What's new in SimTrain

Turn the map to see it from any side

• The map now turns a quarter turn at a time, so you can see round tall buildings and mountains. On a computer press , or . (comma or full stop); on a touchscreen twist two fingers. The ↺ ↻ buttons in the bottom-right corner work on both.
• The map turns about the spot you are looking at, and the overview in the corner turns with it.

Trains wait for single track instead of running into each other

• A train now waits at the platform or junction before a stretch of single track while another train is on it, or is about to come through it the other way. Two trains no longer meet nose to nose in the middle of the line.
• A passing loop works on its own: trains going opposite ways wait at the loop and pass on its two sides, no signals needed. Signals along a long stretch still let trains going the same way follow each other closely.
• If two trains share a line with nowhere to pass, the game warns you when you copy a train or change a timetable. Should two trains get stuck waiting for each other, a Back up button in the train's panel sends one back to a siding or loop so the other can get by.
• Copy train no longer puts the new train on a platform another train is heading for.

Towns grow round their stations

• A town can now build up to 5 tiles round each of its passenger stations, even past the edge of its outline, as long as it grows out from its own buildings. The tallest buildings go up right beside the platforms, and shops and workplaces gather there.
• Put a passenger station on the edge of a town and feed it materials, and a new quarter fills in round the station. The Station tool says so when you point it at a town.

Homes, shops and workplaces, and commuters in the rush hours

• Every town building is now a home, a shop or a workplace. Shops have a glazed front under a coloured awning; workplaces are sawtooth-roofed workshops, or glass office blocks once they reach three storeys. Most gather in the middle of town; the outskirts are mostly homes.
• Only homes house people, so each storey of a home holds a few more than before. Shops, workplaces, your own shops, hotels and offices, and factories all offer jobs. Tap a town to see its jobs.
• People from a town without enough work ride your trains to a linked town with jobs to spare: out in the morning rush and home in the evening. The rush hours are theirs now, so a line between a home town and a job town fills up at 07:00–09:00 and 17:00–19:00. The town panel says how many ride out to work and in.
• Work within reach also makes people want to live in a town, alongside good service and links.

People move to the towns your trains serve best

• Each midnight some people pack up and move along your lines: from a town your trains serve poorly to a linked town that is better served or reaches more towns. The bigger the difference, the more of them go. A big move makes the news.
• A town never empties below two-fifths full this way, and nobody moves into a town without a free home. Towns your trains don't link keep their people.
• The town panel says how many moved in and out last night.

Towns fill up and empty out with their service

• A town's people are now counted apart from its homes: tap a town to see how many live there and how many its buildings could house. Each storey has room for a few more people than before, and a new town is about four-fifths full, so towns start much the size they did.
• People move in and out over the hours. Good service and trains to more towns fill a town toward every home taken; poor service empties it. A town without a passenger station stays about four-fifths full. The town panel says whether people are moving in, moving out, or settled.
• More people means more riders, so a well-run line feeds itself, and business values follow the people actually living in town.

A start menu, and unlimited money for trying things out

• Opening the game now shows a menu, ready to start the campaign at your next map, or a game, showcase or developed city.
• If you have a saved game, it's at the top: press Continue to carry on where you left off. Starting something new asks first, so your saved game isn't replaced by accident.
• You can also open a game you exported, with Open a save file….
• A new Cheats switch in the menu gives you unlimited money on any kind of game: build anything, and never go bankrupt. Your money is still counted, so you can see what your railway earns and costs, and the money button shows ∞.
• Winning a campaign map with unlimited money opens the next map, but earns no stars, and never replaces stars you earned without it. Such maps show ✓ in the list.
• Long dialogs now scroll on small screens instead of slipping under the top bar.

A top bar that fits any screen, and a checklist you can tuck away

• The top bar no longer runs off the edge on laptops such as Chromebooks: whenever it doesn't fit on one row, the pause, speed and clock controls move to a second row under the tools, whatever the screen or zoom.
• Tap the heading of the goal or targets checklist to minimise it to a small pill that still shows how you're doing ("0 of 3 done", "2 of 5 towns"). Tap it again to open it. The game remembers your choice.

