I have not Trained beyond TtR and Railroad Ink. For fitting into the category of Trains, both are just pasted on themes.
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In this house we do indeed train:
- 1862: Railway Mania in the Eastern Counties
- Age of Steam (plus way too many expansions)
- Brass: Lancashire
- Colt Express
- Imperial Steam
- Railroad Ink (all of it)
- String Railway
- Tokyo Metro
- Trick of the Rails
I saw someone wearing an 1862 t-shirt at a convention, before Iād played any 18xx games, and thought it was a parody (Cones of Dunshire style) because it is the nerdiest sounding thing. 
Like @lalunaverde, Iām not actually that interested in trains, but they do seem to lend themselves very well to board games. Probably because you can abstract them in lots of different ways.
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No joke. That might have been Mike Hutton
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Oh, I guess I should add that I own Stephensonās Rocket, but itās currently still in shrink, so havenāt even read the rules for it yet. Plus, from what @lalunaverde has said, I believe the train theme is mostly pasted on this one as well.
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There appears to be a misconception: the train theme is always pasted on.
Except maybe something like Switch & Signal
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Cube Rails
Queen Gamesā Iron Horse series:
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Chicago Express/Wabash Cannonball - the Queen of the Rails! If there is a starting point, itās still this. Having an entry point Cube Rail is rather weird because Cube Rails are easy to learn anyway! Yet it has depth. How to value shares is opaque. Predicting the duration of the game is hard, which in turn, determines the value of each company and their shares. It has similar games derived from it but this one is still the best
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Kansas Pacific - I have no played it enough to comment lol
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German Railways/PreuĆische Ostbahn/Prussian Rails - played it with @EnterTheWyvern and it was very interesting. I am glad that I did print-outs of each companies special powers - because Queen did not provide any!
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Lokomotive Werks - I heard that this isolates the train-rush concept of 18xx and make it its own game. I need to play it.
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Paris Connection - not really part of the series but itās a Cubie! Itās the same alliances style game play but put a party-game vibe to it. Fast and fun. The game goes quicker than the setup!
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Samarkand - oh Queen, why did you stop making these? Samarkand is clearly produced for the āfamilyā audience. With camels instead of tracks. Trading caravan families instead of companies. Marriage between your family and theirs, instead of buying shares. I would love this more, except that the goal cards are randomly drawn and can (and did) determine who wins, by being lucky on drawing the right cards that works for your situation. Itās still fun though.
Capstoneās Iron Rails series
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Irish Gauge - If there is one Chicago Express derivative that works, I think itās Irish Gauge. Same fundamentals as Chex, but lacks the āRace to Chicagoā thing the former has. Instead, payouts are now player actions to be chosen. And itās the controlled randomness of the payouts that makes this so good. There are cubes in a bag in 3 colours, you draw 3 and any cities of THAT colour will pay out to any companies that connect to those eligible cities. But cubes are limited. The value of each city type varies through the game in such a good way.
And the clever thing is that you can upgrade towns into cities by grabbing a cube from the bag of your own choice, and put that cube onto that city. E.g. pink cube on a town becomes a pink city. But that means pink cities have a lower chance of payouts not. Hmmmmā¦
If I have to choose Hollandās best work, I think itās thing one, with Trans-Siberian being the close 2nd. -
Ride the Rails - I think this one is the most intriguing game in the entire series so far (havenāt tried Age of Rail: South Africa yet). It is the best game in the series so far. Itās pure alliance game because there are no auctions here. So no need to determine the monetary value of a share. But share value is still nebulous because it all depends on the alliance within the company, and also alliances between two companies.
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Iberian Gauge - this one is rather disappointing so far. I really like the āleasingā of rails, which Holland also used in Trans-Siberian. But this one seem to lack playtesting because late games are always awash with cash and that the last stock round is really about who controls the first player token, which you cannot control. A shame because I really want to like this one
Eagle Gryphon Games
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American Rails - a title that isnāt a Winsome published game. Chex derivative. It has worker-placement style on the actions, and the fundamentals of Cube Rails is there. Itās not a bad game, itās just that I would rather play Chex or Irish Gauge
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Baltimore & Ohio - only played once
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Continental Divide - only played once
but it does feel like a race and how to par companies is not that obvious. Very hard on how to get your play right!
