Rail had twenty-three engine lines. They differed a little in speed and power, and mainly in which single cargo each one was locked to, which meant choosing a train was really choosing a cargo. There are now five lines, each with a character you can describe in a sentence, and the cargo has moved where it belongs: to the wagons, which gained eight marks of their own.
Every line runs from I to VII across all four tilesets. Two of them carry nothing at all, which is the point: a locomotive should pull whatever you couple to it.
| Line | Character | Track | Carries |
| Express Rail | Speed, at a price | Rail to electric to monorail to maglev | Nothing |
| Heavy Diesel | Power and low running costs | Plain rail, for ever | Nothing |
| Commuter DMU | A self propelled unit | Rail to electric | Passengers |
| Bullion Express | Armoured, self propelled | Rail to electric | Gold and valuables |
| Boxcar DMU | The workhorse unit | Rail to electric | Mail, food and goods |
Heavy Diesel never electrifies. It is built from the diesel and steam engines of its era and it stays on plain track from the first generation to the last, so the cheap option stays genuinely cheap instead of being retired the moment the wires arrive. Express Rail climbs the whole ladder to maglev and is the fastest thing on the map at every stage. The choice between them is meant to last the whole session.
Every specialist wagon runs Mk1 to Mk8. A mark holds more and costs more, and capacity deliberately climbs slower than price, so the top of a ladder is an investment rather than a free upgrade. Using the Coal Wagon as the example:
| Mark | Capacity | Capacity vs Mk1 | Price vs Mk1 |
| Mk1 | 45 | x1.00 | x1.00 |
| Mk2 | 56 | x1.25 | x1.30 |
| Mk3 | 68 | x1.50 | x1.60 |
| Mk4 | 78 | x1.73 | x1.87 |
| Mk5 | 89 | x1.98 | x2.18 |
| Mk6 | 103 | x2.28 | x2.54 |
| Mk7 | 118 | x2.62 | x2.95 |
| Mk8 | 136 | x3.02 | x3.42 |
A wagon improves every train you already own rather than replacing one, so a mark you buy is felt across the whole fleet at once.
This is worth being plain about. The specialisation talent unlocks the wagon family. The mark you may build is your rail Mk ceiling, the same ceiling that has always governed rail vehicles:
So a cargo specialist who never invests in rail keeps the wagon they always had, and a rail player who does invest gets up to 3.0 times the load out of the same specialisation. If that reads as too steep a requirement once it has been played, say so and it can be retuned.
The Coal Hauler, Grain Car, Log Train, Tank Train, Boxcar Train and their relatives are gone. Two lines survived by changing what they are rather than disappearing: the Bullion Express kept its name and its gold, and the old goods train became the Boxcar DMU carrying mail, food and goods together.
The nodes that granted the retired lines have not gone quiet. They now grant the wagon on its own, which is the whole shape of this update: the rail lane gives you engines, and the cargo nodes give you wagons.
A Mk1 wagon costs what it cost yesterday. The pricing had to be rebuilt underneath to make room for eight marks, because the old arrangement could not express a price that high, but the arrangement was chosen so that the first mark did not move. The most any Mk1 wagon shifted is about one per cent, in your favour or against by a rounding.