How to play IRONLINE

01Getting started

You run a transport company in a generated region. Everything on the map is one of two things: something that makes, like a coal mine or a farm, and somewhere that wants, like a steel mill or a town. You lay track between them, put a station at each end, buy a train and give it its stops. It earns for every load it delivers, and the places you serve grow around your line.

New here? Take the lessons

From the main menu, Learn to play runs three short lessons, about twenty minutes in all: The First Line (a mine, a town and your first coal train), Signals and Lines (a passenger line with two trains on it) and The Market (feeding a works, carrying what it makes, a first contract, a station upgrade and the loan). You can leave a lesson at any time and keep playing on its map as a sandbox.

In a normal run, a small card called the coach walks you through the same steps: lay track, put a station at each end, buy a train, give it a second stop, deliver something, make it a line, signal it and sign a contract. Each step ticks itself off when you do it, in any order. You can hide the coach and bring it back from Settings.

Starting a run

A new run is set up in four steps.

1. Where. Choose a region and a start year. There are twelve regions: eight landscapes and four drawn from real places.

   Region	What it is like
   The Lowlands	Rolling farm country between two coasts. Gentle gradients, good ground, nothing in the way. The straightforward one.
   The Long Plains	Grassland to every horizon, almost no gradient and almost no coast. Cheap to build across, enormous to cross; speed matters more than power.
   The Highlands	Steep ridged country cut by narrow glens. Earthworks are the main expense and the passes decide the map. A route that follows a valley beats a shorter one that does not.
   The Scattered Isles	A hundred islands and the water between them. Some places can only be reached by sea, so quays and coasters come early.
   The Fjordland	Long sea inlets biting deep into high ground. An enormous coastline with few crossings; a ferry can beat miles of track around a headland.
   The Rift	A high plateau split end to end by a canyon. Whoever bridges it first owns the traffic across it.
   The Lake District	Flat country pooled with water. The ground is easy; the gaps between the lakes are the problem.
   The Great Divide	Two fertile coasts with a mountain wall down the middle. There are only a few passes, and the rivals want them too.
   New York State	Lake Ontario, the Adirondacks, the Hudson and the Finger Lakes. The Mohawk valley is the only easy way east.
   North America East	The Atlantic seaboard from Boston to the Carolinas, with the Appalachians inland. The cities are on the coast and the coal is over the mountains.
   North America Central	The plains from the Rockies to the Great Lakes. Nothing is in the way and everything is a long way apart.
   Canada	Sea to sea, from the Rockies and the Pacific to the St Lawrence. One line across the whole country.

   Then choose when: 1920 (steam, coal, iron and the first main lines), 1950 (the last of steam and the first diesels), 1980 (diesel and electric, containers and commuters) or 2010 (high speed, a short modern run).
2. Who. Pick one of the railway companies that have taken a charter in this region. Some companies have to be earned first.
3. Who runs it. Pick a manager. Each one has traits, and the panel explains each trait when you hold the pointer over it. Some managers have to be earned first.
4. On what terms. The charter: what you have agreed to and what it pays.

Your first line, step by step

1. Find a mine near a town. Press 2 for the Track tool and drag from beside the mine to the edge of the town.
2. Press 3 for the Station tool and drag along the track next to the mine. Do the same in the town.
3. Click the station by the mine and buy an engine and some coal wagons.
4. Open the train and add the town as its second stop. It sets off on its own; there is no depart button.
5. Watch the first load arrive. The money floats up from the station when it lands.

02The screen

The top bar shows your cash, your loan, last month's result (everything earned less everything spent), the date and time of day, the speed buttons, the save button and the sound controls. Every figure explains itself when you hold the pointer over it.

The toolbar on the left holds the tools, in groups:

• Look, Track, Station, Signal. Look is the tool to come back to: click anything (a station, a works, a town, a train) to open it in the side panel.
• Road, Tram, Stop. Roads for lorries, street track for trams, and the stops they load at.
• Quay, Air. A berth for ships and an aerodrome for aircraft.
• Build, Parks, Estate, Clear. Put up a works of your own, lay out a pleasure park, place scenery by hand, or take things out.
• Deals, Lines, Fleet, Money, Rivals, News. The panels: contracts, named routes, every vehicle you run, the accounts, the other companies and the bulletin.

The status line tells you what a tool is about to do, what it will cost, and why something has been refused. A refusal always names the thing in the way.

Escape with nothing in hand opens the pause menu: Resume, Settings, Saved games and Back to the main menu.