Rio Grande Games
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Gulf Mobile and Ohio - one wow game. Imagine Through the Desert where you auction each caravan, rather than player-owned. Caravan of the same camel colour canāt touch. BUT you get handsomely rewarded for connecting with other caravans of different colours. Requires a different mindset compare to other Cubies like Chex.
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Iberian Railways - didnāt we had Iberian Gauge? Anyway, this one is still cool. It does feel different form the others and more similar in vibe with Age of Steamways of the World titles where you try to escape the crushing blow of having too many loans
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Northern Pacific - Iām gonna be honest. This one is so far off that it doesnāt feel like a Cube Rail. Even more so than GM&O and Iberian Railways. But it still has that alliances that I really love.
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Trans-Siberian Railroad - other than Irish Gauge, this is one of my faves from Holland. It did the āleasingā better than Iberian Gauge and the Soo Line. The nationalisation mechanism is so tense. You try to ramp up your companies so fast and so far into Siberia hoping to escape the Tsarās heavy absolutist grasp.
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Southern Rails - aahh not a fan.
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Texas & Pacific - Chex derivative. I would rather play Chex. It has its own āRace to the Westā mechanism, but feels meh compare to reaching Chicago in the latter. The 3rd āRanchā action feels much better than Chexās Develop action. You grab a ranch that is connected to a rail and it gives you +1 income.
Others
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Iberian Rails - another Iberianā¦?? This one get special characters you choose every round. It was okay tbh.
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Westward Rails- hmmmā¦ I donāt like how the best moves is always to expand the company that you start with, rather than cross-investing. I would have love this more if it was playtested more rigorously
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the Soo Line - cool game. Itās such a weird Cubie. It came from Holland, so itās going to be weird.
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Luzon Rails - another Chex derivative, but I am keeping it because itās a Philippine-theme. Also, Luzon is the island where I was born and grew up from.
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Empyreal: Spells & Steam - played it with @EnterTheWyvern on TTS during the pandemic days to try it out. We really enjoyed it and appreciate its depth. So itās not just a pretty but shallow game that Kickstarter games are being accused of. But, as usual, with Level 99 Games, I am not sure if I have the time and bandwidth to explore this game more, while occupying one cube in my Kallax. Empyreal, I like you, but youāre not special enough to monopolise a Kallax cube
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Union Station - unimpressive
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Mini Rails + Mini Express - shit
I have once entertain the thought that I would sell my entire collection and just own Cube Rails.
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Me too. Funny that we all forget that particular one.
My optimizer just went crazy. But ā¦ noā¦ not going to try to replace Iberian without even playing itā¦ on one data pointā¦ who am I?
Also love the game hate the box. I read up a lot on āwhyā and the reasons were kind of bad. But now that I have all of Empyreal itās airless, at least. They were trying to do something new - big, table presence, etc. Itās big. It has table presence. The contrast between the board, trains, and goods isnāt sufficient to make the board easily readable. Gameās still good.
Iād like to imagine a world where there is a second edition, 1-5 players, no city minis, yes to goods markers (over chits), more color differentiation, same game. Standard box. ā¦I feel like I wrote that sometime in the last two weeks. Did I already say this? Oh well.
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Can someone explain the 1835 branch of this family tree? What characterizes it?
And is 1862 the best of the 1829 cluster? Thatās all I hear people talking about. Best, or just most recently available or best produced?
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1835, I think, was notable because it introduced āminors[1]ā, which Iāve decided is one of my favorite things in 18xx games. Apparently, the game itself is bad? Perhaps broken? Iām not entirely certain and Iām not going to bother to track down a copy unless it literally lands on my doorstep for free and without fuss. I think the 1835 family probably also includes, but not exclusively so, mergers/takeovers.