Help shape the game by sharing play statistics

• The game now sends a few anonymous figures on how play goes: which map you started, how far you got through the tour and the checklist, whether you won or ran out of time, how each year went, and any error that crashed the game. They show which maps are too hard and where new players get stuck.
• No name, account or saved game is sent, and nothing ties one visit to the next. Turn it off any time with Share play statistics in Game → Settings. It starts off if your browser asks sites not to track you.

Placing your first train no longer freezes the game

• Putting a train down before any other model was on sale (in January for passenger trains, before April for freight) froze the game with an empty panel. The train's panel now opens as it should, and says when the next model goes on sale.

Towns ask for things, and things happen on the map

• Once your towns are linked (or from the start in a showcase with money), towns now and then ask for something: Timber or Stone delivered, a passenger line to a town your trains don't link them to yet, or more of their people taking the train. Each comes with a bonus and a month to do it by.
• Open requests are in the checklist under Town requests, with how far along you are. Tap one to look at the town. Do it in time for the bonus, which shows as Town requests in Finances, and a better rating in that town. Miss it and the town thinks a little less of your railway. Don't want it? Tap Decline, at no cost.
• Things happen too, shown under Happening now. A town's fair sends out twice the riders for a day. A factory may work double shifts for two months or stop work for one. New factories open near the towns, and from Year 3 an old factory may run out and close for good. A closed factory turns grey, but there's always another making the same cargo.
• A message in the corner tells you about each new request, each one met or missed, and each thing that happens.

The top bar fits on an iPad held upright

• Your money and the Game menu are no longer cut off at the right edge in portrait: the pause, speed and clock controls move to a second row under the tools. Landscape is unchanged.

Reports you can read at a glance

• Reports open as a wide sheet over the map, with room for every column. The map finder in the corner and the checklist step aside while it, or any other panel, is open.
• Lines are split into Passenger and Freight, each with its total carried and profit; tap a heading to fold one away.
• Buttons above the list count the lines by how they're doing ("Losing money 10", "Held up 1"): tap one to see only those lines.
• Tap a column heading to sort by it. Lines needing a look come first, biggest losses first among them.
• Each line now fits on two rows: its route by its two ends and how many stops it has, waits like "1h 05", and how it's doing as a coloured tag. Tap a line for all its stops, as before.

Track over hills is easy to see again

• Track, stations and yards on hills, rocky ground and marsh are no longer hidden behind the mounds, stones and reeds: those now stay off any tile with something built on it.

Towns that grow into their own shapes

• Towns no longer fill out into squares. Each grows into an outline of its own, longer one way than the other, with lobes and bays, and a ragged edge.
• Tall buildings still gather in the middle, but the skyline is uneven, and a few spots are left open as parks and gardens.
• Towns grow towards your stations and along your track first, and onto hills last.

Two kinds of building material: Timber and Stone

• Sawmills and timber yards make Timber; quarries, brickworks and cement works make Stone. The main line brings both, a trainload of each by turns.
• Towns build new houses and their first two storeys from Timber, and need Stone for the third and fourth. A town with no Timber builds low with Stone instead, but a town on Timber alone stops at two storeys.
• A freight yard keeps each material separately, up to 200 t of each, drawn as brown and pale grey cubes on the yard and in the wagons. A freight train carries one material at a time: an empty train takes whichever the yard holds most of.
• Station, train and factory panels say which material is where. In showcases, every town is joined to its nearest source of each material it can reach.
• Materials already in a yard are split half and half; a load already aboard a train counts as Timber.

Mountains, tunnels, hills, rivers and marsh

• New maps have mountain ranges, with hills round them, rivers winding across the land, rocky ground and marsh by the water.
• Track goes through a mountain by tunnel: drag it straight through, from open ground to open ground. Tunnels cost $60,000 a tile and a little to keep up, and nothing else can be built on a mountain.
• Laying track over hills, rocky ground or marsh costs extra, and marsh costs more to keep. Towns don't build on marsh. The track preview and hint show what you'll pay.
• Every map can still be won with the money you start with, which now allows for the rougher land. Games you've already started keep their map.

