loading Slot → "MEN" → "AT" → "WORK". Moved off "WORK", replace the empty white car on the industry's track with the load and discard the white car into the Classification Yard. Earn a Revenue point.
Unload the car. Requirements: a load on the industry's track and an empty car of that type in the Division Yard. The first Laborer replaces the load with an empty car of that type on the industry's track and places the load on "WORK". Additional Laborers move it to "AT" then "MEN". The last places the load on a red Unloading box. Earn a Revenue point.
NOTE: while ANY load sits in the "MEN | AT | WORK" track, the industry's track is locked down for safety. It loses its status as Operational Rail: no cars may be picked up or dropped off, and no train may occupy or move on it.

A complete freight load therefore takes four Laborer-actions for one Revenue point, while a passenger operation takes one. This asymmetry is intentional.

[Gap 10e] Laborers are nevertheless rarely the binding constraint. Stocking a green box costs a whole Local Operations action (§6.3), and spotting the empty car costs switching — so it is the one-action-per-Stage budget, not worker count, that limits Revenue. See card-reference.md.

Passenger Facilities and Freight Houses permit cars to move each direction (loading and unloading). You may not load a car, gain a point, then unload it and gain another. To track complex platform operations, denote outbound pieces by flipping them onto their roofs; once the train completes operations and highballs, flip them right-side-up again.

10. Collisions · [Gap 2]

Collisions are automatic (§8.3). When one occurs:

Fault and penalty. A collision on a Mainline card is the fault of the Superintendent who cleared the trains out; he loses 5 Revenue points. A collision on the track between (and including) a player's Limits is that player's fault; he loses 5 Revenue points.
Train-on-train. Both trains are immediately removed.
[Gap 2c] Train-on-cars. A moving train striking uncoupled Rolling Stock is a full collision: the train and the struck cars are destroyed, and the responsible party loses 5 Revenue points — the same penalty as a train-on-train wreck.
[Gap 2c] Disposition of destroyed pieces. Engines and cabooses return to the Division Yard; all other Rolling Stock goes to the Classification Yard. Timetabled train cards return to their timetable slot and run again the next Day. Extra train cards go to the Salvage Yard.
[Gap 3c/6] Note that an Office with fewer A/D tracks collides more readily (§2.1, §11.1), and that in Competitive games three collisions in one Day ends the game for everyone (§3.4).

11. Offices and the Office Area · [Gap 3, Gap 4a]

11.1 Office types

Every player begins on a Whistle Post (§4.2). Offices are upgraded by playing an Office card from hand during the "Draw a card" option of the Local Operations Phase (§6.2). The card replaces the current Office card; the replaced card goes to the Salvage Yard. There is no Revenue cost — the cost is one of only three hand slots, plus a whole Local Operations action, which is mutually exclusive with switching your trains or working freight that Stage.

Office	Control Point	Passenger Facility	A/D tracks
Whistle Post	no	no	1
Depot	yes	yes	2
Station	yes	yes	3
Terminal	yes	yes	4

[Gap 8] These are the only differences between the tiers. All four carry identical track geometry (§11.3), so an upgrade is a drop-in replacement that preserves every connection.

Upgrades follow a strict sequence: Whistle Post → Depot → Station → Terminal. No tier may be skipped. A Station or Terminal card drawn early is therefore a dead card occupying one of three hand slots; the player may sit on it, or discard it face-up to a Department slot where a rival may take it.

An upgrade delivers three benefits at once: passenger revenue (a Whistle Post has none), A/D capacity (and running out of A/D tracks is an automatic collision, §8.3), and Subdivision splitting — which raises traffic capacity for the whole Division, not just for the upgrading player.

11.2 Growing the Office Area

A player's Office Area is a grid of track cards, not a single row. The Running Track is the horizontal row through the Office, Limit-to-Limit; everything else is Secondary Track.

