Here’s why you should choo-choose another train game

Designer: Scott Caputo | Artist: Jason Boles, Stephanie Gustafsson

WHAT’S IN THE BOX?

►Game board

►25 wooden trains

►96 coal tokens

►20 gold nugget tokens

►Eight town tiles

►Five player boards

►Five wooden score markers

►12 upgrade cards

►30 railroad shares

►60 wooden resource cubes

► 24 whistle tokens

If there is one thing board games have taught us, it’s that trains are really fun. Every year sees wagons of new train games – card, dice, co-op, deckbuilding, party, Euro, you name it – pulling into our shelves, and Whistle Stop is another one to add to the collection.

Luckily, Whistle Stop ticks a lot of boxes. It has mechanics that will look familiar to seasoned board gamers. You lay down hexagonal tiles with railroads snaking and coiling onto themselves, Tsuro-style. As the trains move on the tracks, they take pit stops at stations, where resources are gained and exchanged, shares of train companies are bought, and coal is acquired to facilitate more journeys. Basically, your standard worker-placement setup. If you are feeling particularly cheeky, you can even block opponent’s trains, as Whistle Stop takes notes from Ticket to Ride. Normally, mixing and matching time-tested game mechanics would raise questions of originality, yet in Whistle Stop they work exceptionally well together, making those concerns disappear two turns in – especially as the game offers other mechanics that feel fresh and make gameplay more interesting.