Crayon Rails

Introduction

Crayon rails is the generic term for a series of board games published by Mayfair Games which recreate the building of railroads via the use of crayons (or in some cases non-permanent marker pens) on a reusable wipe clean board.

Game Features

The board consists of an area of the world depicted using a series of dots (called mileposts) in a triangular grid pattern. Different shapes are used to differentiate between types of terrain (e.g. clear, forest, mountain etc.). Also on the board are major and minor towns.

Players start the game with a train, some money, and 3 delivery cards.

The aim of the game is to make the most money, whilst connecting up a certain number of major towns. Players make money by performing the deliveries on their cards.

Each delivery card has three deliveries on it to choose from. A player can only do one delivery from each card. A delivery involves moving a certain type of good (e.g. coal, wood, pilgrims ) from a town which supplies it to the town named on the card. For this the player would earn an amount of money stated on the card.

Players build railroads on the board by drawing lines connecting up the dots. Railroads must connect to existing track, or to a major town. The railroad is purchased from the players cash with the cost depending on the number of new mileposts connected and their type. Players may cross but not run alongside another players track.

Players then run a train (represented by a pawn) along their track. The trains can move a certain number of mileposts depending on their type.

At any point during the train move, when the train moves through a town the train may pick up any loads supplied by the town (you can pick up loads for which you have no deliveries), or if a train has a delivery to that town with the appropriate load on board, it can deliver the good and the player gets their money.

A player's turn consists of moving their train, then building any track (up to a certain spend per turn).

List of Titles in the Series

Empire Builder  – Set in the USA

British Rails

Eurorails

Nippon Rails  – Set in Japan

North American Rails  – Revised version of Empire Builder

Australia Rails

Iron Dragon  – Set in a Fantasy Land

India Rails

Lunar Rails

Russian Rails

External Links

Boardgamegeek

Computerized version of Iron Dragon

See also

Railway Rivals