Change trains anywhere in a town

• Passengers can now change between two of your lines anywhere in a town, not only at a station both lines call at: they get off at one station and walk across town to the other. Each leg still pays its own fare, and a station's panel shows which town they change in.
• Showcases on Large and Huge maps join their separate lines this way. Neighbouring lines each have a station in the town where they meet, so passengers can travel well beyond their own line.

Showcases on big maps

• Showcases now come in every size. Pick Small, Normal, Large or Huge in New game… for a showcase or a developed showcase, as you can for a game.
• On Large and Huge maps the towns are on separate passenger lines of about four towns each. Every line has its own track, a passing loop and two trains, so the towns stay well served as they grow. Freight still reaches every town.
• Big showcases are ready in a second or two, instead of up to two minutes.

Bigger maps with more towns, and an overview to find your way

• New game… has a Size choice: Small (3 towns), Normal (5), Large (8) or Huge (12 towns on a map four times the size of Normal). Bigger maps give you longer to link everything up and more money to start with.
• On Large and Huge maps a small overview of the whole map sits in the corner. Tap or drag on it to look somewhere else, pick a town from its list to go straight there, or press Whole map to zoom right out. You can switch it on or off under Settings in the Game menu, on any size of map.
• You can zoom out until the whole map fits on screen, town names stay readable when you do, and the map can no longer be dragged out of sight.
• The map draws faster, especially big ones: building and tapping things no longer makes it stutter.

Changing trains, wearing out, and a fairer economy

• Passengers can now change trains once. If one of your lines and another both call at the same station, riders travel between towns that no single train links, changing there. Each leg pays its own fare, so a hub town can link up a whole network. Fewer people make a journey with a change than a direct one. A station's panel shows where its riders will change.
• Trains wear out. Each year of age puts a train's running costs up, and older trains break down now and then: a broken-down train stands where it is for an hour and a half and holds up the line behind it. A train's panel shows its age and how reliable it is. Overhaul it from the Tools tab to make it as good as new.
• Money no longer runs away once your network is busy. Fares, freight pay and running costs are all lower, so a train takes longer to pay for itself, and big towns send fewer riders per head than small ones. A busy railway still makes good money, but growing it now takes planning.

A campaign of six maps, and charts of your railway

• Game → New game… has a new Campaign choice: six maps that get harder, from three towns with money to spare to an island map on tight money. Everyone gets the same six maps.
• Win a map to open the next one. The list shows which maps are open and your best stars on each.
• Each win earns up to three stars: one for connecting every town, one for a full month to spare, and one for finishing with no loan and at least a quarter of your starting money.
• When you win, go straight on to the next map or replay this one. If you lose, try it again.
• Reports has a new History tab with charts: your cash and what the company is worth, each day's profit, riders and tonnes carried, each town's population, and each of your trains' profit.
• Tap or point at a chart to read that day's numbers. Show the last 12 days or everything.
• Charts start from the first midnight after this update, and keep the last ten years.

Clearer panels and a shorter Game menu

• A train's panel now has three tabs: Overview, Timetable and Tools. Overview opens with four tiles (riders, profit, how full it runs, and the wait), and a badge by the train's name says how its line is doing at a glance.
• Reports brings Finances, Lines and past years together in one panel, with a tab for each. Years lists every year's profit, tax, net worth, riders and targets; tap one to see its report card again.
• The Game menu is shorter. New game… picks the kind of game and map, Reports opens the panel above, Export and Import sit beside Save, Night shading and Sound are switches, and How to play and the tour are under Help.
• Messages now stack in the bottom-left corner and fade after a few seconds. When something can't be built the message is red.

A tidier top bar

• The top bar is now three groups. Building is on the left: your tools and Undo. Time is in the middle: pause, speed and the clock in one pill. Your company is on the right: money, the goal and the Game menu.
• On an iPad, Undo shows just its arrow, to leave room for everything on one row.

A fresh look

• The toolbar, panels and checklist have a cleaner, more modern look: frosted-glass panels over the map, rounder corners, a crisper font and clearer headings.
• Every tool has its own icon, and the tools sit together as one group, with the one you're using lit up in blue. Undo, pause, speed and the Game menu have icons too.
• Money and the goal show as rounded chips, and yearly targets show as a simple list you tick off. The Game menu now opens above any open panel.

