After 4,5h of playing I can't recommend this game. Even at the "baby" difficulty setting the game is very fast paced and gives you no peace. It is one of those nihilistic calculation games where you need to look if you have enough coal to reach the next city (this one thing can be "auto bought" though, but some cities have high prices for coal,), and you need to check how much your train can tow, and how much each carriage and passenger and their luggage and each cargo you buy weights, but alas if your train autobuys some coal on top of your calculations, prepare to have to leave one carriage to sit on the tracks (with passengers that need to be somewhere *fast*, as everything in this game), or to abandon cargo which also needs to be somewhere, and get you that -20 malus to a city and -2000usd penalty, (because coal cannot be unloaded). If the malus of failure is big enough, like -60, the city won't give your quests or passengers anymore, so you've pretty much lost the campaign there.
Also if you're on a quest, you have *very limited* time to get to the destination, so everything needs to be *perfect*. Running two or three quests at a time will usually fail one or more of them if any factor changes. So even when the basic quests have little to no time (even to stop at a city that is directly between start and destination on the same track) to stop, or you will fail the quest, then add to that the campaign quests that are also timed, and will screw up your weight calculations (have to keep abandoning or buying carts, because there is little time to prepare, don't even think about accepting a city demand quest, because there won't be many cities, except some far away one, that will take more time to reach than the quest allows you to return, to be able to buy the demanded resource, which will probably be short on stock, and take all your space (or more than you have), so that you can't buy that coal, or fit all carriages or cargo.
The game is indeed very tedious. Also the cargo space in a basic cargo cart is 5, medium 10, etc, so we are "trading" with *VERY FEW* resources and with *SUPER TIGHT* time limits.
This game is not a relaxing transport simulation, but has taken the wrong way. I cannot therefore recommend it to anyone. It could have been very good, though, but even the baby difficulty has ridiculous time limits, and if your trip is cut by an event, good luck trying to remember where you were headed and to do what, as all the cities and quests are a mere distant blur in your mind. And remember to have that USA map open, if you don't know where is Cincinnati or Buffalo in relation to each other, or random cities X and Y. Then constantly check the weight limits, the tow ability, the coal, and the time limits. Not to even mention the space that you don't have, and if you buy a bigger wagon, the train can't pull it, and there is not a better train for sale.
I bought this for 2 euros, so it's not a loss, but still, I can't recommend it.
