Freight and Railways

Load shared Freight Cars and route trains through junctions, cities, and shortcuts.

Loading a Freight Car

Take a Crate from one of your active Contracts and place it on a Freight Car in a loading space: either city or either central junction. You may use any player’s car. Unless an effect says otherwise, each car can receive at most one Crate from you during a single turn. You cannot load more Crates than the action permits, and may load fewer.

A car must be at least half full to be eligible to move: a Small Freight Car must carry 1 Crate, a Medium car at least 1, and a Large car at least 2. Cargo can belong to different players in the same train.

Form and move trains

A train is one or more Freight Cars occupying the same row of a railway section. One row has three small-car spaces, so it can hold three Small cars, one Medium plus one Small, or one Large car. Cars in a row must touch; no empty spaces between them.

To form a train, choose one or more eligible cars in a city, group them, and put them on the first straight section leaving that city. This uses one movement. Each later movement advances one existing train one section in its current direction. You may choose a different train for each movement. Trains always follow the loop clockwise: from Benares to Calcutta or vice versa. You may move any train, regardless of ownership.

Merge, split, and push

When a moving train reaches a row with another train, merge them if the combined size fits. If not, push the train ahead one section for free. A push can cause further pushes; complete that chain before the next movement. If a train reaches a junction, you may split it across rows, but cars entering the same row must merge and the arriving train order must be respected.

You can split a train only when it enters a junction. When it leaves a junction, move it as one train. If a movement is impossible, skip only the movement that cannot be completed.

Shortcuts and delivery

Near each city, a shortcut bypasses the remaining track sections. It costs four movements to bypass the final approach to Benares and three to bypass the final approach to Calcutta. Pushed trains cannot use shortcuts; when pushed off a junction before one, they must enter the next straight section.

When a train reaches a city, unload every Crate into that city’s Warehouse. Return the cars to the city, where they are available for loading again. Advance each Freight Car owner’s Performance by the car’s capacity: Small 1, Medium 2, Large 3. Resolve cars in arrival order, from the front of the train to the back. Performance rewards can load or ship a Crate, give an immediate one-use effect, or let you buy a red Good tile for its row’s price. Each tile is optional.

Shipping zone

A separate Shipping action moves Crates from your active Contracts to the three Ship spaces. Gain the displayed reward for each Crate shipped. During Administration, count Crates on all three Ships to set next-round order. Shipping also earns Transaction tokens and the first player may receive a Regional Trading Post. Shipping a Crate is not a railway delivery.

At the end of Round 2 only, a Freight Car still in transit earns its owner income based on capacity (Small 1, Medium 2, Large 3) multiplied by the junction value it has reached (first 1, second 2, third 3 rupees per capacity). All Crates still in transit also count when applying the unpaid-delivery penalty.