Yearly targets, line tools, a tidier toolbar and a balance pass

• Towns send a little fewer riders each hour, and riders wait 5 hours before giving up instead of 4. Busy cities are easier to serve well. Developed showcases now mostly sit at Fair or Good service instead of Poor.
• Offices take more rent from big towns, so they pay for themselves in about two weeks of game time.
• The yearly net worth target now keeps up with how fast your company is earning, so a booming railway gets a target worth reaching for.
• Fares and the money you start with are unchanged, and every map can still be won.
• Once you've connected the towns, every year brings three targets: grow your company's net worth, keep every town you serve at Fair service or better, and carry more riders than last year.
• The checklist shows how you're doing as the year goes on. At the end of December the annual report gives you a star for each target met.
• Showcases with money have targets from the start.
• A train's panel has new line tools. Copy train buys another train just like it, on the same timetable, starting from a free platform on its line.
• Copy, other way starts the new train from the far end of the line, running back towards the first, so with a passing loop and signals the two pass each other.
• Reverse sends a train round its timetable the other way.
• Leave every… fills in departure times from the first stop, every 20 minutes up to every 2 hours, through the day.
• The toolbar fits on one row on an iPad. Each tool's choices, like the kind of train or business, now appear in a small bar underneath while that tool is picked.
• One speed button steps through 1×, 2×, 4× and 8×. Sound on or off has moved into the Game menu (M still works). The clock turns amber in the rush hours.
• The tour now shows Undo and mentions signals and businesses. The first time you pick Signal, Business or Train, a short card explains it.
• How to play covers signals, train models, destinations and rush hours, businesses, bridges, years and tax, Undo and night shading, and now opens in showcases too.

Undo, a clearer track preview, and island maps on request

• A new Undo button (or press U, or Ctrl/⌘+Z) takes back the last thing you built: track, a station, a signal, a business or a train, with all your money back. It works on things built in the last two game hours, before they're in use.
• Laying track is easier to see: while you drag, the line shows in white over grass and woods, amber where it will bridge water, and red where it can't go, with the cost (or the reason) right beside it.
• Showcases now keep maps with a town on an island, bridges and all. Before, they always picked a map without one.
• Want a bridge? Choose Island town in the New scenario dialog, for a game or a showcase, and you'll get a map with a town across the water.

Bridges, and closing the books every year

• You can now lay track across water: drag it straight over from one bank to the other. Each span of bridge costs $40,000 and a little more upkeep than track on land.
• Bridges run straight from land to land. Track can't turn, end or branch on the water, and stations, signals and businesses go on land.
• On some new maps one town stands on an island close to the shore, so you'll need a bridge to reach it. The money you start with allows for it. Games you've already started keep their map.
• Each game day now counts as a month, twelve to a year. The clock shows the month and year, like "Mar, Year 1 08:00", and goal deadlines and new train models are given as months.
• At the end of December the year's books close. A report shows what you took in and spent, your profit, your company's net worth, riders and freight carried, how the towns grew, and your best and weakest lines.
• Profitable years pay 30% of their profit in tax, charged on New Year's Day. Spending on your network before the year ends keeps more of your money working.
• Finances has a column for the year so far, a list of past years (tap one to see its report again), and each of your businesses with what it earned today, yesterday and this year, and what it's worth.

Shops, hotels and offices

• A new Business tool (press H) lets your railway company buy a shop, a hotel or an office beside one of its passenger stations. The land you can build on is shaded gold.
• Businesses earn every hour from the riders getting off at their station: shops from every rider, hotels most from riders who came a long way, and offices from riders plus rent from a big town. They cost upkeep even when nobody comes, and several of one kind at the same station share its riders.
• Land value: a business is worth more as its town grows and is well served, and less if the town shrinks. Tap one to see what it earns and what it's worth, and sell it whenever you like.
• Their earnings show as Businesses in your finances and count towards your profit.
• Developed showcases start with a shop and a hotel by the biggest town's station.

