"The objective of the game is to build and manage a railroad company by laying track, building stations, and buying and scheduling trains. The player may start companies in any of four geographic locales: the Western United States, Northeast United States, Great Britain, or Continental Europe. The company starts with one million dollars in capital; half equity, half a loan. The company may raise additional capital through the sale of bonds.
The player manages the business as described above and may also handle individual train movement and build additional industries. The game models supply and demand of goods and passengers as well as a miniature stock market on which players can buy and sell stock of their own or competing companies. The game also has other railroad companies attempting to put the player out of business with stock dealings and "Rate Wars"."
Source: Wikipedia, "Railroad_Tycoon," available under the CC-BY-SA License.