Rail Capital

Getting started

Rail Capital is a real-time railway strategy game. Found a company, raise capital, connect useful destinations and run services before your rivals claim the best opportunities.

Choose a city and found your first railway.
Issue shares to put working capital into the company treasury.
Build track between places with useful passenger or freight flows.
Buy a suitable train, create a route and configure its service.
Reinvest profits, pay dividends and expand with care.

Start with the guided tutorials. First Rails teaches the core railway loop, while later tutorials introduce shares, industry and logistics.

Companies and cash

Player cash and company money are separate. Your cash buys shares and repays personal loans; a company treasury pays for track, trains, stations, warehouses, freight and administration.

President: The largest shareholder, responsible for construction, trains, services and dividend policy.
Operations: Limits how many services and private contracts a company can manage.
Revenue: Operating income accumulates during the year. At year end it may be retained or paid partly as dividends.
Shares: Issued company shares raise treasury funds; public-market shares trade between investors and can alter control.

Watch cash flow closely. A profitable-looking service can still struggle if track, train maintenance and purchased freight cost more than it earns.

Building a network

Open Construction on your company card to choose single or double track, tunnels, bridges, stations, warehouses and track works. Construction is paid for by the selected company.

Track follows ordinary terrain and becomes usable when construction finishes.
Tunnels cross mountain terrain at a substantial cost.
Bridges cross water; ordinary river crossings are handled as part of track construction.
Stations connect your railway to cities and industries.
Warehouses store and transfer company-owned freight without creating delivery revenue.
Double track increases capacity and helps faster trains pass slower traffic.

Routes and services

A route is the ordered list of stops. A service is a train assigned to that route, together with its loading, unloading and waiting instructions.

Passenger carriages carry passengers; freight carriages can be configured independently or as a compressed group. At each stop, decide what the train should unload, load, retain or dispose of. Trains must remain within their stop range and can only use completed, connected track.

A practical first service: connect two nearby towns with complementary passenger supply and demand, then use Unload, then Load at both stops.

Freight and industry

Freight has an owner and a purchase cost. Producing sites sell cargo to the railway; destinations buy accepted cargo at their local market price. If there is no buyer or free storage, the train keeps the cargo rather than silently discarding it.

Coal mines: Supply coal for industry and export.
Oil works: Supply oil used by industrial recipes.
Steel and goods works: Consume input cargo and manufacture higher-value freight.
Ports: Provide export demand, including demand for finished products.

Contracts reward particular deliveries. Public contracts are open races; private contracts occupy an operations slot until completed or abandoned.

Ways to play

Tutorial campaigns teach the game through guided objectives.
Sandbox provides configurable seeded worlds and AI opponents.
Scenarios set particular maps, opponents and victory conditions.
Iron Road is a multi-stage roguelite campaign with persistent upgrades.
Game of the Day offers one shared deterministic challenge each day.
Multiplayer lets human players host or join a real-time game.
Vista is a read-only showcase of the railway world in motion.

Controls

Left click: Select a hex, train, city or industry and interact with controls.
Right drag: Rotate and tilt the main 3D camera. A right click also cancels construction.
Middle drag: Pan supported camera views.
Mouse wheel: Zoom the map or scroll the panel beneath the pointer.
W A S D: Move the main map camera when a text field is not active.

Use the speed controls at the top of the game to pause or change the simulation rate. The settings panel contains display, sound and gameplay preferences.

Onlinemanual.