Every railway in the game — yours, other players', and the computer-run ones — has one million shares. The share price is simply the company value divided by those shares, and the company value is cash, plus the fleet at its written-down value, plus what the line network is worth. Run well and the price rises on its own. There is no separate market sentiment to game.
You decide what share of your own company is available to buy. The floor is 10% and the ceiling is 75% — every railway in this world is listed, so taking the company fully private is not on the table. This is your float, and it is the central decision on this screen.
Floating high brings in money. When another railway subscribes to your float, the cash goes into your treasury — it is a new issue, not a trade between strangers. That is real capital you can spend on trains today.
Floating high also gives away votes, which is where it gets dangerous.
This is why you can float a meaningful part of the company and still control it. It is also why the danger is gradual rather than sudden: every share you sell moves votes from your side of the ledger to everyone else's.
The maths is worth knowing before you need it. Because your shares carry twice the weight, you keep more than half the votes until you have sold roughly two thirds of the stock. Past that point you are a minority holder of your own railway, and a takeover bid stops being something you decide. The voting bar on the market page shows exactly where you stand, with the fifty percent line marked.
Raising the float lets somebody else put money into your company. Selling your own shares takes money out of the market and puts it in your hands, and it is a different transaction entirely.
The market buys at 3% below the share price. Nothing is created and nothing is destroyed: the shares move from your side to the market's, the float rises to cover what you sold, and the cash is new money that did not come out of anyone else's treasury. The company does not lose a penny of capital — this is the point, and it is why the old route of making the company buy your shares back out of its own account was the wrong model.
Two details matter. The 3% discount is what makes selling cost something, so that liquidating your stake is a decision rather than a free source of funds. And the price is calculated on the company you built, with the proceeds of your earlier sales taken back out — otherwise selling in small slices would pay more than selling in one block, and the mechanic would reward tedium instead of judgement.
What you give up is votes. The interface will not let you cross the fifty percent line by accident: a sale that takes you into a minority has to be confirmed deliberately.
You may hold up to 75% of any other railway, and you can only buy what its owner has floated. Buying is a new issue at the current price. Selling is a buyback: the railway buys its own shares back from you at 2% below the price, and only if it actually has the cash. If it does not, there is no buyer today — you hold.
Because your money goes into the target's treasury, buying shares raises that railway's value slightly, and selling lowers it. The market moves against your own trades, in the same direction real markets do.
Once you hold 30% of a railway, you may bid for all of it.
Count the votes: the owner's remaining A-shares at two votes each, against your B-shares at one vote each. If the owner still has more votes, the bid is voluntary — they accept or decline, and it lapses after seven days. If you have more votes, the bid is hostile: it cannot be declined and completes after 48 hours.
A hostile bid is only possible against an owner who has floated a great deal and sold most of it. That is the trade the float slider represents, and it is meant to be a real one: capital now, or control later.
If you are bought out, you keep the money. It follows you personally, not the company, and it is added to the starting capital of the next railway you found. Being taken over is a setback, not the end of your game.
Start your railway