Jesse.MarkowitzandClaude Opus 5
f308a2d94d
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
16 KiB
Station Master — the cards as built
Generated from
src/engine/content.tsbyscripts/build-card-reference.ts. Do not edit by hand —npm run build:cardsrewrites it, andtest/card-reference.test.tsfails if this file and the code disagree.
This is the one file in docs/rules/ that describes the game as it currently is. Everything
else in this directory is a historical record and marked as such: rules-v0.1.md
transcribes the prototype PDFs, open-questions.md tracks how the gaps in
them were decided, and rules-v0.2.md and
card-reference.md both describe superseded card sets. Read those for the
reasoning; read this for the numbers.
The engine instantiates from the same constants this is emitted from, so a disagreement between this page and the game is a bug in the generator, not a stale table.
No card counts appear here, deliberately (TODO #15a, Jesse 2026-08-22): the counts move with play balance, so a document that prints them is answering a question that will have a different answer next retune. Where a count matters it is a yes/no — whether the deck deals the card at all — which is a fact about the design rather than about the current tuning.
Trains
12 timetabled and 10 Extras, 22 in all. Odd numbers run west, even run east; a pair shares a class and is the same card face in two directions. A Crew Tray holds four pieces and a caboose counts toward the four, which is why no train with a caboose carries more than three revenue cars.
Timetabled
| # | Class | Speed | Runs | Consist | Printed rules |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Crack Limited | fast | west | 2 coaches (2 pieces) | terminals only; no switching; expedite; "Stop at Terminals only." |
| 2 | Crack Limited | fast | east | 2 coaches (2 pieces) | terminals only; no switching; expedite; "Stop at Terminals only." |
| 3 | Express | fast | west | 2 freight (2 pieces) | one freight per location; expedite; "May drop or pick up one freight car at every location." |
| 4 | Express | fast | east | 2 freight (2 pieces) | one freight per location; expedite; "May drop or pick up one freight car at every location." |
| 5 | The Sparrow | fast | west | 3 coaches (3 pieces) | no switching; expedite |
| 6 | The Sparrow | fast | east | 3 coaches (3 pieces) | no switching; expedite |
| 7 | Local | slow | west | 1 freight + 1 coach (2 pieces) | coach stays on station track; "Maximum one freight, one coach." |
| 8 | Local | slow | east | 1 freight + 1 coach (2 pieces) | coach stays on station track; "Maximum one freight, one coach." |
| 9 | Heavy Freight | slow | west | 3 freight + 1 caboose (4 pieces) | — |
| 10 | Heavy Freight | slow | east | 3 freight + 1 caboose (4 pieces) | — |
| 11 | Drag Freight | slow | west | 2 freight + 1 caboose (3 pieces) | — |
| 12 | Drag Freight | slow | east | 2 freight + 1 caboose (3 pieces) | — |
Extras
| # | Class | Speed | Runs | Consist | Printed rules |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| X13 | Appleseed Extra | slow | player's choice | 3 freight + 1 caboose (4 pieces), empties only | drop only; "May drop MTs but not pick up anything." |
| X14 | Fruit Growers Express | fast | player's choice | 2 reefers + 1 caboose (3 pieces) | expedite; "Reefers only. May pick up one extra loaded reefer." |
| X15 | Yard Xfer | slow | player's choice | 2 freight + 1 caboose (3 pieces) | — |
| X16 | Light Engine Move | fast | player's choice | engine only | no switching; "No cars at all." |
| X17 | Campaign Train | fast | player's choice | 1 coach (1 piece) | no switching; stop then expedite; stop earns point; must run loaded; "One turn at station (speeches) then expedite. Earns a point per Office Area if the candidate is aboard." |
| X18 | Circus Train | slow | player's choice | 2 freight + 1 coach + 1 caboose (4 pieces) | no switching; stop earns point; must run loaded; "One turn stopped in an Office Area (circus set-up) earns 1 point, once per Area, if fully loaded." |
| X19 | Military Train | slow | player's choice | 1 freight + 2 coaches (3 pieces) | no switching; no passenger work; expedite; must run loaded; "Troops and materiel: runs loaded where the yard can supply it." |
| X20 | Director's private car | slow | player's choice | 2 freight + 1 coach (3 pieces) | no passenger work |
| X21 | Freight Extra | slow | player's choice | 3 freight + 1 caboose (4 pieces) | — |
| X22 | Pee-Dee | slow | player's choice | 1 caboose (1 piece) | pick up empties only; "Per-diem train. May only pick up MTs." |
Mainline cards
A card is divided into regions, and a train advances one region per Stage — so the regions a card prints are what it costs to cross. Where a train enters is what the rules move: a fast train on Hilly, a Heavy Grade with Helpers, or a card whose back region is a siding rather than part of the road all change the entry point rather than the card's length.