Plain track, turnouts and Facility cards are all played from hand into an empty adjacent grid spot, and must connect to existing track. Facility cards carry their own rails — placing a Facility places track.
Extending the Running Track horizontally moves that player's Limits sign outward with it (§2.1). Growth is uncapped in the prototype.
Modifier Facility cards are not track. They are placed adjacent to a Facility, on any of the nine nearby spots (§9).

A longer Running Track is more track to keep clear of arriving trains, so territory carries its own collision risk.

11.3 Office card geometry · [Gap 8]

Every Office card is printed with a diverging junction stub above and below its track:

        [   ][ ↓ ][   ]
        [Lim][Off][Lim]
        [   ][ ↑ ][   ]

Both Secondary rows are therefore reachable from the opening Stage, and the nine-spot Modifier neighbourhood (§9) is usable immediately.

These stubs are plain junctions, not turnouts. The directional rule of §A.1 — enter from A and you may proceed to B or C; enter from B or C and you may only proceed to A — governs drawn turnout cards. It does not apply to the Office card, which remains Operational Rail with its A/D tracks and its §A.4 pass-through allowance intact.

All four Office tiers carry identical track geometry. Whistle Post, Depot, Station and Terminal print the same stubs in the same places, and differ only in Control Point status, Passenger Facility status, and A/D track count (§11.1). This matters because an upgrade replaces the card in place: any difference in geometry between tiers would strand the Secondary Track attached to the old card. An upgrade must never disturb a connection.

12. Components · [Gap 4]

All counts provisional — calibration targets to retune after play.

12.1 The Home Office deck — 52 cards

A single deck containing every card type. The three Department slots are face-up market slots fed from it, not decks with their own contents (§2.6).

Category	Count	Detail
Timetabled Trains	12	One each, numbered 1–12
Extra Trains	4	X9, X10, X11, X12
Office upgrades	9	Depot ×4, Station ×3, Terminal ×2
Freight Facilities	10	5 types × 2
Modifier Facilities	5
Plain track / turnouts	12	Turnout ×6, straight ×3, run-around ×3
Total	52

The track mix is turnout-heavy because turnouts are how Secondary Track branches onward once the Office card's own junction stubs (§11.3) are built out.

All twelve Timetabled Trains are in the deck: the Division starts with no trains running (§4), and a train becomes scheduled only when a player draws and plays its card (§7).

Office cards recirculate — upgrading Depot → Station sends the Depot to the Salvage Yard, and it returns on the next reshuffle. The Office pyramid (4/3/2) exists so the strict upgrade sequence (§11.1) does not strand players with nowhere to climb.

12.2 Fixed supplies (outside the deck)

Component	Count
Mainline cards (tarot, 2 regions each)	N + 1 for N players
Division Point cards	2 (East, West)
Whistle Post cards	N + spares
Limits cards	2N + spares
Crew Trays and engines	player count + 3
Number Boards	12, numbered 1–12
Red Flag cards	1 per player (optional rule only)
Fedora	1
Pocket Watch	1
D12	1

Red Flag cards sit outside the 52 so the deck is identical whether or not the Emergency Toolbox optional rule is used, and are removed from the game when played rather than reshuffled — each player's flag is a single escape.

12.3 Rolling Stock — 62 pieces

Loaded and empty counts are paired because loading swaps a white car for a coloured one (§9.3).

Type	Loaded	Empty
Coaches (blue)	8	8
Boxcars (brown)	6	6
Hoppers (brown)	6	6
Reefers (brown)	4	4
Tank cars (brown)	4	4
Cabooses (red)	6	—
Total		62

12.4 Train consist criteria · [Gap 4c]

Odd numbers run westbound, even eastbound. Pairs are sister trains under the optional rule. Seniority runs passenger-first: low numbers are the varnish, high numbers the drags and locals. Order in every case is engine at the front, revenue cars, caboose last where required.

