Freight Train

About this board game

Freight Train is a freight-yard board game for 2–5 players, played over three days and lasting about 90 minutes. Players organize freight cars into trains, manage a private holding yard, and compete for points at the end of each round.

On each day, players may take one action. From a common pool, a player chooses three freight cars to add to trains by matching types or place in their own holding yard. Alternatively, they can pull one to four cars from the holding yard and add them to trains, matching each car type.

• Choose three cars from the common pool for trains or the private holding yard.
• Move one to four cars from the holding yard into matching trains.
• Add another locomotive and another scoring opportunity, once on the first and second days.
• Rearrange the private yard by paying one victory point.

At the end of each day, scoring rewards the player with the longest or second-longest train in each car type. Players can also score for one mixed train, provided all of its cars are different.

The holding yard has different scoring effects during the game. On the first day, players receive one point for every two cars kept there. On the last day, each car still remaining in the yard costs one point, making the final cleanup especially important.

The player with the most points at the end wins. With trains, locomotives, a common pool, and private yards all in play, Freight Train takes up a lot of table space while turning freight-yard organization into a three-round scoring challenge. It was released in 1993.