03Camera and controls

Mouse

Edge scrolling and an inverted drag-to-look are in Settings, under Controls.

Keyboard

Time

The speed buttons in the top bar are Pause, Run (ordinary time, about a month a minute), 2× and 4×. Building, ordering and buying all work while the game is paused, and most of the game can be played that way.

04Laying track

The Track tool has two ways of working, chosen at the top of the screen while it is in hand.

Survey (the default)

Drag a line, or click to set an anchor and click again to lay each leg. Before you build, the line is drawn on the ground and the status line shows its length in tiles, the price, how many tiles are bridged and how many run in tunnel. Press Enter to build, Backspace to take the last leg up, and Alt to swap a leg for the dogleg (the same two ends joined by the other bend).

• It follows the ground. The surveyor grades the line for you, cutting through rises and filling dips. Earthworks cost money, so a straight line over a hill can cost more than a bend round it.
• Bridges. A route over a valley or water is carried on a bridge.
• Tunnels. Where the line would sit under more than about 12 metres of ground, it goes into a tunnel instead of a deep cutting. A tunnel tile costs more than a bridge span. Only railways tunnel; roads keep to cuttings.
• Eight directions. Track runs north–south, east–west and on both diagonals, with curves between them.
• Junctions. Start or end a drag on existing track to join it. The status line says what the new line joins.
• Clearances. If a drag starts or ends on something that cannot carry track, the end is moved clear of it, and the status line names what it was moved clear of.

Piece by piece

For full control, choose Piece by piece. Click where the line starts, or on the end of an existing line, and a marker appears. The arrow keys turn the next piece left or right and slope it up or down a level, B carries it on a bridge, Enter lays it, Backspace takes the last piece up and Esc puts the marker away. A line laid at a height you chose tunnels sooner, under about 8 metres of ground.

Passing loops and double track

The quickest way to add passing loops is from a line's editor (see Signals and single-line working): Double the track lays long passing loops on straight runs, and Double the approaches doubles the track nearest each station.

Taking track up

The Clear tool takes out track, road, signals and buildings. Some of what was paid comes back.

05Stations and catchment

With the Station tool, drag along a stretch of track to set the platform. The length matters: a longer platform takes a longer train, and a train longer than its platform loses time at every stop.

Catchment. A station draws from everything within 4 tiles of its platforms. A works has to be within reach of the platform for its cargo to come to the station, and the nearer the houses, the more of a town the station serves.

Upgrades. Click a station to add an upgrade. Each one pays for itself over a few years when the station is busy.

A few landmark buildings, such as Grand Central, are unlocked between runs and need a large patch of dry, level, unbuilt ground beside the platforms.

06Buying trains

There is no depot to build: click a station and buy a train there. Choose an engine, then the wagons. The wagons decide what the train can carry: coaches for passengers, mail vans, hoppers for coal and ore, box vans, flats, tank wagons and so on.

• A train is only as fast as its slowest wagon.
• Weight and hills. The purchase screen shows how much speed the train keeps up a steep climb, loaded and empty. If it says the train is heavy for the engine, use fewer wagons or a stronger engine.
• New stock by year. Engines, wagons, ships and aircraft appear as their year comes round, from tank engines and 4-6-0s in the 1920s to diesels, multiple units and electric units later on.
• Clone buys another train like the one open: the same engine, wagons, paint and stops or line, bought at the first of its stops with room.
• Sell takes a train off the books.
• The Fleet panel lists every vehicle, what it is carrying and what it is earning. It is the place to find the one that is losing money.

The Depot on the main menu is something else: it is part of what carries over between runs, not a building on the map.

07Orders, routes and lines

Open a train to give it its stops. Add a stop and click a station. Once a train has two stops it sets off by itself and works them in order, round and round. You can remove a stop, and choose for each stop:

• Full load or any load. On full load, the train waits until it is full, while there is cargo on the platform or a works nearby still making it, for up to a month, then leaves with what it has. On any load, it takes what is waiting and goes.
• Unload or keep. Whether the train drops its load at this stop.
• Waypoints. Add waypoint and click a piece of plain track to route the train through it.

Trains find their own way across the network between stops.

Lines

Choose Make a line on a train. The stops then belong to the service rather than the machine, so the next train can join it without being told anything. The Lines panel lists your named routes.