| Card | Regions | Default entry | Fast / slow entry | Trains may pass | Extra may start |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plains | 1 | 0 | — | — | — |
| Curves | 2 | 0 | — | — | — |
| Hilly | 2 | 0 | 1 / 0 | — | — |
| Heavy Grade | 3 | 0 | — | — | — |
| Double Track | 1 | 0 | — | yes | — |
| Uncontrolled Siding | 2 | 1 | — | — | — |
| Tunnel | 2 | 0 | — | — | — |
| Trestle | 1 | 0 | — | — | — |
| Interchange | 2 | 1 | — | — | yes |
The Mainline deck is 10 cards; the two Division Points are the fixed ends of the Division and are not dealt. What each card does, in the words the game uses on screen:
- Plains — 1 region — one Stage each. · 1 Stage for every train. · One train at a time — anything following has to wait for it to clear.
- Curves — 2 regions — one Stage each. · 2 Stages for every train. · One train at a time — anything following has to wait for it to clear.
- Hilly — 2 regions — one Stage each. · This card reads the train's FAST/SLOW rating: a fast train starts further along and crosses in 1 Stage, a slow one in 2 Stages. No other card cares which it is. · One train at a time — anything following has to wait for it to clear.
- Heavy Grade — 3 regions — one Stage each. · A grade, climbing eastward. 3 Stages to climb it and 3 Stages to run down, before help. Helpers start an UPHILL train a region further on; Brakeman does the same DOWNHILL and Airbrakes another again, and Airbrakes cannot be played without Brakeman. Never less than one Stage. · One train at a time — anything following has to wait for it to clear.
- Double Track — 1 region — one Stage each. · 1 Stage for every train. · TRAINS MAY PASS — two trains may stand on this card at once, so a following train is not held behind a slower one.
- Uncontrolled Siding — 2 regions — one Stage each. · A train with the card to itself starts past the back region and is across in 1 Stage. · UNCONTROLLED SIDING — arrive to find a train already here and you take the siding, a region behind it. You are not in the same place, so you do not run into it; it costs you the extra Stage instead. · One train at a time — anything following has to wait for it to clear.
- Tunnel — 2 regions — one Stage each. · 2 Stages for every train. · One train at a time — anything following has to wait for it to clear.
- Trestle — 1 region — one Stage each. · 1 Stage for every train. · One train at a time — anything following has to wait for it to clear.
- Interchange — 2 regions — one Stage each. · A train with the card to itself starts past the back region and is across in 1 Stage. · An Extra beginning its run here starts in the back region and takes the extra Stage. · One train at a time — anything following has to wait for it to clear. · This is the one Mainline card with a yard, so an Extra Train may be made up and started here. Its printed car-sorting is NOT implemented — a consist is re-ordered at a Small Yard in a district.
