Monopoly's railroads

Central Avenue

Reading Railroad, Pennsylvania Railroad, B. & O. Railroad, and Short Line.

Why is it you could name three specific real-life railroads, but the fourth one is just a generic term?

glennmagusharvey

Is there an intuitively logical fourth one for them to pick?

Stormtroper

> complaining about the railroads

> not complaining about jail

Tools

In the UK edition, we have: Kings Cross, Marylebone, Fenchurch Street and Liverpool Street.



All are proper stations (quick Google check ftw)

glennmagusharvey

Hmm, interesting observation.  I wonder if the railroad equivalents in the themed versions of Monopoly are consistent like that too.

Blueeyedrat

We have some themed Monopoly boards on our shelf. I can check a few of them.

Nyktos

In the Lord of the Rings version they're horses and they're all ones that are actually in it I think?



Fun fact the LotR version is the only one my family ever had so I have to mentally translate to it whenever someone talks about regular Monopoly.

lrdgck

Clearly, Lord of the Rings was a story about venture capitalist Gandalf and his hobbit employees challenging the stale real estate market of Middle-Earth.

Central Avenue

In the UK edition, we have: Kings Cross, Marylebone, Fenchurch Street and Liverpool Street.

All are proper stations (quick Google check ftw)

I find it interesting that yours are rail stations whereas ours are rail lines

Tools

^ Indeed. But we could have used rail companies, but we went with stations in London.



Apparently the average playing time is 1-4 hours. LIES.



When I played it with my two older siblings, games would last at least 24 hours. We'd play for a while, leave it set up overnight, and resume playing in the morning.



We are now banned from playing it, and we're nearly all in our 20's.

Central Avenue

Heh.

When I play with my siblings it usually lasts until we all get bored and just declare the game over with whoever has the most money at that moment as the winner.

(If we're especially lazy, we just count the cash without totalling up property values)

Blueeyedrat

I think my brother, sister, brother-in-law and I once tried to play a Monopoly game with four boards simultaneously. It was... interesting. Some rules, if any of you are crazy enough to try it yourself.

- Free Parking in the center, Go in the corners.
- Everyone starts on the same Go space (all four still give you the $200 salary); move clockwise on each board as usual.
- Cross between boards when you pass Free Parking; if you land on FP itself, you can pick which way to go on your next turn.
- Go to Jail spaces send you to the adjacent jail rather than the one on the same board.
- Once you have 3 (or 2 when appropriate) properties in the same color on any board, you can build houses/hotels as if you had a monopoly.
- A proper monopoly (same color, same board) = instant win.

Central Avenue

I find it amusing that you just happened to have four Monopoly boards on hand.

Blueeyedrat

Four? We have eight (well, six and two knock-offs from whoever the hell these guys are); god knows why, and none of them are the original Atlantic City board. Actually, I think we used all of them in our game, going around the outside (skipping most of the spaces as a result), and I thought up the rules for 4-board Monopoly after the fact, based on that experiment.

To bring up an earlier post, here are the railroad-equivalents from each of them, as well as house/hotel and chance/community chest:

• National Parks Edition: Flattop Mountain Trail, Lewis Falls Trail, Window Trail, Chilkoot Trail; tent/ranger station; chance/community chest.


• San Diego Edition: San Diego Coaster, San Diego Trolley, Coronado Ferry, Bahia Belle Mission Bay; beach home/ranch estate; golf/beach.


• Dog Lovers' Edition: Shepherd Junction, Retriever Junction, Beagle Junction, Terrier Junction; doghouse/kennel; tricks & treats/doggie toy box.


• The Wizard of Oz: A Brain, A Heart, Courage, A Way Home; farmhouse/palace; (WotN crown)/(WWotW hat).


• The America Special Edition: Trans-Continental Railroad, First Flight, Model T. Ford, Moon Landing; house/hotel; American places/American people.


• Here and Now: the World Edition: Monopoly Rail, Monopoly Air, Monopoly Cruise, Monopoly Space; house/hotel; chance/community chest.


• Seattle-in-a-Box: Capitol Hill, University District, Fremont, Queen Anne; skyline/key to the city; Big Fun!/Contingency.


• Canada-opoly: Territories, Western provinces, Central Canada, Atlantic provinces; log cabin/ski chalet; Eh?/Zed!

On a different note, skimming Wikipedia provided me an answer to your question in the OP ("Short Line" originally referred to the Shore Fast Line) but brings up a different one (B. & O. Railroad didn't actually serve Atlantic City, so what's that one doing there?)

glennmagusharvey

So did you use different currency for each edition of monopoly, and restrict currency usage to its native board?  And did you allow people to bid on any property that a player who first landed on a property space didn't buy up?

Blueeyedrat

Same currency throughout (we used the electronic banker from Here and Now, which simplifies things a bunch). Unbought property stayed that way until someone else landed there and bought it, but that's because as a house rule we've never bothered with auctions. Ever.

Tools

The traditional UK Monopoly is based in London, but there is a Sheffield version (where I was born and raised)

Central Avenue

I actually live along a portion of the former Pennsylvania and B&O Railroads, oddly enough, though I'm nowhere near Atlantic City.