In the late 1960s or early 1970s, previously unknown designers R.S. Erickson and T.F. Erickson, Jr. began development of the boardgame we now know as Rail Baron. In an era when both the railroad and boardgaming industry was in flux, the Ericksons managed to combine elements from the two to create a game that has withstood the test of time. In fact, it provided solid footing for the whole "train gaming" genre.

We can only surmise that the designers demonstrated their game to the industry in the hopes of finding a publisher. At that time, there existed but two boardgames with a train theme: Dispatcher (1961) and B&O/C&O (1969) distributed by the Avalon Hill Game Company. The publishing/entertainment industry is notoriously reluctant to invest in unestablished areas/themes, consequently with so few train games in existence, apparently no one wanted to take a chance on the Ericksons' invention.

Boxcars - 1974

So the Ericksons decided to publish the game on their own, and released it as "Boxcars" in 1974. In the pre-desktop publishing era, this was no small feat, as undoubtedly the services of many artists, researchers, designers, printers and others were needed. It was billed as "The Informative NEW travel game of OLD-time railroading." (Fortunately, the Ericksons were better at game design than slogan writing.) For a first-time effort, the components of the resulting boardgame were surprisingly refined and professional.

The single-piece board unfolded to reveal a map of the United States on which routes of 28 historic railroads were traced. It is easy to see the similarities to what would become Rail Baron. The edge of the board is encircled with heralds/logos of assorted RRs...but, strangely, none of these RRs are used during game play. A 1950s era Rand-McNally map of US railroads was encircled by heralds; perhaps it was the inspiration for this design.

The rules of Boxcars vary from those of Rail Baron in several ways. For example, Boxcars has no restriction in the reuse of routes: this allows players to circle along the same track as long as desired. Boxcars also allows a player to trade, sell or auction a RR at any time during the game. Furthermore, Boxcars lacks the Express and Superchief locomotive upgrades that Rail Baron contains.

To choose destinations, Boxcars employs a spinner. The spinner consists of a cardboard square and a clear plastic circle; you spin the circle and see where the pointer ends up. Destination probability is proportional to the width of the "slice of pie" allocated to that destination. For example, it is easy to see that Atlanta is more likely a destination than Louisville. Unfortunately, the spinner does not work well because it tends to build up static electricity and can stop on the line between two choices. When creating Rail Baron, AH converted this spinner to a dice-driven lookup chart that, for the most part, preserves these original destination probabilities.

Here are the components of the game:

tri-fold board with USA map
play money in 500, 1000, 5000, 10000 and 20000 denominations
28 railroad title deed cards
spinner for choosing region and destination
a "Mileage Chart" (payoff chart)
rules
a list of railroads and their prices
6 plastic pawns and two dice (Boxcars does not need a third die)

Avalon Hill's Rail Baron - 1977

Before long, the Ericksons' game caught the attention of The Avalon Hill Game Company (AH), the publisher of the only other two railroading boardgames available at the time. The original designers apparently sold the Boxcars rights to AH and were obligated to quickly disperse the remaining copies of their game. It is estimated that there were only 1000 copies of Boxcars ever printed.

AH scaled down the game's physical size to match the "bookshelf" style of many of its other titles, and released it as Rail Baron in 1977. The first edition box is recognizable by the single, large picture on its cover.

To play Rail Baron, you move your token (train) along the RRs of your choice toward a destination city which you have been assigned. Upon arriving, you collect a payment, and may make a purchase. You can purchase one RR, or upgrade your train's locomotive (to a faster model). If your train moves along a RR owned by an opponent, you must pay that person a track use fee. Therefore, the main challenge of the game is to purchase RRs that 1) connect into a network that gives you access to most of the important destination cities, and 2) prevent your opponents from doing likewise. To win, you must accumulate $200,000 then return to your home (starting) city.

To help speed up the game, AH developer Richard Hamblen modified the Boxcars rules to include an option to upgrade your locomotive. Each player starts the game with a Standard locomotive. It lets you roll 2D6 (two six-sided dice) to determine how far your train moves that turn. If you roll 12, you can also roll a bonus 1D6. Instead of purchasing a RR, you can upgrade your locomotive. The Express ($4,000) lets you roll/move the bonus die if you roll any doubles during your normal turn. The Superchief ($40,000) lets you roll/move the bonus die every turn. The average distance moved per turn is: Standard: 7.1, Express: 7.6, and Superchief 10.5. Knowing the best time in the game to upgrade is a skill learned by experience.

Rail Baron Second Edition ~ 1984

Rail Baron turned out to be one of Avalon Hill's most popular games, and grew to be the company's 9th best selling title of all time (bested only by other classics like Acquire and Diplomacy). A revised (i.e. second) edition was released sometime about 1984. The second edition box has multiple pictures on the cover, and some map dots changed along the NorthEast corridor.

Empire Builder - 1984

Spurred by the success of Rail Baron, other publishers began to release boardgames with a railroad theme. One of the best is Empire Builder, an obvious Rail Baron relative, published by Mayfair Games.