Office cards
Upgrades are strictly sequential — no skipping a tier — so a Terminal needs all three cards in order. Green slots are outbound passengers, red are inbound, and the design gives slots equal to Porters rather than one more.
| Office | Control point | Passenger facility | A/D tracks | Porters | Green | Red |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Whistle Post | — | — | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Depot | yes | yes | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Station | yes | yes | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| Terminal | yes | yes | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 |
Whistle Posts are a fixed supply of 4 outside the deck, and Limits signs a supply of 8.
Freight facilities
Each lists the car types it works, which way its traffic flows, and the industries it may not sit beside. Every lockout pair is a producer and the consumer of the same commodity — you may build one end of a chain or the other, never both, which is what forces traffic to run between districts rather than in circles inside one. No two of the same industry may share an Office Area, and that rule is enforced for every kind rather than repeated in each row.
| Industry | Cars | Flow | Green | Red | Laborers | Locked out with |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Freight House | boxcar | both | 1 | 1 | 1 | Grocer's Warehouse |
| Mine Tipple | hopper | outbound | 1 | 0 | 1 | Power Plant |
| Refinery | tank | outbound | 1 | 0 | 1 | Power Plant |
| Power Plant | hopper, tank | inbound | 0 | 1 | 1 | Mine Tipple, Refinery |
| Packing Sheds | reefer | outbound | 1 | 0 | 1 | Grocer's Warehouse |
| Grocer's Warehouse | boxcar, reefer | inbound | 0 | 1 | 1 | Packing Sheds, Freight House |
Modifier cards
Each sits beside a host and raises one of its capacities. office as a host means any Passenger
Facility — so a modifier that adds a green slot to an Office adds nothing to a Whistle Post, which
is not one.
| Modifier | Hosts | +Green | +Red | +Laborers | +Porters |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Waiting area | any Passenger Facility | 1 | — | — | 1 |
| Restaurant | any Passenger Facility | 1 | — | — | 1 |
| Hotel | any Passenger Facility | 1 | — | — | 1 |
| Truck dock | Freight House, Packing Sheds, Grocer's Warehouse | — | 1 | — | — |
| Railroad Express Agency | Freight House | 1 | — | 1 | — |
| Forklifts | Freight House, Packing Sheds | 1 | — | 1 | — |
| Prep Plant | Mine Tipple | 1 | — | 1 | — |
| Coal Piles | Mine Tipple | 1 | — | 1 | — |
| Conveyor Belts | Mine Tipple | 1 | — | 1 | — |
| Pipelines | Refinery | 1 | — | 1 | — |
| Oil Depot | Refinery | 1 | — | 1 | — |
| Viscosity breakers | Refinery | 1 | — | 1 | — |
| Transmission lines | Power Plant | — | — | 1 | — |
| Rotary Dumps | Power Plant | — | — | 1 | — |
| Steam Turbines | Power Plant | — | — | 1 | — |
| Ice House | Packing Sheds, Grocer's Warehouse | 1 | — | 1 | — |
| Local small groceries | Grocer's Warehouse | — | — | 1 | — |
Track cards
Track is in the Home Office deck and is drawn and played like any other card — not a separate per-player supply. Operational Rail is the flag that says a train may stop on the card; a turnout may be run through but not stopped on.
| Track | Geometry | Hand | Operational rail | Move cost | Dealt |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Straight track | straight | none | yes | 1 | yes |
| Curved track (right) | curved | right | yes | 1 | yes |
| Curved track (left) | curved | left | yes | 1 | yes |
| Sharp Curved Track (right) | sharpCurved | right | yes | 2 | no |
| Sharp Curved Track (left) | sharpCurved | left | yes | 2 | no |
| Turnout (right) | turnout | right | — | 1 | yes |
| Turnout (left) | turnout | left | — | 1 | yes |
A row marked "no" is a shape the engine understands but the deck does not currently print.
