I like to play solo on the North America map no time limit on this map.

1 Pick North America map.
I like to start in the year 1830 I like to watch the engines progress over the years and I find it to be best way to do this.

2 Build a small station in Milwaukee & Chicago

3 Add a sanding & water tower in Milwaukee

4 Add a sanding, water tower & a roundhouse in Chicago

5 Conect the two with a single track

6 Go to your company screen and set the dividend to 0 . so you don't run out of money.

7 Buy 1 engine set it to run with 1 passenger car.

8 Now you just let it run untill you buy all the stock this can take 10-30 game years there is some randomness to the game like pay raises or cuts , economy , engine brakedowns . You can speed it up by useing the buy back stock with the company money BUT that will cut back on how much money you have to do upgrades after you own your rail road.

TIP: keep close watch on you personal money so you can buy stock at the lowest price if you go to the stock market screen just before the train gets into town it will be at it's lowest price.

Once you own all 10,000 shares you own the rail road you will still have the board of directors but you can not be fired.

Once you own the company do upgrades , start with a better engine the American C if you can with 3 passanger cars then upgrade the stations to large you can do more upgrades to the stations to get more money & passengers untill you have enough money to exspand your rail road empire.

After you own your rail road and your company starts making money raise the dividend this will be your second and later main pay check . The dividends comes out of the companys money so be carefull on how much. Most of the time this can be raised up buy 1 click per year and later with some carefull planing you can be making 100's of millions dollars per year , what you are doing is putting company profits in your pocket.

When you have enough personal money you can issue more stock and" buy it all up in one shot " and do this as often as you can , the more stock you have the more you make in dividends.