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An Illustrated History
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Pre-History ~1970 | Around 1970, an errant shot in a ping pong match between R.S. Erickson and T.F. Erickson, Jr. landed the ball upon a game prototype that had been gathering dust. R.S. had been tinkering with a board game derived from Pirate and Traveller. That serendipitous shot triggered development of the board game we now know as Rail Baron. 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 board games 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 existance, apparently no one wanted to take a chance on the Ericksons' design. |
Boxcars 1974 | ![]()
It was billed as "The Informative NEW travel game of OLD-time railroading."
Though the slogan was awkward, for a first-time effort, the components of the
resulting boardgame were surprisingly refined and professional.
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. These rules made for a long, slow game with lots of player elimination, elements disliked by players and which are not required in the superior Rail Baron game.
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Avalon Hill's Rail Baron 1977 | ![]()
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. Shown
here is the first edition box which is recognizable by the single, large
picture on its cover.
To play RB, 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.
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.
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Rail Baron Second Edition ~1982 | ![]() ![]() A revised (i.e. second) edition was released sometime about 1982. The second edition box has multiple pictures on the cover (as depicted at left), and some dots along the NorthEast corridor were changed on the map. It is likely the last printing of this edition occurred sometime in the 1980s. |
Empire Builder 1984 | ![]() 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 released other very similar games that play on maps of the British Isles, Europe, Australia, Japan and India. We also offer a computer version. |
Rail Baron's Aide Macintosh 1985 | RB has been likened to Monopoly plus Pirate and Traveler (railopoly?), 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.). RB is also far less dependent of random factors (luck) than is Monopoly.
Many other people created similar RB-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" railroad baron was still years away. |
Avaloncon Tournament 1991 | In 1991, Avalon Hill initiated "Avaloncon", an annual convention of players of its board games. 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 the Baltimore area for the convention.
Avaloncon has evolved into the present day World Boardgaming Championships. Pictured: 2001 WBC Rail Baron Finalists from a field of 56. From left to right: Mark McCandless, Eyal Mozes, Steve Okonski, Stan Buck, Chuck Foster, Inger Henning |
RB Player Windows 1997 | ![]() In 1997, Steve contacted Avalon Hill and demonstrated the RBP prototype to them. They opted to not publish the game. Steve 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, Steve was able to secure permission from Avalon Hill to distribute the computer version. The result is the program and alternate game maps you can find at the Rail Baron Fanatics site. |
Hasbro buyout 1998 | ![]() Initial speculation was that Hasbro purchased AH to obtain its board game 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. In a surprise move in 2000, Hasbro sold computer version rights to Infogrames, a French company closely associated with Atari. In 2005 Infogrames sold back the digital rights of games to Hasbro. The board game was discontinued, the supply of new copies from Avalon Hill / Hasbro was exhausted back in the 1990s, and marketing ceased. |
RB Player Web 2000 | ![]() With help from many beta testers, ICI 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 board game 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. |
RBP 2010 | ![]() The Rail Baron® computer game now also runs on tablets and smartphones, with just a fingertip needed to operate. Though a native Windows app, you can run it on iOS, Linux, and Android devices too. |
Board Games 2014 | The Rail Baron computer game has been so enjoyed that, in a project spearheaded by ICI, it was made into a board game. ICI offers Rail Baron® in multiple forms: computer game and new board games as seen at RailGameFans.com. Maybe you can find a copy of Boxcars, but its outdated design has been superceded by Rail Baron®, a game that even during the 2020s remains actively supported and routinely improved. All the official Rail Baron® games are available here. ICI even offers free replacement boardgame parts you can download and print yourself. |
Postscript | Further research has revealed that Boxcars may have been inspired by a Parker Brothers game named "Across the Continent" which dates back to 1899. The original version of ATC employed railroads, but later the game was reissued in a form that depicted automobiles.
The similarities don't end there. To play ATC, participants move their trains/cars to a series destinations chosen at random. Dice rolls determine how far they move. If doubles are rolled, the player gets a bonus roll. The winning player is the first to make a trip from one coast to the other, and then back home. And, no two players may have the same starting city! That explains where RB got its "no two players may have the same home city" rule, a rule which made sense in ATC but is rather pointless in RB. Of course, RB contains many additional elements, such as RR purchasing, route choices to minimize payments to other players, auctions, the rover play, etc. But, it seems like a good bet that RB's roots date back to the 1800s! The game we still love to play has been enjoyed in one form or another for parts of three centuries, a claim few other board games can make. |
Postscript 2 | Unfortunately, Boxcars is widely considered a broken game because it permits the player who has sufficiently lucky rolls within the first few minutes to buy the PA RR and win most of the time. The Boxcars folks were offered the chance to ride with Rail Baron, but they missed the train. You don't have to miss out, too. Whether at home or at a tournament, for greater fun, urge your game's organizer to substitute the following Rail Baron rules:
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There's more game information at the Rail Baron Fanatics site
Content on all pages at this Web site, and in the downloadable files, is © Copyright 1987, 1998, 2001, 2023 by Intersystem Concepts, Inc.
Rail Baron is a registered trademark of Intersystem Concepts, Inc.
BOXCARS is a Trademark of T.F. Erickson. Other trademarks are the property of their respective holders.