In Gleiswerk you take over a small railway in the Rhineland and grow it into a network between Duisburg and Bonn. It is the most expensive business in the whole arcade: you start with 0 € in the cash box, and even the entry ticket — a second-hand loco with two wagons — costs a good 100,000 play €. Gleiswerk is the end goal you save up for with the other businesses: you get the money via the current account or a bank loan on the start page (all real euros, 1:1 — see the bank help page at /hilfe.php?thema=bank). In return, the starter line Leverkusen – Opladen including both halts is free: it belongs to the public network — you only pay track access charges per kilometre run. Everything keeps running in real time while you are away, and none of it is real money.
From an empty account to your first trip:
You will find orders in the 📋 Orders tab — they keep coming in on their own, even while you are away.
Six classes, unlocked by level. Loaded trains run slower: fully loaded costs up to 25 % of the top speed.
| Loco | Price | Speed | Max wagons | Running cost/km | From level |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| V 60 (second-hand) | 60,000 € | 60 km/h | 4 | 9 € | 1 |
| V 100 | 120,000 € | 95 km/h | 8 | 14 € | 2 |
| Electric loco BR 143 | 265,000 € | 120 km/h | 10 | 11 € | 5 |
| Railcar BR 628 | 395,000 € | 140 km/h | 6 | 15 € | 7 |
| Heavy-haul loco BR 232 | 610,000 € | 100 km/h | 14 | 23 € | 9 |
| Express loco BR 101 | 980,000 € | 180 km/h | 12 | 19 € | 12 |
The BR 628 has a bonus: +30 % revenue on commuters, +15 % on mail.
Maintenance and condition: Every kilometre wears the loco down by 0.08 percentage points. Below 60 % condition, running costs rise by a quarter; below 40 % the train slows down; below 20 % it runs at just 75 % speed with one-and-a-half times the costs. Maintenance costs a share of 22 % of the loco price per missing percentage point, takes 4 minutes — and is 25 % cheaper in Opladen, the old railway repair works. Handy: switch on auto maintenance (“automatically at 60 %”).
Selling is possible: trains fetch part of the purchase price depending on condition, individual wagons 65 %.
Wagons always belong to a train (Trains tab, 🚃 button) and cost 4 € per kilometre to run.
| Wagon | Price | Carries | From level |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open goods wagon | 18,000 € | gravel, coal, timber, steel | 1 |
| Covered wagon | 22,000 € | grain, paper, tools, mail | 1 |
| Tank wagon | 34,000 € | chemicals | 1 |
| Passenger coach | 26,000 € | commuters | 2 |
The covered wagon is the best start: mail is the second most valuable cargo and is needed almost everywhere.
Orders appear continuously on their own — the bigger your cities and the better their stations, the faster the rate and the more slots. Every order has a deadline of 2 to 8 hours; deliver before it and you get the punctuality bonus ×1.20 (+20 % revenue). A train may take just part of an order — the rest stays put and is paid pro rata.
Revenue formula (per wagon): base price + rate × kilometres. Example mail: 108 € + 59 €/km — so 934 € per wagonload on the 14 km to Köln. Cheap bulk goods like gravel (80 € + 16 €/km) bring far less than mail or commuters (90 € + 68 €/km). From level 11, framework contracts add +10 % to all order revenue.
Every trip costs, per kilometre:
So the V 60 with 2 wagons costs 47 €/km — the 14 km to Köln 658 €, leaving 1,210 € profit against 1,868 € revenue for two loads of mail. Remember: the track charge is always due, no matter how empty the train is. Standard freight (25 % revenue, see scheduled service) barely covers its costs with only a few wagons — running a half-empty train as a service burns money. Empty runs cost in full and earn nothing. From level 14 the group discount cuts running costs by 10 %.
Build cost = 12,000 € + km × 3,400 € × terrain factor. Flat land has factor 1.0, hills and mountains up to 1.5, the Rhine bridge to Dormagen 1.7. Examples:
To build, tap a dashed line on the map; one of the two cities must already be on the network. Distance pays: revenue grows with every kilometre while the fixed loading time spreads over more track. A V 100 with 8 wagons earns around 26,000 €/hr on 60 km versus just under 16,000 €/hr on the 5 km shuttle.
Every connected city starts as a halt (free): loading there takes 240 s plus 20 s per load — which really slows down short shuttle runs. Upgrades open up from player level 3 and make a worthwhile first real investment:
| Level | Name | Base time | Per load | Cost* | From level |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Halt | 240 s | 20 s | free | 1 |
| 2 | Station | 80 s | 9 s | 38,000 € | 3 |
| 3 | Freight yard | 50 s | 6 s | 105,000 € | 6 |
| 4 | Transhipment hub | 28 s | 4 s | 260,000 € | 10 |
* times city size — big cities like Köln cost more but also deliver more. A better station does not just load faster: it also brings more order slots and a faster order rate in that city.
From level 2 you can put a train on a scheduled service between two cities — permanently, even while you are offline. It picks up matching orders automatically; if it finds none, it hauls standard freight at just 25 % of the revenue. That barely covers the running costs and is meant as a way back to new orders — not as a source of income.
Which means: a service only pays with full trains (4 or more wagons) on a route with regular orders at both ends. The starter train makes a measured ~2,200 €/hr in scheduled service on Leverkusen–Opladen. After a very long absence, the remainder is settled at a flat 90 % of your average so far.
Every city produces certain goods and needs others (tap it on the map). Deliver a cargo to a city that does not need it and you take a 20 % cut (onward transport). A few anchors:
The best route serves both directions: an order out, return traffic back instead of standard freight.
The map follows the real clock: night falls from 9 pm to 5 am, with dusk and dawn either side. It is purely visual — trains, orders and deadlines run on around the clock.
📦 Market freight is a named delivery from the arcade’s supply contracts (farm → clinic/apartments): “200× eggs from farm X to clinic Y”. The goods have always already arrived at the recipient — your train runs the special service with a name tag on it. It sits at the top of the Orders tab and is entirely optional: ignore it and the game plays exactly as before.
📣 Weekly event: Every now and then the arcade calls a shared event (trade fair in Cologne, rail strike …) — a banner above the view shows the text and remaining days, and all trip revenue is multiplied by a factor between ×0.5 and ×2.0. After the end date everything returns to normal automatically.