Trains	Class	Consist
1 / 2	Limited	4 coaches, no caboose
3 / 4	Mail-Express	3 coaches, no caboose
5 / 6	Manifest Freight	3 boxcars or reefers + caboose
7 / 8	Coal Drag	3 hoppers + caboose
9 / 10	Oil Train	3 tank cars + caboose
11 / 12	Way Freight	3 cars of any type + caboose
X9–X12	Extra	Any 3 cars + caboose — the player who played it chooses

Remember the four-slot Crew Tray limit includes the caboose, which is why no caboose train carries more than three revenue cars.

12.5 Card faces · [Gap 10]

What is printed on each individual card — freight facility profiles, passenger facility profiles, Modifier effects, and track geometries — is catalogued in card-reference.md. Summary:

Facility	Car	Direction	Laborers	Out	In	Track
Mine Tipple	Hopper	Outbound	3	3	—	4
Produce Shed	Reefer	Outbound	2	2	—	3
Grocer's Warehouse	Boxcar	Both	2	2	2	3
Oil Refinery	Tank	Both	3	2	2	4
Power Plant	Hopper	Inbound	3	—	3	4

Office	Porters	Green slots	Red slots
Depot	1	2	2
Station	2	3	3
Terminal	3	4	4

Modifier	Effect
Team Track	+1 car on the industry track
Loading Dock	+1 green Outbound capacity
Storage Shed	+1 red Inbound capacity
Extra Platform	+1 green and +1 red slot (passenger)
Section Gang	+1 Laborer or +1 Porter

"Freight House" (§9.3, Appendix A) is not a card — it is the collective term for a freight facility that both loads and unloads, namely the Grocer's Warehouse and the Oil Refinery.

Appendix A: Local Switching

Operational Rail is any track card a train can stop and leave Rolling Stock (uncouple) on, marked with a train wheel icon.

During the Local Operations Phase you may operate your trains if you do not draw a card or work cargo. You have six Moves, splittable between trains. A Move is a train travelling from one Operational Rail card to another (regardless of distance) without changing direction.

A.1 Turnouts

A train entering a turnout from "A" may proceed to B or C. A train entering through B or C may only proceed to A. There is no Operational Rail wheel icon on a turnout, so a train may not stop there.

Diagram (v0.1 §A.1, PDF p. 9): "A" is the right-hand end of the horizontal track, "C" the left-hand end of the same horizontal track, "B" the upper-right end of the diverging leg.

A.2 Reachable squares in one Move

Diagram (v0.1 §A.2, PDF p. 10): a 2×3 grid with four cards reachable in one Move from a Crew Tray on the lower-right card. The upper-right card is unreachable, as getting there would require a change of direction.

A.3 Dropping and picking up cars

A train may drop off cars where it starts or while moving. Cars must come off the train in the order they are seated in the Crew Tray.

Engines also have couplers on the front end, so a train can pick cars up onto its nose and push them into a Facility, in the order they were in.

It is critical that cars are loaded into and unloaded from the Crew Tray, and occupy the track, in the same order they originally held, left-to-right.

A.4 Special Rules

While your Office Track is Operational Rail, Rolling Stock may not be dropped off there — there is a passenger platform, and switching there would be dangerous.
If two trains are operating in your station area, they may not share a card or move through each other.
The exception is your Office track, which has the number of A/D tracks listed (§11.1). As long as fewer trains are holding there than A/D tracks, you may enter and pass through.
If you move your Crew Tray into cars on your track, you MUST pick them up. You may not go around them.
A Crew Tray must always have an engine, and may move a maximum of four Rolling Stock — cabooses included [Gap 4c].
You automatically couple to cars you meet during your Moves. The same is not true of trains arriving or departing in the Mainline Phase: those run at speed and are not expecting anything on the line. Any cars they encounter result in a collision (§8.3).

A.5 Basic Switching Moves

Two basic moves: trailing (requiring a reverse move) and facing (harder, requiring you to push the cars in). Both worked examples use a 2×3 grid — A, B, C on the top row (C a Freighthouse), D, E, F on the bottom (E a Depot).

