Rail Baron's (RB) inclusion of most of the major American railroads allows players to recreate several historical situations. In effect, you are starting at midgame. To play these, use all RB rules with the following modifications:

1. Players pick a system to start. A system consists of two or more railroads and, sometimes, Trackage Rights. This can be done by any mutually agreeable method: rolling dice, last to person to ride on a train goes first, oldest player, youngest player, etc. Since more than six systems are available in two of the scenarios, you will need extra sets of pawns and chips if you want to play with seven or eight people. Unchosen systems can be bought as a group as per Optional Rule 1, or in part. A player starts the game in a city on one of his railroads. Choose it randomly.

2. A player can buy a system only if it is contiguous to one he already owns. A player may sell off a system and break contiguity.

3. Certain systems have Trackage Rights (TRs). The RB designers did not include all of the major railroads for various reasons. TRs recreate these lost roads. When a player has Trackage Rights, he has the right to travel on a rail line for one thousand dollars, not five or ten thousand. In short, he treats that line as if he owned it. TRs give a player the right to travel only on that specific line, and not the rest of the railroad. In other words, if a player has TRs on the Oakland-Los Angeles part of the Southern Pacific, he can travel on that line for $ 1000, but he must pay $5000 or $ 10,000 to go from Los Angeles to Houston on the SP.

Trackage Rights can be sold to another player via auction, or sold back to the bank for S5000. You must sell TRs as a package. For example, in Scenario 2, the Norfolk Southern has TRs representing the Wabash and Nickel Plate railroads. If he chooses to sell the Wabash TRs, he must sell all four Wabash lines for $5000, or put all four up for auction. He would still retain the Nickel Plate TRs, and, in effect, still be able to travel cheaply over parts of what used to be his Wabash holdings since some of the Nickel Plate and the Wabash TRs involve the same part of the NYC.

Scenario 1: The Robber Barons. (up to 8 players, early 1900s)

Rail Baron takes its inspiration from the socalled Robber Baron Era, when many of the great railroads were built. Most of these railroads were nominally independent, but many were linked into criant systems through a variety of stock arrangements. By the early 1900s, there were eight major groups of railroads. Most of these were eventually broken up under antitrust laws. To recreate this era, start with the following groups of railroads:

Vanderbilt: NYC, CNW.

Pennsylvania: PA, BO, CO, NW. Morgan: ACL, GMO, LN, RFP, SOU. Trackage Rights (TRs): New York City to Chicago via NYC. This represents a combination of the Erie and Lehigh Valley Railroads. Gould: DRGW, MP, TP, WP. TRs: Buffalo to Toledo (the dot south of Detroit) via CO. Toledo to Chicago via NYC. Toledo to St. Louis via NYC. Chicao,o to Pittsburah via BO. St. Louis to Des Moines to Omaha to Kansas City via CBQ. These represent the Wabash Rail Road. Pittsburgh to Baltimore via BO. Represents a combination of the Wheeling & Lake Eric and the Western Maryland Railroads.

Rock Island-Frisco: CRIP, SLSF. Harriman: IC, SP, UP. TRs: Memphis to Birmingham via SLSF (a missing branch of the IC). Atlanta to Savannah (two dots north of Jacksonville) via ACL. Represents the Central of Georgia. Railway.Hill: CBQ, GN, NP.

Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad: ATSF. Note: Some char-ed that the ATSF was controlled or associated with the Gould lines. To recreate this, give the ATSF to the Gould player and play with seven people. Independents available for purchase: BM, CMSTPP, NH, SAL.

Notes: Railroad abbreviations are those used in Rail Baron minus the ampersands.

Groups are adapted from the maps in Emory R. Johnson, Elements of Transportation, 1916. These systems ranged from 10,000 miles of track up to 23,000.

Scenario 2: The Super Seven. (up to 8 players, 1994)

By the 1960s, most American railroads were in bad shape due to increasing airline, truck, and automobile competition. To survive, most of the RB lines began to merge. By 1994, about fifty large railroads had coalesced into The Super Seven plus four more midsized systems. Many thought this arrangement would last indefinitely. They were wrong,

Norfolk Southern Railway: NW, SOU. TRs: Buffalo to Cleveland to Chicago via the NYC. Cleveland to St. Louis via the NYC. Represents the Nickel Plate Road. Buffalo to Columbus via CO. Toledo (the dot south of Detroit) to Chicago via NYC. Toledo to St. Louis via NYC. St. Louis to Des Moines to Omaha to Kansas City via CBQ. These represent the Wabash Rail Road. Note: The merger of the NW with the Nickel Plate and Wabash made the NW a major railroad and helped encourace the resulting merger mania.

CSX Transportation: ACL, BO, CO, LN, RFP, SAL. TRs: Louisville to Chicago via the PA. Represents the Motion and the Chicago & Eastern Illinois. Notes: CSXT came about like this: ACL and SAL formed the Seaboard Coast Line in 1967. In 1973, the BO and CO formed the Chessie System. LN took over part of the CEI. The LN, SCL, and Motion became The Family Lines (not the Friendly Lines as in the rules) in 1982. Family and Chessie systems merged in 1986.

Burlington Northern: CBQ, GN, NP. SLSF. Note: The CBQ, GN, NP and the Spokane, Portland, and Seattle recreated the old Hill system in the 1970, then absorbed the SLSF in 1980.

Union Pacific Railroad: CNW, MP, TP, UP, WP. It also includes the MissouriKansasTexas, a.k.a. the Katy, but this covers the same ground as the MP.

Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad: ATSF. The Santa Fe tried to take over other roads, but was usually unsuccessful.

Southern Pacific Railroad: DRGW, SP. TRs: Dallas to St. Louis and Memphis via the TP and MP. Represents the St. Louis Southwestern, a.k.a. the Cotton Belt. A ATSF-SP merger fell through, thereby leadin g to the DRGW purchase of the SP and the Cotton Belt. Conrail: NH, NYC, PA. Built on the wreckage of the Penn Central, Conrail surprised many by becoming profitable. The NH's main line is mostly owned by Amtrak today.

Illinois Central Gulf Railroad: GMO, IC. The ICG actually dropped most of its mileage in the 1990s, along with the Gulf in its name. Independents available for purchase: BM, CMSTPP, CRIP. The BM is part of the Guilford Rail System, along with the Maine Central. On the RB map, part of the BM is really the Boston & Albany section of the NYC. The CMSTPP, a.k.a. the Milwaukee Road, was bought by the Soo Line, a Canadian Pacific subsidiary. Most of the combined line's track has been sold off to shortlines. The CRIP, a.k. a. the Rock Island, went bankrupt in 1980 and was sold off in pieces to several buyers. Since this is not possible in RB, it is suggested that the CNW also be left unpurchased. Having the CNW, CMSTPP, and CRJP open would nicely recreate the scramble for Midwestern railroads in the 1980s.

Notes: The April 1997 issue of Trains magazine covers merger history extensively. Railroad corporate home pages are also a good source of information. It should be noted that The Super Seven were profitable thanks to the mergers rationalizing their systems, and long overdue government deregulation.

Scenario 3: The MegaMergers. (up to 5 players, 2000)

The Super Seven did not last long. Their Financial health made all of them merger targets. The Burlington Northern merged with the ATSF in 1995, followed by a UP-SP union right away. In 1997, the Norfolk Southern and CSX divided Conrail, after each tried to take it over. In 1999, the Canadian National Railways bought out the Illinois Central, thus making the CNR the only railroad serving the Atlantic, Gulf, and Pacific coasts, as well as the Great Lakes, sometimes called the Fourth Coast.

Norfolk Southern Railway: NW, PA, SOU. CSXT: ACL, BO, CO, LN, NYC, RFP, SAL. Note: The Conrail division did not really follow a NYC-PA split, but doing it this way works for game purposes.

Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway: ATSF, CBQ, GN, NP, SLSF.

Union Pacific Railroad: CNW, DRGW, MP, SP, TP, UP, WP.

Canadian National Railways and Canadian Pacific Railway: CMSTPP, GMO, IC. TRs: Chicago to Detroit via NYC. Detroit to Buffalo via CO, Represents the Grand Trunk Western Railroad, a CNR subsidiary. Independent: BM, CRIP, NH.

Same notes as before: The BM on the RB map is mostly the NYC and could be assigned to the CSXT. So could the NH. The CRIP is long gone. Leaving it available for purchase is the best solution to a railroad now subdivided into many parts. Alternately, divide it between the BNSF and the UP--something like lines north of Kansas City go to the UP, those south of it go to BNSF. Another possible approach is to give the CNW to the BNSF, and the CRIP to the UP. It is not as historical, but it balances both roads in the upper Midwest. Incidentally, all of these megarailroads have shed much of their trackage in order to concentrate on long haul routes. The two eastern railroads have about 25,000 miles in trackage, the two western ones 35,000, and the Canadians 17,000 each.

Scenario 4: Hypothetical Transcontinental. (3 players, ????)

In 2000, the Canadian National Railways and the Burlington Northern Santa Fe announced their intention to merge thereby creating a massive 50,000-mile system. If this goes through (not a SULU thing), look for the Union Pacific to Iink up with either the Norfolk Southern (most likely), or the CSX. If this second merger (Toes through, the Canadian Pacific mi-ht link with the leftover system.

CNR-BNSF: all of the BNSF roads from Scenario 3, plus the GMO, IC, and the Grand Trunk TRs.UP-NS: combine the UP and NS Systems from Scenario 3.

CPR-CSXT: combine the CSXT with the CMSTPP, representing the Soo Line or

CNR-BNSF: all of the BNSF roads from Scenario 3, plus the GMO, IC, and the Grand Trunk TRs.

UP-CSXT: combine the UP and CSXT Systems from Scenario 3.

CPR-NS: combine the NS System with the CMSTPP.

Independents: BM, CRIP, NH. For alternatives to this, see the notes for Scenario 3.

For Further Reading

Useful web sites include the corporate ones: NS at www.nscorp.com, CSXT at www.csxt.com, UP at www.uprr.com, BNSF at www.bnsf.com, CNR at www. cn.ca, and CPR at www.cpr.com. The Kansas City Southern Railway is the healthiest midsized survivor of merger mania. See it at www.kcsi.com. For an alternative to the megarailroads, see Wisconsin Central Transportation at www.wclx.com, and RailAmerica at www.railamerica.com.

Railroad game research should start at the National Model Railroad Association site at www.ribbonrai1.com/nmra/nmralink.html, and RailServe at www.railserve.com/index.html. Rail Gamer Magazine promotes itself at idt.net/~dmodo 19. Finally, ICI Technologies offers a computer version of Rail Baron and alternate maps at www.insystem.com/rbp.

Peter L. de Rosa also edits the online Zine Academic Gaming Review: www.gis.net/~pldr/index.html