Rush hours, destinations, and night falls

• Riders now come in waves: twice as many in the morning and evening rush hours (7 to 9 and 5 to 7), half as many overnight. The clock says when it's rush hour.
• Every rider wants to go to a particular town, one your trains link theirs to. Big towns and near ones draw the most. Riders only get on a train that's heading for their town, ride past other stops, and pay by the distance they actually travel, so longer trips pay more.
• Tap a station to see who is waiting and where they want to go. A train that leaves full is only blamed for riders it could have taken.
• Night falls: the map slowly darkens through the evening, town windows light up, and it brightens again at dawn. Turn it off with Night shading in the Game menu.
• Developed showcases now run Commuter trains, to carry their bigger crowds.

Choose your trains

• Trains now come in models. Next to Passenger or Freight on the Train tool, pick a Local (the train you know), a Commuter with room for 70 riders a car but a little slower, or an Express, much faster with fewer seats, for long lines. For freight there's the Hauler and the slow but roomy Heavy hauler.
• Bigger and faster trains cost more to buy and to run. The hint shows the price, seats or tonnes, speed and running cost before you place one.
• New models go on sale as the game goes on: the Commuter on Day 2, the Express on Day 3 and the Heavy hauler on Day 4. In a showcase they're all on sale from the start.
• Change model, in a train's panel, upgrades a train while it stands at a platform. You pay the new train's price less half what the old one cost, and it keeps its cars and timetable.

Signals and passing loops

• A new Signal tool (press G) puts a signal on a straight piece of your track for $10,000. Trains wait at a signal while the track beyond it has another train on it, and its lamp shows red.
• Build a passing loop, a second track beside the line, longer than your trains, with a signal at each end of each side. Trains meeting head-on then wait at the loop and pass each other instead of getting stuck for good. Now you can run more than one train on a line.
• A train waiting at a signal looks for another way round, so it takes the free side of the loop by itself. Track without signals works exactly as before.
• The showcases now have a passing loop halfway along the passenger line and two passenger trains, so they carry about twice as many people.

Freight pays its way

• Towns now pay $1,000 a tonne for the materials you deliver, up from $400. A freight line that keeps up with its factory makes money on its own, and a line from the railway's interchange makes even more.
• A freight train that runs half empty can still lose money, and the Lines report will tell you.

See how each line is doing

• Lines, in the Game menu and in Finances, lists every train's line with today's or yesterday's figures. You'll see how many riders or tonnes it carried, how full it ran, how long its riders had waited, and what it made after running costs.
• Each line gets a verdict, such as Healthy, Busy, Full (riders left behind), Long waits, Losing money, Mostly empty, Running light or No route, with a suggestion for what to change.
• Tap a line, or any train, to see its trips, riders or tonnes, money in and out for today and yesterday, and how many got on and off at each stop.

Pick your own scenario

• New scenario… in the Game menu sets up a game for you. Choose a normal game, a showcase, or the developed showcase with its city.
• Pick a map by number, roll the dice for a random one, or leave it blank. For showcases, choose the money to start with: free building, $250k, $1M, $5M, or type your own amount, such as 750k.
• Start it straight away, or copy the link. Opening the link later starts the same scenario again, on the same map with the same money, so it's easy to try something twice or share it.

Passengers, fares and a railway that has to pay its way

• Towns now have people, and people take the train. Every hour, riders turn up at each town's passenger station, more from bigger towns. You can see them waiting on the platform.
• Your passenger trains pick them up and carry them to the next town on the line, and they pay a fare by the distance. A car seats 40.
• Riders give up if no train comes within four hours. The figures on the platform turn amber, then red, as they get close.
• Each town has a service rating: Good, Fair or Poor, shown as a coloured dot above its name. Good service lets a town grow at full pace with the materials you bring, fair at half pace, and poor not at all. Leave a town badly served for long and it starts to shrink.
• Trains cost money every hour they run, and track and stations cost upkeep every midnight. Towns pay for the materials you deliver. Tap your money to open Finances, where you can see today's and yesterday's books and take out a loan.
• You start with about enough for a first line and a train, so the fares have to pay for the rest. Two midnights in a row in the red and the company goes bankrupt. Once every town is connected, the game carries on as a business.
• Tap a town's houses to see how many people live there, how many took a train or gave up today, and how fast it's growing. The checklist now ends with turning a profit, and has a bonus for good service.
• The showcases run on money too. They start with $1,000,000, and the big cities in the developed showcase make a healthy profit while the small towns in the other one take a few days to pay. Add &money= and an amount to the address to start with a different sum, or &money=free to build for free with no money at all.

