2015 · Rio Grande Games
In the late 19th century, the Russian government commissioned a project to build a railroad that would connect Moscow in the west with Vladivostok in the east. You and your fellow players are buying shares of the railroads that will expand across Russia, attempting to enrich yourself along the way and not lose control of railroads to the Tsar!
Trans-Siberian Railroad - originally one of three titles in Winsome Games' 2015 Essen Set - shares some similarities with older Winsome titles in which the rail network is already printed on the board and individual railroad companies purchase the links that are printed. Four companies (Red, Blue, Green, and Yellow) are active at the start of the game, with one share of each company auctioned to the players in that order to provide starting capital for those companies. The winner of each auction chooses an unoccupied link from Moscow to another city; each link has a value listed in it, and the railroad's initial income is set to this value.
Once the game begins, on a turn you can:
• Buy stock, specifically one share in one company or one share each in two different companies; the money paid is placed in the railroad's treasury, and when you buy two shares, you must pay an additional $4 to one of the two companies.
• Build links, specifically one link, two links, or one external link (i.e. to a location on Russia's border) - but only if the railroad is public (i.e., at least two shares have been purchased) and you hold at least as many shares in that railroad as each other player. (If a railroad has had only one share of stock purchased, it is private.) You can build direct links that extend that railroad's existing network or you can jump another railroad's links to extend the network in a more convoluted way. When you build two links, the second link must start from where the first link built that turn ended. The cost to build an internal link is $4, and if you jump another railroad's links, you must pay $2 to that railroad's treasury; the cost to build an external link is $8, plus $4 to each railroad per link you jumped.
When you build a link, the value of that link - 2-6 - is added to that railroad's income. Each time a railroad's income marker lands on or passes over a black mark on the income track, that railroad's stock value is bumped up one level. Additionally, when you build two links or an external link, that railroad's stock value is bumped up one level.
