Railway Rivals - Isle of Wight

I enjoyed our game of Railway Rivals so much the other day that I hunted the 'net for some new maps to add to my collection. On this page I found a whole pile of them, all done up in a very nice style, some of them from original game maps and others seemingly originals.

I was quite attracted to the map for the Isle of Wight, since it has no map-specific special rules and actually prints out in a playable for onto a sheet of A4. Apparently it was originally published in an issue of Railway Modeller magazine. Anyway, we have a soft-spot for the Isle of Wight, having spent a few holidays and long weekends there prior to our emigration.

Its size means that it gives a quick game; the build phase is short, and so are most of the races, owing to the short distances between town. So we were able to give it a quick play this evening.

We had three players (which is fine; it's a 3-4 player map): myself, Maya and Catherine. Catherine took an early lead, but for a brief period in the middle I pulled in front. Catherine came back at the end, winning a couple of races pretty much unopposed. Maya was never really in the running; she dominated one part of the board, but by the time the towns on that section came into play, Catherine and I had also extended our networks into it as well.

Here's the map at the end of the game - my track is in orange, Catherine's in green and Maya's in purple/blue.

(If you download this map for your own games you'll notice that town 21 is nameless. I checked the original magazine version of the map, and it's actually 'Haven Street'.)