Enhancements
The column that only the implementation can fill in: whether the printed effect actually
resolves yet. live is read during play; dormantSolo is implemented at the point of attack
but the attack is an opponent-directed card held out of every deck, so nothing reaches it in a
solitaire game; unbuilt means the effect is recorded and nothing reads it. A transcription
cannot carry this column, which is the argument for generating the page rather than writing it.
| Enhancement | Placement | Requires | Effect resolves |
|---|---|---|---|
| Interlocking | runningTrackStraight | — | live |
| Facing Point Locks | onCard | interlocking in the district | dormantSolo |
| Yard office | secondaryTrackStraight | — | live |
| Small yard | secondaryTrackStraight | — | live |
| Water column | runningTrackStraight | — | dormantSolo |
| Overpass | onCard | — | unbuilt |
| Telegraph | runningTrackStraight | — | live |
| Telephone | onCard | telegraph on the same card | live |
| Radio | onCard | telephone on the same card | live |
| ABS Signals | mainlineCard | — | live |
Opponent-directed cards, and what answers them
None of these is dealt in any deck today. A card that can only be played at another player has no legal target in a solitaire game, and a defence with nothing to defend against is as dead a draw as the attack — so both halves are held out until the attacks are implemented. They are listed because they are the design, and because what a defence answers is the only record of why it exists.
Action cards — opponent-directed
| Card | Played on | Effect | Answers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Derail | a moving train in the Local Phase | That train must stop for the remainder of the turn. | — |
| Broken coupler | a moving train in the Mainline Phase | That train must stop and not move. | — |
| Railroad crossing | any Secondary Track Straight | May not be used as a stop point for switching. May not become an Industry. | — |
| Per Diem inventory | another player | Lose one point per 2 empty cars on Secondary Tracks. | — |
| Demurrage charge | another player | Lose one point per 2 loaded freight cars on Secondary Tracks. | — |
| Customer complaints | another player | Lose one point per 2 coaches in loading boxes. | — |
| Vandalism | another player | A train passing a Hobo Jungle has a boxcar looted (converted to empty). | — |
| Hotbox | another player | A train just arrived must set one car (chooser’s pick) onto Secondary Track until it departs. | — |
| Outlawed | another player | A train just arrived may not depart for one turn — the crew’s hours have expired. | — |
Space-use cards — opponent-directed
| Card | Played on | Effect | Answers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bean house | adjacent to any straight, curve, turnout, Limit | Burns tablespace. | — |
| Flop house | adjacent to any straight, curve, turnout | Burns tablespace. | — |
| Watertower | adjacent to any straight, turnout on Running Track | Burns tablespace. | — |
| Hobo Jungle | adjacent to any straight, turnout, Limit on Running Track | Burns tablespace. Vandalism can loot a boxcar passing it. | — |
| Section House | adjacent to any straight, curve, turnout | Burns tablespace. | — |
| City blocks | adjacent to any straight, curve, turnout, Limit | Burns tablespace. | — |
| Engine Shops | adjacent to any straight, curve, turnout | Burns tablespace. | — |
| Tenderloin District | adjacent to any straight, curve, turnout, Limit | Burns tablespace. | — |
| Engineer cemetery | adjacent to any straight, curve, turnout, Limit | Burns tablespace. | — |
Maneuver cards
| Card | Played on | Effect | Answers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Red Flags | any time | A stopped train is prevented from being hit; the approaching train is prevented from moving. | — |
| Flying Switch | any time | Break a cut of cars away from behind the engine and roll them into an industry. | — |
| Poling | any time | TBD in the source. | — |
Mainline modifier cards, for completeness — these ARE dealt:
| Card | Played on | Effect | Answers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brakeman | a GRADE Mainline card | Faster passage downhill. | — |
| Airbrakes | a GRADE Mainline card | Faster passage downhill. Brakeman must be in effect. | — |
| Helpers | a GRADE Mainline card | Faster passage uphill. | — |
| Realignment | a Mainline card | Convert one Mainline type to another. Not while a train is on it. | — |
| Facing Point Locks | adjacent to Interlocking | Prevents Derail being played on you. | Derail |