How to Play

Russian Railroads

2-4 players 120-120 min 7.7 Board Game Geek Rating

Players compete to construct the most profitable railway empire by strategically placing workers on a shared board. Workers enable track advancement, locomotive acquisition, factory building, and engineer recruitment. Victory requires balancing multiple colored rail lines that must be built in sequence, with locomotives determining scoring distance. Points accumulate over seven rounds from track progression and factory development.

Published 2013

Get Ready

Setup the game with these step-by-step instructions before diving into your turn.

Place the main board

Set up the board according to the number of players and lay out the "?" cards with their associated pieces

Prepare bonus cards

Shuffle the 10 end-game bonus cards and remove 2 face-down to the box

Arrange locomotives

Sort locomotives by number and lay out in stacks from 1-9, removing half from each stack in a 2/3-player game

Set up engineers

Sort engineers by A/B, place 4 "B" engineers onto spaces 3-6 (3 in a 2/3 player game), and place 3 "A" engineers onto spaces 1, 2, and the scoring stars space

Distribute player boards

Each player takes a player board

Take workers

Each player takes 7 workers (8 in a 2/3 player game), using only 5 (6 with 2/3 players) to start

Collect starting coins

Each player takes 1 coin (2 with 2 players)

Place starting locomotive

Put the #1 Locomotive tile in the upper left of your player board

Position black rails

Place 3 black rails in space 1 of all 3 tracks on your player board

Set industry marker

Place 1 industry marker on the "0" at the bottom of the board

Collect tokens

Take 7 different "?" tokens, 1 Kiev medal, and 1 revolution token

Place scoring pawns

Put 1 pawn on the "100" space of the score track and 1 pawn randomly on the turn order track

Distribute turn order cards

Pass out turn order cards based on turn order positions

Select starting bonuses

Lay out 4 starting bonus cards; 4th player picks first and takes the reward, then 3rd, then 2nd; 1st player receives nothing

On Your Turn

What you can do during your turn.

Place workers on action spaces

On your turn, place the required number of workers and/or coins on an unoccupied action space or your personal engineer and execute that action

Use coins as workers

Coins can substitute for workers, and coins and workers can be combined, but workers cannot be used as coins

Extend tracks

Move your colored tracks right along the rail lines using track extension actions, splitting movement between the 3 different lines as desired

Maintain track order

Keep all 5 tracks in order (Black-Grey-Brown-Natural-White); no track can occupy the same space or pass the one in front of it

Unlock new track colors

When your Black track reaches spaces 2, 6, 10, and 15 on the Trans-Siberian line, unlock new colored tracks for all lines

Acquire locomotives

Use the locomotive action spaces to take the lowest available locomotive from the stacks and place it to the left of a rail line

Replace locomotives

Replace a locomotive only with a higher-numbered one; displaced locomotives can move to other lines or become factories

Acquire factories

Take factories from the back of locomotive tiles or from available face-up factories; place them left to right at the bottom of your player board

Advance industry marker

Use industry action spaces to move your purple marker along the factory track, scoring points based on the last star value reached

Use auxiliary actions

Access the upper right board spaces for doubler tiles, earning 2 coins, or hiring temporary turquoise workers

Hire engineers

Pay 1 coin to take the available engineer from the rightmost position; place it horizontally in front of you as a personal action space

Use shared engineers

The 2 horizontal engineers on the main board serve as extra action spaces available to all players for the current round

Claim turn order positions

Place workers under the 1st or 2nd turn order spaces to change position for the next round; you cannot claim your current position (except in 2-player games)

Pass and score

When passing, flip your turn order card and score the star points shown; you take no more actions this round

Relocate turn order workers

After all pass, workers that claimed turn order positions take one additional action each on 1-worker spaces, starting with 2nd place then 1st place