Cutting the regions

When I first planned this game, one criterion was that is should cover the whole of the UK, excepting only those extremities where hardly any lines were built. So I was happy to have off-board areas for Cornwall, West Wales and North Scotland. I still looked at including regional companies such as the Cambrian, Highland and Great North of Scotland. It soon became apparent that those regional lines were just too insignificant on the scale of this game and I dropped them.

Now I'm going a step further. I intend to drop south-east England below London and with it the LBSC, the South-East Railway and the London, Chatham and Dover Railway. The map just doesn't have the space for these to be interesting companies to run. I had thought of including them as simple investment options, but the game has plenty of companies already and can do without them.

In Scotland, I shall also drop the GSWR, because its network was similarly constrained. I might also drop the GER in East Anglia, because that region also doesn't allow much development. On the other hand, historically the GER did at one stage compete with the GNR for a route north. The GNR won, but it might be nice to leave the possibility of an alternative outcome in the game.

This leaves me with the following companies:

• LNWR (London and North Western Railway)
• GWR (Great Western Railway)
• LSWR (London and South Western Railway)
• MR (Midland Railway)
• GNR (Great Northern Railway)
• GER (Great Eastern Railway)
• LYR (Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway)
• MSLR (Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway, later renamed the Great Central Railway)
• NER (North-Eastern Railway)
• CR (Caledonian Railway)
• NBR (North British Railway)

Eleven is still a large number of companies, but at least it offers the possibility of a manageable game.

One way I might alter this is to vary the starting companies, e.g. by picking a set of starting companies from a larger initial pool. In this case, I might also look at some alternatives, such as the West Midlands Railway or the Scottish North Eastern Railway, which historically were quickly absorbed into one of the above companies. For now, I'm going to start with the above list and see how I get on.