Collect the railway's materials at an interchange

• The railway's Main Line train still drops its materials at the depot, and now you can use them. Build a freight station of your own within 3 tiles of the depot (shown with a blue outline while the Station tool is selected), and the railway passes the materials straight across to it.
• The depot gets a big load each time the Main Line train comes in, where a factory makes a steady trickle, so an interchange is worth a line of its own. Run a freight train from it to your towns.
• Several interchanges share the depot's load. Every new map leaves room for one beside the depot.
• Station names beside each other no longer overlap on the map.
• In both showcases, the depot's materials now reach the towns through an interchange too. It's the biggest supplier on the map, so its freight train serves more towns than a factory's, and waits at the interchange for each delivery so every town on its round gets a fair share.

The main line is the railway's, and towns that look like towns

• The main line now belongs to the railway alone, as in the original A-Train. Your track can cross it, straight across, but can't join it, and you can't build stations on it. Your trains can't call at the depot or the ends of the line.
• Trains go straight over a crossing with the main line, and the railway's train keeps to its own line, so it never ends up head-on with one of yours.
• Materials for your towns come from the factories. The railway still brings materials in to its depot, and if the depot is close enough to a town, that town builds with them.
• If your saved game had trains on the main line, they're sold for the usual refund when you load it, and the depot and the ends of the line come off your timetables. Everything else carries on as it was.
• Buildings come in all shapes and sizes now, instead of plain boxes. Houses have pitched roofs in different colours, and some have chimneys. Two-storey buildings are brick terraces or small flats. At three storeys you get brick and stone blocks, some L-shaped, with machinery on the roof. Four-storey buildings are towers that step back as they rise, some topped with a mast. Every building has rows of windows.
• Open simtrain.pages.dev/?showcase=developed for a map whose towns have already grown. One is a city with a skyline of towers and houses spreading out round it, and the others range from busy towns down to villages.
• Both showcases now play by the same rules you do: a passenger line joins every town, and each factory has a freight line to the towns nearest it. Building is free, and opening a showcase replaces the game saved in your browser, so use Export first if you want to keep yours.

Sound effects

• Building now sounds like building: track clanks into place, stations go up to hammering, and a new train sounds its horn. Bulldozing rumbles.
• A soft buzz tells you when something can't be built, and the message says why. Each step you tick off on the checklist chimes, a bell rings when a town is connected, and there's a fanfare when you win.
• Turn sound off or on with the speaker button in the toolbar (or press M). The game remembers your choice.

A guided tour instead of a wall of text

• A new game now starts with a short tour that lights up one part of the screen at a time: a town on the map, your checklist, the tools, your money and time left, the clock, and the Game menu. Skip it any time.
• While you play, a glowing pointer shows where to go next: which tool to pick, which town to build in, where to drag your track, which station to put a train on, and the button for its timetable. Fold the checklist away and the pointer goes with it.
• The clock now stays stopped until you start it, so take your time building your first line. When your train is ready, the pointer shows you the 1× button.
• After your first game you get a short welcome instead of the whole tour. Take the tour again from the Game menu, or read the full rules under How to play.

Play on iPad, with a checklist to guide you

• SimTrain now works with touch. Tap to build and to pick things. Drag one finger to lay track or bulldoze. Drag with two fingers to move the map and pinch to zoom.
• Nothing gets built until you lift your finger, so if you change your mind halfway through a drag, put a second finger down to cancel it.
• On a touchscreen the game starts with the Select tool, so a one-finger drag moves the map and doesn't lay track by accident. Buttons are bigger, and holding the iPad upright puts the train and station details at the bottom of the screen.
• A goal checklist on the left walks you through your first line: a station in a town, a second one, track between them, a train, its stops, and its first run. Each step ticks off as you do it, and its button picks the tool you need. If your train gets stuck, the checklist says why.
• The checklist then shows which towns are connected. Tap a town's name to jump to it. After your first line there's a bonus step for growing a town with materials. Tap the goal counter to hide the checklist or show it again.
• The welcome screen is shorter, and the details on freight, the main line and money fold away until you want them. Save, Export, Import, New game and How to play are now in the Game menu, and every panel has a ✕ to close it.