• Timetable. A line can send one train from its first stop every so many days. A train that is ready early waits for its slot; one running late goes at once and takes the latest slot it missed, so one late train does not make the rest late. Set the interval a little longer than the fleet manages and the line runs like a clock. The editor shows how often the fleet actually manages one, and the line's share of on-time departures.
• Room. The editor shows how many trains the line can work without them standing in each other's way: one, plus one for each passing loop, plus one for each extra platform road at an end, up to five.

08Signals and single-line working

A signal splits track into blocks, and only one train may be in a block at a time. Without signals your whole railway is one block and only one train can move. Put a signal at each end of a line and one or two along the way. Press B to see the blocks.

Single lines and the token

Where trains run both ways over one track, that section is worked by token: a train has to hold the section's token before it enters, so two trains never meet head-on on a single line. The other train waits at the signal or in a loop until the section is clear.

More trains on one line

A line can carry up to five trains. To make room for them:

• Double the track lays long passing loops on every straight run long enough for a train.
• Double the approaches doubles the track nearest each station.
• Make room builds passing loops on the tightest stretch, then another platform road at whichever end has fewer, until the line can work five trains or nothing more will fit.

If a line runs more trains than it has room for, the editor says so: they will stand in each other's way.

09Cargo and industries

Cargo pays for distance and for speed. A load that sits in a siding for a year is worth a fraction of a fresh one. Some loads lose value quickly in transit: newspapers within days, fish within weeks.

The chains

Raw works produce on their own. Processing works make nothing until their inputs arrive, then turn out goods that pay far more per wagon.

Not every region has the rarer works, and that is part of what makes two maps play differently:

That is nineteen cargoes in all, counting passengers and mail.

No two works are quite alike. A works can carry a trait, such as a Rich Seam that produces far more than it should, a Deep Shaft that will still be working in fifty years, or a Failing works that is unlikely to see the decade out. Open a works to see its traits.

Build your own. The Build tool (0) puts up a works of your own rather than waiting for one. It supplies your own trains and its output is yours.

The network map (M) shows the whole region and what is worth building: the value of a route per train, its build cost and how long it takes to pay back.

10Towns and growth

Towns send and take passengers and mail, and take goods, food, fuel, beverages and more. People travel both ways, so a passenger line earns at both ends.

Serve a town and it grows, street by street, with traffic of its own. When a town you serve passes a new size (a thousand people, two and a half thousand, five thousand and up), the news says so and the town marks it on the map.

• Press V for the land value overlay, and N to show or hide the names of towns and works. Click a name to open the place.
• Parks lays out a pleasure park piece by piece. It draws passengers to wherever you put it.
• The estate lets you place any piece of scenery the world is built from (houses, cranes, hedges, lamps) by hand. It costs money and earns nothing.

11Roads, trams, ships and air

• Roads and lorries. Drag to lay road. Lorries feed a railhead from works and towns the line does not reach. They load only at a road stop.
• Trams. Street track inside a town: short, cheap and very good at passengers. Trams load only at a stop.
• Quays and ships. A berth on water. Ships carry far more than a train for the money, and go where no track can.
• Aerodromes and aircraft. Small loads, long distances, and mail pays for it.

A quay can only be built once a ship exists to use it, and an aerodrome once there is an aeroplane. The tool tells you why if it is not available yet.

12Money

• Cash is the money in the account right now.
• The loan. The bank lends against what the company is worth, up to a facility shown in the Money panel. Profit and assets raise it. Interest is charged every month, whether the money was spent or not, and the rate rises as more of the facility is used. You can pay the loan down from cash in hand.
• Running costs. Every vehicle costs money to run, and track and stations have upkeep. Last month in the top bar is the one figure that says whether the network pays for itself.
• The market. Prices answer to the region: a cargo piling up unsold gets cheaper, and one that is wanted and scarce gets dearer. Prices also drift with the era; in the 1920s, coal slowly softens as oil and electricity arrive, and fuel goes the other way.
• Running out. Go below nothing for long and the bank calls the loan in. In the 1920 start, nine months running with the account overdrawn and the facility untouched winds the company up.

The Money panel holds the accounts: what came in, what went out, the balance sheet and the loan.

13Rivals, shares and takeovers

Other companies build in the same region and chase the same traffic. The Rivals panel shows each one's share of the region's traffic, what it carried, its fleet and stations, and what it has borrowed.

• Shares. Buy into a rival 10% at a time.
• Takeovers. Once you hold a controlling share (50% or more), or if the rival has folded, you can take it over. A takeover has to be paid for with your own money, as no bank will lend against one, and the rival's debt comes with it.
• In the 1920 start, the Group formed in 1923 is not for sale until the Transport Act opens a buyout window.