I think 1862 is the best of the 1829 cluster because:
- It has a solo mode
- You can buy it for less than $100 (unlike 1829: Mainline)
I think Mike Huttonās other big game, 1860: Railways on the Isle of Wight may be slightly more popular when looking at peoplesā preferences for multiplayer-18xx (which, admittedly, is the vast majority of the possible 18xx experiences). There are certainly fans of multiplayer 1862, though. I recently got my copy of 18GB and it, too, looks very interesting (I think itās the one Iām most eager to play of my new AAG Wave 5 arrivals)
single-share companies that are owned by a single player and typically pay 50-50, half of the revenue goes to the player and half goes to the company ā©ļø
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Broken with how the opening packet is distributed out the box. There are variants out there for auctions which solve the wonky 4 player distributions. Not sure it always decides a winner but it does determine a loser if I remember rightly.
I liked the game when I played. It has an odd mechanic where companies are available in an order and the next tranche arenāt available until some preceding ones have sold enough (maybe sold out?). From the games on the list the 1835 branch seems to be the more āengineersā focussed games. Less of the trashing value and dumping companies and more of the run good companies branch and combining powers and dealing with timings for max profits.
I really like several games there. 1824 has a lightening train rush which can be really hold on to your hats. 1837 is itās predecessor which is a fun juggernaut of a long game with soooo many companies and tons of weird tiles. I like 18West for the restrictions on little companies and destination cities. 18NewEngland is good for a few things, most notably money going in is incremental and always stays at par. Also looks nice.
I differ from @lalunaverde of while I enjoy the aggro titles with his beloved SICS I also like the route building and generally watching stuff grow so I appreciate the more chill versions. They can be a little more run your own and not cross invest some times but that could be group dependent. A bit of process to sink in to. Thatās not always true on the branch but more so than the 1830 branch.
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We used to have String Railway and Snowdonia, but realised we didnāt love them, so sold them.
Also used to have the Ivor the Engine game, but that wasnāt very good.
So I think the only ātrainā game we have is Ticket to Ride.
Unless Pandemic Iberia counts?
Oh, and there are railway tracks in Dorfromantikā¦
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Iād argue for this one being the best entry point. Can easily be done as a family game for people less in to the board game hobby. So fast to teach, concepts are so straight forward you donāt need the āgame brainā. Wonderful.
Somewhat predictably the third player had a hissy fit about luck which is a shame. More annoying given how much good luck they had following the one hit they were upset about. There is luck of the draw but that makes it really interesting and gives the game a different focus around your investing. Would love to play this one more. There is no luck on being involved in auctions and they are delicious in this game. Like all the queen games the box is stupid. One day Iāll have the courage to slice it down.
I have only acquired 3 cube rails games, Chicago Express being the third. I am refusing to play any of the capstone or rio grande ones or others as I just donāt want to know. They are probably often great but thereās only so much time to play and shelf space for storage so if I donāt play and pretend they donāt exist I wonāt be tempted.
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Shows how thematic I find it that although I have the coffin box of Railroad Ink I didnāt think of it as a train gameā¦
If stretching a bit, thereās Fury of Dracula and its train ticket system. And Flash Point has an underground station board in one of the expansions.
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Funny how the train network of Iberia (Another train game with Iberia in its title?! 
) makes it probably the best game in the series outside of Legacy Season 1. Long term decisions on how to build your network by sacrificing short-term priorities is very interesting.
There are more to like, but this one is a good example
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My only train games are Ticket to RIde: Europe and Railroad Ink: Lush Green Edition. Iād be tempted to get another board/expansion for TtR if I got to play it with others a few times, and have also considered another Railroad Ink but not sure which. Occasionally, I also think about dipping my toe into the 18XX world but would only end up playing them solo and they might prove to have too long of a playing time for me to get them to the table often.
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I bought a copy as my wifeās from there. Glad I own even without the family connection. Only played the 1830 rules and itās so brutal
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Iāve played and enjoyed others, but the only train games in my collection are AuZtralia, Railroad Ink, Ticket to Ride: London, and Through the Desert.
I want to see the AI-generated images for that prompt.
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Your wife is from 1876?
Does she by any chance drive a fancy car with doors that swing upwards?
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