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Railways of the World

#17133BGG ↗

2005 · 2-6 players · 120min · weight 3.02 · 12,596 ratings

v2 v3 fit 0.524

BGG raw

ID
17133
Name
Railways of the World
Year
2005
Rank
104
Min players
2
Max players
6
Playing time
120
Min playtime
120
Max playtime
120
Avg weight
3.015
Num weights
1397
Bayes avg
7.29588
Average
7.66168
Users rated
12596
Num owned
13467
Wanting
644
Wishing
3215
Num comments
3548
Fetched at
Sat Apr 25 2026 16:15:29 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)
Mechanisms (12)
Action PointsConnectionsEnd Game BonusesHexagon GridIncomeLoansNetwork and Route BuildingOpen DraftingOwnershipPick-up and DeliverTile PlacementTurn Order: Auction
Categories (3)
TrainsTransportationVideo Game Theme
Description (2039 chars)

Railways of the World (2009) is the new edition of the base game for Eagle Games' popular Railways of the World series, first published as Railroad Tycoon in 2005. It reimplements the original game with several improvements. Revisit the early days of the Age of Steam as you begin with a locomotive (the venerable John Bull, the first locomotive to run in North America) and a vision (your Tycoon "mission" card). From there, build your budding railroad network into a vast empire. Connect New York to Chicago, earn the most money, develop bigger and faster locomotives and maybe even span North America and build the Transcontinental Railway! Multiple expansions featuring different maps are available. Railways of the World is the new base game for the system and includes the engine placards, railroad tiles, train tokens, money, bonds, and other items that are needed in almost all the Railways of the World series. A gameboard depicting the eastern half of the United States is included in the base game, as well as a mounted map of Mexico. This game is preceded by the designer's other Winsome train games: Age of Steam, Australian Railways, Volldampf, New England Railways, Veld Spoorweg, Lancashire Railways, and Ferrocarriles Pampas. Railroad Tycoon was the result of a collaboration with Glenn Drover, in which the mechanics and game-play of Martin Wallace's Age of Steam were simplified and streamlined and attractive over-produced components were added, in order to make Railroad Tycoon more appealing to less hardcore gamers and more accessible to a wider audience. A revised reprint was published at the end of 2010 which made some component improvements, such as the addition of Railroad Operation cards for the Mexico map. Complete series overview - The Railways of the World Series: Introducing the family members of the ideal medium-weight train game Note: The RailRoad Tycoon board itself is gigantic (about 36x45 inches, 91x114 cm) and requires a huge table or playing on the floor. Similar to: Steam

LLM v2 (wide)

Core verb
lay track, deliver good
Decision shape
mixed:spatial+combinatorial
Reward schedule
mixed:immediate+engine_compounding
Aesthetics
["Challenge", "Discovery"]
Core loop pitch
Take loans to lay hex track, then push colored goods cubes city-to-city for income that scales with route length.
Translation difficulty
Medium
Difficulty reason
Pickup-and-deliver on hexes with an income engine is a clean fit, but no official digital port exists, only Tabletopia.
Direct digital port
Port kind
Closest loop translation
none yet
Primitive tags
["hex_route_building", "cube_pickup_deliver", "loan_with_interest", "engine_upgrade_track", "tycoon_secret_objective"]
Confidence
0.7
Extracted at
Mon Apr 27 2026 11:40:03 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)
Raw v2 JSON (864 chars)
{
  "game_id": 17133,
  "name": "Railways of the World",
  "core_verb": "lay track, deliver good",
  "decision_shape": "mixed:spatial+combinatorial",
  "reward_schedule": "mixed:immediate+engine_compounding",
  "aesthetics": [
    "Challenge",
    "Discovery"
  ],
  "core_loop_pitch": "Take loans to lay hex track, then push colored goods cubes city-to-city for income that scales with route length.",
  "mobile_translation_difficulty": "Medium",
  "translation_difficulty_reason": "Pickup-and-deliver on hexes with an income engine is a clean fit, but no official digital port exists, only Tabletopia.",
  "direct_digital_port": null,
  "closest_loop_translation": "none yet",
  "primitive_tags": [
    "hex_route_building",
    "cube_pickup_deliver",
    "loan_with_interest",
    "engine_upgrade_track",
    "tycoon_secret_objective"
  ],
  "confidence": 0.7
}

LLM v3 (deep)

Not yet enriched at v3 (deep pass).