Wouter & Ymke 
Welcome to GG Island. It’s a lovely place really. Full of forests, quarries, and potential. Just missing one minor thing: infrastructure. That’s where you come in. In Train & Railway, you and your fellow players take on the role of hopeful railway developers, carving tracks across the island to collect resources, build factories, and deliver goods to cities that desperately need them.
👥 2-4 players, ages 10+
⌛ Playing time: 60 minutes
📝 Designer: Zong-Ger
🎨 Artwork: Zong-Ger
🏢 Publisher: Good Game Studio (review copy provided)
How It Plays
Each turn in Train & Railway follows a simple flow. You take one main action, you might also take a location action, and then you’re free to do as many extra actions as you can afford with your resources.
Your main action can be one of four things. You can draw up to three connected rail segments anywhere on the map, as long as they follow the placement rules. You can move your train along the tracks, but only in the direction it’s currently facing. You can turn your train around, although that will cost you a penalty. Or, if you’re in the right spot, you can jump straight into a location action instead.
The map uses a hex grid, and tracks have to follow edge-to-edge connections. You can also have more than one railway line passing through a single hex, as long as they’re not adjacent to each other. When moving your train, you’re allowed to pass through other trains but not stop on their space. Apparently, train crashes are frowned upon.
Location actions let you interact with the board if your train is next to an entrance. You can collect raw resources like wood or iron, use factories to turn them into goods, or deliver those goods to cities to complete contract cards. Completing a full contract gives you influence over that city, which adds bonus points at the end. Even if you only manage part of a delivery, you still earn a few points and the contract stays open for others to finish. Sharing, whether intentional or not.
Each train can carry up to four goods unless you’ve unlocked an upgrade to increase capacity. Any attempt to go beyond that limit is gently (or not so gently) refused.
On top of your main action and location action, you can spend resources to do extra things. For example, you can use coal or wood to move your train a bit further, or use iron to draw an extra rail. You can also build a factory nearby, though it’s not as simple as just plonking it down. You need two stone, a shovel token, or you can take a penalty if you’re desperate. Factories must be placed within one hex of your train, and you can’t block another player’s direct path or build over existing structures. Each factory also needs one open side so trains can enter it later. If someone enters through a walled-off side, they’ll pick up a penalty token. Apparently reversing into a wall is not ideal for business.
Scoring points isn’t just about deliveries. As you climb the score track, you’ll pass gear icons that award you tech tokens. These let you unlock upgrades on your personal board. You start unlocking from the top row of each column, moving down as you go. Some upgrades give you extra storage, others let you do two location actions in a single turn, or even take an entire extra turn. Very handy.
The game ends once someone reaches 25 points. Everyone finishes the current round, then takes two more full turns. In final scoring, you can use leftover goods to complete contracts in your hand if possible, even if they’re only partial. Any remaining goods are converted to points at a reduced rate. City influence is tallied to see who delivered the most to each colour group. Penalties subtract points, and some late-game tech upgrades can add a final boost.
Artwork, Components, and Visual Design
The game has a clean and practical visual style that fits the theme nicely. The hex maps are printed on paper and designed to be drawn on with markers. The illustrations are soft and friendly, and all the icons for cities, factories, and resource points are clearly marked and easy to read across the table.
The trains are wooden tokens with printed details, and each player has their own matching shovel token and point marker. Player boards are well organised and double as both upgrade trackers and reference sheets, which helps keep things smooth once you’re familiar with the actions.
Contract cards are colour-coded by city and use large icons for the required goods and the points you’ll get. It’s all laid out in a way that’s easy to follow, which we really appreciated. The resource tokens are easy to tell apart too, with distinct shapes and colours to avoid confusion.
The whole production feels coherent and thought-through, without being flashy for the sake of it. Just like a well-run railway, really.
Our Experience With the Game
We’ve played Train & Railway quite a few times now, and it’s become one of those games that gets better the more you play it. The first couple of turns are usually a bit quiet, with players figuring out their paths and eyeing up contracts, but once trains start moving and factories get built, the pace picks up quickly.
It shines best with three or four players. That’s when you really feel the competition for space and resources. In two-player games, it becomes more of a relaxed planning puzzle, which is still enjoyable but doesn’t have the same tension. With more, things change. There’s more competition for contracts, factory placement becomes tighter, and suddenly you care very much about where someone else is building their rail.
The shared map is one of the game’s real strengths. It’s not just your own board or your own puzzle. Every move changes the space for everyone else. That makes every turn a bit more interactive, and sometimes you find yourself rerouting entirely because someone else built a factory exactly where you were heading.
We enjoyed the tech upgrades a lot. They let you develop your own style as the game goes on, whether that means zipping around the map faster, handling more goods, or stringing together powerful combos.
That said, the factory placement rules tripped us up a couple of times. It’s easy to make a poor placement that ends up being more annoying than helpful. There’s no real take-back once you’ve drawn it, so you’ve got to think carefully before committing.
A nice bonus is that the game includes twenty different maps in the box, and another twenty are available online via a QR code. So there’s plenty of variety if you want to keep playing with new setups and challenges.
Final Thoughts
Overall, we think Train & Railway strikes a solid balance. It offers meaningful decisions without drowning you in complexity. It feels strategic but never too slow, and the shared map creates a constant bit of pressure that keeps everyone paying attention.
It plays best at three or four players, where there’s more interaction and a real sense of competition. The two-player game is still enjoyable, just more puzzle-like and less confrontational.
We also appreciated the variety in strategy. You can go heavy on deliveries, focus on building up a good engine through upgrades, or try to dominate city influence. It gives players space to explore different approaches.
That said, not everything is perfect. Some of the rules around placement could be clearer on first read, and it’s possible to paint yourself into a corner if you’re not paying attention. And while the visual design is clean and practical, it might not be the most eye-catching game on your shelf.
Still, if you enjoy route-building, logistics, and a bit of friendly competition, this one is worth checking out. It reminded us a little of Railroad Ink with a twist, or a slightly more approachable Age of Steam. There’s no direct conflict, but plenty of chances to mess with each other’s plans in subtle ways, and we love that kind of tension.
And yes, saying “choo choo” on your turn is still encouraged.
📝 We received a copy of the game from Good Game Studio.