Rivals also bid for the contracts you leave.

14Contracts and sole carriage

Deals are standing offers to carry a stated load of a cargo by a stated date. They pay well over the market, more again for finishing early, and failing one costs. Open the Deals panel to see what is on offer and sign. If no cargo is on the platform yet, you can still sign; a works that has just started will catch up.

Sole carriage signs a works' whole output, or a town's passengers and mail, to you for three years. Open the works or the town to see the terms. A signed agreement can be renewed when it runs out, and it costs more where a rival is already serving the place.

15Eras, the board and research

Each start year is its own chapter of railway history, with its own engines, crises and end date:

Crises and acts. History happens to the region. In the 1920 chapter, for example, the Grouping amalgamates the companies in 1923, and the General Strike, the Crash, the Road Traffic Act, the Blitz and the coal famine all arrive in their years.

The board. Each January the board sets targets (mandates) and reviews the year just gone, with a grade. The year in review is where you choose a research programme: one is offered each January and charged monthly while it runs. Programmes cover rail, logistics, industry, finance, towns and consumers; in the 1920s they include Streamlining, Diesel Shunting, Bulk Hoppers, Train Control and Oil Firing.

How a run ends. In the 1920 chapter, the run is graded on vesting day, 1 January 1948, from S (first in the region, Principal Carrier before 1938, and never bought by the Group) down to D (solvent, and last). It can end early if the company is wound up, if the board dismisses you over missed targets, if the Group absorbs you, or if wartime targets are missed and the state requisitions the railway.

16Seasons, weather and time

The year turns through spring, summer, autumn and winter, and the country changes with it: the ground, the trees, the sun's height, snow on the roofs and frozen water. Days run from morning light to lamplight.

The weather changes every few days, with odds that depend on the season: clear, overcast, rain, fog, snow and storms. Snow on the line slows every train by up to 15%, and wet weather by up to 5%. Storms bring lightning.

17Saving and loading

• Save and load. The save button in the top bar opens your saved games: save slots, plus Save to file and Load from file. A save file is a small plain file you can keep anywhere and load on another machine.
• Autosave is on by default. It writes at the year end or every few minutes, whichever comes first (2, 4, 8 or 15 minutes; 4 by default), and keeps the last three in turn. Each autosave is read back in full before it counts.
• Closing the game. An emergency save is written when the game closes with unsaved work. When you start again, the main menu offers to continue your newest run.
• If a save will not open, the game leaves it untouched and offers to write it to a file.

Where the desktop version keeps its data

This folder holds your saves, settings and progress, and a log file (desktop.log) that is useful when reporting a problem.

18Settings and quality

Open Settings with ,, or from the pause menu (Esc).

Automatic quality reads your graphics chip, opens on the setting it fits, and steps down a rung when frames run slow and back up when they hold. Start there. Everything draws the full picture. Lighter keeps the ink line, shading and haze at lower cost, for laptops and Steam Deck. Plain drops them for integrated graphics, and Plainest is flat paint for anything that runs WebGL 2.

19Troubleshooting

My trains are stuck

• Two trains on one track need signals. Press B to see the blocks; a line with no signals is one block.
• If trains wait a long time for each other on a single line, the line needs passing loops. Use Double the track or Double the approaches in the line editor, and check its room: more trains than room means they stand in each other's way.
• A train with no reachable stop will not move. Check its stops are joined to the track it stands on.

My train is slow

• It is only as fast as its slowest wagon.
• A heavy train crawls up hills. Use fewer wagons or a stronger engine.
• A train longer than its platform loses time at every stop. Lengthen the platform.
• Snow and rain slow every train a little.

Nothing is loading

• The works has to be within 4 tiles of the platform.
• The wagons have to suit the cargo.
• A processing works makes nothing until its inputs arrive.

I can't build here

The status line names what is in the way, and the line is drawn red from the tile that is refused. Heritage sites, works and other buildings cannot be built through.

The game runs slowly

Set Quality to Automatic, or choose Plain or Plainest in Settings, under Picture. Close other heavy programs.

There is no sound

Sound starts after your first click or key press. Check the sound button in the top bar and the levels in Settings, under Sound.

The text is too small

Raise Interface size in Settings, under Picture.

The game closed unexpectedly

On the desktop version, the first time the game's window fails it reloads by itself and offers your newest autosave. If it happens again it explains what happened and where the log is. The log file is desktop.log in the folder listed under Saving and loading.