Watch the towns grow

• Open simtrain.pages.dev/?showcase for a map that's already up and running: a passenger line joins every town, and each town has its own freight line bringing materials in from off the map. Press 8× and watch the towns fill in and build upwards.
• The lines never share track, so no train gets stuck waiting for another.
• There's no goal and building is free, so you can add to it however you like.
• Opening a showcase replaces the game saved in your browser. Use Export first if you want to keep yours.

Freight stations, and towns that grow

• Stations now come in two kinds: passenger and freight. Pick which in the Station tool. Passenger trains stop only at passenger stations and freight trains only at freight stations; both can still use the exits at either end of the main line.
• A freight station has a yard beside the platform where its materials pile up. Press R to turn the station and to choose which side the yard goes on. A freight station costs $70,000, yard included, and any trees in the way are cleared for free.
• Unload materials at a town's freight station and the town uses them straight away: every 15 minutes it puts up a new house or adds a storey to a building, up to four storeys, tallest in the middle of town. You can watch it grow on the map.
• Only freight stations collect from factories, and the railway's depot on the main line is now a freight station.
• Any of your trains running between two towns still connects them for the goal.

Stockpiles show up in the woods

• Stations with trees all around them now show their stockpile too. Before, the white cubes only appeared on open grass, so a station in the woods showed just its tonnage.
• The trees beside the platform make way for the pile. Laying track there still costs the usual $2,000 to clear the woods.

Materials you can see

• Materials are now plain white cubes, as in the original A-Train: one cube for every 10 tonnes.
• A station's stockpile is stacked beside its platform, behind it when there's room. The exact tonnage is shown above the station's name.
• Loaded freight wagons carry their load as cubes too, so you can see which trains are full.
• Station names sit a little higher, so a full pile doesn't hide them.

The Main Line train

The main line now has a train of its own, just like in A-Train.

• The railway's grey Main Line train comes in from each end of the main line full of materials and unloads them at the depot, a station on the main line near the towns. Pick them up there with your own freight trains.
• It's free and runs itself. It isn't yours, so you can't sell it or change its timetable, and the depot can't be removed.
• The main line belongs to the railway too: you can't bulldoze its track, but you can join onto it, branch off it and build your own stations on it.
• It shares the line with your trains. Either can hold up the other, and two trains meeting head-on on a single track will get stuck, so plan passing loops.
• Its trips don't count towards connecting the towns.

The main line

• Every new map starts with a main line running from one edge of the map to the other.
• Each end is an exit. A train that stops at an exit leaves the map and comes back an hour later on the same track. A freight train comes back full of materials, free of charge.
• If another train is standing at the exit, a returning train waits off the map until it's clear.
• Exits can't be bulldozed, and you don't set Load or Unload there: trains fill up on their own.

Factories and freight

• Every new map has two factories. Each makes 10 tonnes of materials every hour into the yard of any station inside its orange outline (shown while the Station tool is selected). Click a factory to see where its output goes.
• Every station now has a yard that holds 200 tonnes. When a factory's yards are full, its output is lost.
• Freight trains: with the Train tool, choose Freight next to the number of cars. Each car holds 20 tonnes.
• Each stop on a freight train's timetable can be set to Load, Unload or neither. Trains keep loading for as long as they wait, so a longer wait at a Load stop picks up more.
• Materials don't do anything yet. Growing towns will use them in a future update, and freight doesn't count towards connecting the towns.

First release

• Lay track, build stations and run trains on an isometric map.
• Give each train a timetable: its stops in order, how long to wait at each, and set departure times.
• The goal: connect five towns by rail before the end of Day 5, on a fixed budget. Every map can be won.
• The game saves itself in your browser. Export and Import let you keep a copy as a file, and New game starts a fresh map.
• Run time at 1× to 8×, or pause; you can build while paused.