The Best Train Board Games
boardgamequest.comOne of the burning questions in the board gaming hobby—why are trains games such a significant niche? In part, the idea of trains works really well for a lot of gaming mechanisms. You can create some routes, pick up and deliver goods (or passengers), and manage a company. Why don’t they use planes or cars… no idea. But luckily train games run the gamut from light entry weight games to some of the heaviest, longest economic games available. So take a look through some of our favorites below. Choo-chooooooo!
Chosen by AndrewYou might say Age of Steam is more of a system than it is a game. I would anyway. Most Age of Steam games have a similar structure—bid for turn order, draft special abilities for the round, lay track, and deliver goods. Delivering goods gets you income. Income, along with having an extensive rail network, translates to victory points. Route building, auction, and a lot of player interaction all in one. And there are literally hundreds of Age of Steam maps. Some maps just tweak the landscapes and the cities that need goods. Others—the moon, for instance—really turn the game into a familiar but completely different experience.
Chosen by BrandonLook up train games on Wikipedia and you’ll be confronted with classic 18XX games or crayon rail games, but looking closer you’ll see it simply defined as the construction and operation of railways. As I’ve not played many of the classic train games (been eyeing Age of Steam, 1830, and Iberian Gauge lately), I shifted my focus to adjacent railway and route-building options. The first game that came to mind was Freedom: The Underground Railroad. Here, a “railway” is constructed, but at a much steeper cost than in any other rail game. Ultimately, I landed on Brass:
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