Trailing point — train on Card F, cars yellow, brown, blue, red, engine facing left:

Drop the back two cars (blue and red) on Card F. Move train to Card B.
Reverse to Card C and drop the brown car.
Move forward to Card B.
Back up to Card F and collect the rest of your train.

Facing point — train on Card D, cars red, blue, brown, yellow, engine facing right. Possible only with a run-around (bypass) track in your Secondary Trackage:

Move to Card B, dropping red, blue and brown. Continue with the yellow to Card F.
Back up via Card E to Card D.
Move forward to Card B, collecting red, blue and brown on the nose. Push them into Card C, dropping the brown car.
Back up and drop red and blue on Card B. Continue backing to Card D.
Pull forward to Card F via Card E.
Back up to Card B to rebuild your train (red, blue, yellow); continue to Card D to finish where you began. Note that this sixth Move ends your Local Operations Phase — if the next Mainline Phase has a train coming from the west or highballing from Card E westward, you may wish to remain clear of the Running Track.

Appendix B: Optional Rules

Reduced visibility. The first three Stages (midnight through 4am) and the last two (8pm through 10pm) are night operations. You get only five Moves in the Local Operations Phase during these Stages.
~~"Sister" trains.~~ Removed. The design's Second Section card does this properly: it is played on a train that is due out, and an identical train runs immediately behind it. See implications.md Q9.
Employee Rotation. At the end of the Day, all players move one chair to the left and take over the next station up the line, taking their points and the Fedora with them.
Emergency Toolbox. Each player starts with a RED FLAG card, bringing his hand to four; he must play or discard down to three on his first turn. This allows more collisions to be avoided. [Gap 4a] Red Flags come from a separate supply and are removed from the game when played, not reshuffled.

Appendix C: Turn Chart

Columns: Roll 1D12, Timetable (filled with Number Boards during play), Stage, then one column per Phase — Local Operations, New Train, Mainline, Load/Unload — and "Super" Shift Change.

Roll 1D12	Stage	Clock	Shift Change
1	1	Midnight
2	2	2:00 AM
3	3	4:00 AM	Fedora
4	4	6:00 AM
5	5	8:00 AM
6	6	10:00 AM	Fedora
7	7	Noon
8	8	2:00 PM
9	9	4:00 PM	Fedora
10	10	6:00 PM
11	11	8:00 PM
12	12	10:00 PM	Fedora

Stage cells are colour-coded for daylight — deep blue at Midnight warming to yellow at 6:00 AM, pale blue through midday, red at 6:00 PM, deep blue again by 10:00 PM. The colouring is informational and aligns with the Reduced Visibility optional rule; it has no mechanical effect.

Change log from v0.1

Gap	Change	Sections
1	Phases resolve phase-major, players in Superintendent-then-left order within a phase	§5
2	Collisions are automatic; train-on-cars is a full collision; no A/D room is a collision; Whistle Post highball clarified	§8.1, §8.3, §10
3	Office upgrades: cards played from hand, strict sequence, A/D counts 1/2/3/4	§11.1
4	52-card deck, piece counts, 2-region Mainline cards, train consist criteria, grid-based Office Area	§2.1, §11.2, §12
5	Timetabled trains outrank Extras on a number tie	§8
6	Mode × victory-condition matrix, collision floor, collective Revenue floor	§3
7	Load/Unload Phase; "the Stage ends"; Salvage Yard; turn → Stage	throughout
8	Office cards carry junction stubs above and below; all four tiers share identical geometry; track mix 6/3/3	§11.1, §11.3, §12.1
9	The New Train make-up round repeats until the consist is full	§7
10	Card face specifications: freight and passenger facility profiles, Modifier effects, "Freight House" defined; §3 targets lowered to 10/20/45	§3.2, §9, §12.5, `card-reference.md`

Gaps 8 and 9 were found by a verification walkthrough of one full Stage against v0.2 and the architecture model, not by reading the original PDFs. Neither question arises in tabletop play, where a person simply does the sensible thing.

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