Railroad Tycoon II Platinum

Here was manifest destiny wrought in iron; here were two coasts united; here was an interior open to settlement. Distances shrank, but identification to land and fellow American grew in inverse proportion.

It's an old friend changed hardly at all from all the hours I spent playing off of a disc.

Still my favorite railroad game, the only one that comes close is Railroad Tycoon III, which has a more in-depth economy, but suffers from early 3D graphics. If you want to build rail empires and not fiddle with signals, the modern games don't come close. Two of the other aspects of genius are the changing economy - so what is profitable in a great economy may be unprofitable in a bad one, especially if older trains are requiring more maintenance than they used to - and the three-tier win system, often making it possible to achieve a modest victory in a straightforward fashion, but requiring much greater skill to win the gold medal. This all interacts with two of the game's other features - the stock market (and player wealth), and scriptable events, very well. Well-designed scenarios, of which there many, thus require not just understanding the economy and which trains to choose across which terrains (and with varying cargo consists), but making strategic tradeoffs and risks that sometimes require pursuing less profitable or unprofitable expansion in the name of scenario goals, and sometimes backfire, often in spectacular fashion if the stock market is involved. Add in the semi-random placement of buildings in cities on the map, and replayability is excellent. I'm on my third playthrough in a row on one map. The first one was a modest success and silver medal, which nearly went awry when I made a questionable acquisition of another company that took longer to turn to profitability than expected, and even then made modest profits. The second time I chose a different starting route, and while it turned modest profits early, as my trains aged and debts piled up, I found that in the end, traffic was too modest and the route too twisty to lead to long-term profits. The third time, I think I've finally built a foundation for long term success. Big 4-8-4 steam locomotives are hauling heavy bauxite and aluminum trains, fast 4-6-2 Pacifics are running profitable passenger lines, incrementally being upgraded to faster and cheaper electric GG1s, 2-6-2 Prairies are hauling lighter freight lines, and I even have an electric short line hauling coal to the local electric plant, which I happen to own, turning a nice profit. And if you get tired of the many built-in scenarios? There are two great fan sites with tons more. The Hawk and Badger Railroad, and the Dune2K forums. That's another way in which modern games, with their lack of moddability, just don't compare. Want to run a railroad in northern Ontario? There's a scenario for that. As well as for nearly any other place you could think of in the world, in varying levels of detail. This is the last game from last millennium that I'm still playing regularly, and while there are some scenarios I've overplayed, when I find a well-designed one I haven't played, it delivers the same fun experience that it did when it was new. Definitely recommended.