In Empire Builder you move your train along routes on a USA map in order to collect payments. Unlike Rail Baron, you spend money actually building track, through mountains and over rivers, with a trusty crayon rather than buying existing RRs. As in Rail Baron, you can upgrade your train to a faster model. If you use someone else's route, you must pay them. The first person to reach $250,000 wins, but there is no exciting "declaration and race home" feature.

Empire Builder was the first in a series of such games. Mayfair has released other very similar games that play on maps of the British Isles, Europe, Australia, Japan and India. Other publishers have followed with games of their own, and the number of train-themed boardgames is now in excess of 100!

Rail Baron Aide Macintosh - 1985

Rail Baron has been likened to Monopoly (by Parker Brothers), and there are some similarities: purchasing properties, trying to get certain groups, monopolizing an area, collecting money from opponents, etc. However, the game has more depth than Monopoly: finding the best route for your train can be a challenge; you must choose what to purchase next (not just the property you happened to land upon); there are many different winning strategies (good network, lock out opponents, etc.). Rail Baron is also far less dependent of random factors (luck) than is Monopoly.

It was a search to discover the best network of RRs that in the mid-1980s drew Paul Van Bloem and this author to write "Rail Baron Aide" (RBA) for the Macintosh. RBA assisted with in-game duties (rolling dice, randomizing destinations, etc.) and helped players select RRs to purchase. Furthermore, it could analyze each player's network and report how many cities the player accessed, and how many he controlled (monopolized). RBA was never released to the public.

Many other people created similar Rail-Baron-assistant-type programs, but no one had managed to create a program that would actually play the game. By today's standards, the typical desktop computers of the mid-1980s were underpowered and had limited graphics capabilities. A competent "Artificially Intelligent" Rail Baron program was still years away.

Avaloncon Tournament - 1991

In 1991, Avalon Hill initiated "Avaloncon", an annual convention of players of its boardgames. The focus was on tournaments in each AH game, rather than on sales and other commercial events. This gamer-friendly atmosphere attracted players from around the world, thus granting the victor in each tournament bragging rights as a "world champion". Within a few years, about 1000 people were making the pilgrimage to Baltimore for the convention.

Chuck Foster was the Rail Baron champion at the first Avaloncon. In subsequent years, Chuck served as GameMaster for the Rail Baron tournament, and earned commendations as one of the best Avaloncon GMs. Under his watch, the Rail Baron tournament grew to 100 participants in 1998. Avaloncon has evolved into the present day World Boardgaming Championships. Rail Baron is one of the most popular games of the WBC, and is commonly played at other events such as Puffing Billy rail gaming tournaments.

RB Player Windows - 1997

With desktop computers becoming more powerful in the 1990s, I began work on RB Player (RBP) for Windows. RBP not only acts as a boardgame assistant, but also has "Artificial Intelligence" that plays the game vs. humans. RBP also enables play on alternate game maps.

In 1997, I contacted Avalon Hill and demonstrated the RBP prototype to them. They opted to not publish the game. I did not know that at the time, the AH game division was being shopped around by its parent corporation, Monarch-Avalon, and thus was not actively putting efforts into new games. Fortunately, I was able to secure permission from Avalon Hill to distribute the computer version. The result is the shareware program and alternate game maps you can find at the Rail Baron Fanatics site at http://www.insystem.com/rbp

Hasbro Buyout - 1998

In 1998, the Avalon Hill division was purchased by Hasbro Interactive for $6 million. Initial speculation was that Hasbro purchased AH to obtain its boardgame designs for the purposes of converting some of them into computer form. So far Hasbro has released updated versions of Acquire, Diplomacy and some other titles, plus has indicated it will republish additional titles in the coming years. Will Rail Baron be one of them? Stay tuned...

In a surprise move in 2000, Hasbro sold computer version rights to Infogames, a French company. This has further muddied the waters as to if and when we will see commercial computer versions of various Avalon Hill boardgames.

RB Player Web - 2000

The first version of the RB Player shareware was a hit, but users clamored for Web support. Such a feature would allow people with Internet access anywhere in the world to play the game together.

With help from many beta testers, I added Web support to RBP and released it as part of version 2 early in the year 2000. Thanks to this feature, friends and family members that used to play the boardgame but who are now separated by distance are enjoying the game once again. As many as 6 people at once have connected from various parts of the world to participate in a match.

Future - 2002 and Beyond

Rail Baron remains very popular, and the computer version has breathed new life into the now 25-year-old game. The supply of new copies from Avalon Hill / Hasbro has been exhausted, making the boardgame now "out of print". But demand remains high: shrink-wrapped, unused copies of the boardgame often sell for over $100 on eBay.

Hasbro's enthusiasm to re-release AH titles appears to be waning, so there is some doubt if we will see a third edition of Rail Baron. Still, the game's popularity should put it near the top of their list. Only time will tell. If you'd like to encourage Hasbro, write to them at avalonhill@hasbro.com.

This article was adapted from an illustrated one first published by the author at the Rail Baron Fanatics Web site http://www.insystem.com/rbp and is reprinted with permission. When Steve is not managing his fantasy baseball team, he sometimes finds time to play and program train games.