First off, before you read this guide, if you haven't done the tutorial yet...please do so. It will help you immensely! Also this guide will contain spoilers.

For purposes of discussion, I'm going to assume you, the reader, is not playing sandbox or hardcore mode. (Although most of these tips still apply to all modes)

So at first, you'll notice no practical differences with the ordinary version (as can be seen by many youtubers who play this game.).

Until you start playing...that is...



Now, if you've seen any videos on this game on YouTube, you'll notice that they start with a different engine. Just go type "bounty train" and see what you can find. (Click on the more recent ones for better accuracy) Don't worry, I'll wait.

Did you see the engine? Well, that engine, the Dewitt Clinton, is one that the standard edition starts you off with. (and you can still get it..) In the Trainium edition, you get an exclusive engine, the Tom Thumb!

One talk with Jerome later and you notice, you end up with a special character, Bill Hickok.




Ask him what he does and bam!



Other than these, there's very little difference between the two editions...or so you may think.

So now you've talked to Mr. Black, and you'' quickly realize that you'll want to figure out how to maximize profits.

So how does one do that?

First of all, see that money bag symbol, right next to you're cash amount? Click it.



You'll come across a list of towns, commodities, prices. and all sorts of information. (There's more towns than seen here) and you need to make sense of it.



First thing to know is where YOU are. Well, that would be whatever town is on top of the list. In this case, Portland, Maine. (to not be confused with Portland, Oregon.)

Next thing is to pick you destination, which will usually be Boston or New York. Let's choose Boston, since our train isn't that good yet.

So you'll see that every commodity(food, fur, oil, steel, etc..) has its own column with three numbers.

• The yellow one on the left is the price that YOU pay to acquire one unit of the commodity.
  
• The orange one on the left, is the amount you get if it's sold there.
  
• The little white number on top is the number of units available in that city's market.

You'll notice that the numbers in yellow are ALWAYS higher that their corresponding orange number. So how DOES anyone make profit? I'll show you.

So, we're in Portland and in this case, we have 7 piles of Cotton, 9 piles of Food, 3 crates of Weapons, and 20 tons of coal in our city's market. (although coal really doesn't matter too much)

So what do we bring to Boston that will give us the most profit? Well, you simply look at the yellow numbers of the goods in whatever city you're in, look down the column in you destination city's row, and see if the orange number is higher than the number you first looked at. Then, you subtract the yellow number of the city you're in from the orange number of the destination city.

Let's look at our options here;

In Boston, you'll lose $9 (10-19) per unit of cotton you buy. Also, you'd lose $25 per unit of weapons, so that's a no-go. However, you'll profit $5, for each barrel of food that we deliver to Boston.

So here, from Portland to Boston, delivering Food would be the best option.

So all we have to do is fill our train with the most amount of profitable items and cha-ching, right?

Well...not really. Another thing to consider is the weight of the goods. The spectrum of tons per unit, is as low as Cotton, at 0.1 tons/unit, to Steel, at 2.2 tons/unit.

Obviously this means that carrying heavier items means you can carry less of them and also your train will move more slowly.

To get the best profit will require a bit of mental math but in general, you do want to get as many of the more profitable items as your train can handle.

But trains will have to wait for a bit...

Until then we ask ourselves, "What else can I do to make money?"
Well, obviously you can carry a passenger (whose names are in purple) to their destination if they so happen to be heading in the same direction. But you will not earn as much if the passenger's destination is close by.

One last thing before we do anything else is look at the city hall. This is where you can get contracts to various cities, and deliver goods for large sums of money. We click and we'll come across this..



You 'll see that in the upper left, you'll see a list of tasks where you can either deliver goods to another city or bring some back to the current city.

Now in this case since we just happen to be going to Boston and we have enough room to carry 6 crates of food (plus two more for that extra money) let's select that task.

Now remember, these task from city halls, are time sensitive, and you don't want to try to do too much at once because you'll have to pay a penalty...especially in the early stages.

So...anything else?

Um...maybe...?

...
...

Okay fine.... One last tip.

See the people whose names are in white? Click on them...You might just get a task from them...
But that's all for this section.

Until I make the next section...time is money! So quit wasting your time and play! :)

This is just until I can add some new material to this guide.