Across the Blue Mountains

Goal: Bronze:

- Connect Sydney with 19 other towns, including Bathurst

- Transport 5 loads of goods to Bathurst

Silver:

- Complete bronze conditions

- Connect 25 towns

- Transport a total of 10 loads of goods to either/both of Goulburn and Musswellbrook

Gold:

- Complete silver conditions

- Connect all 36 towns

- Transport a total 5 of loads of goods to either/both of Queanbeyan and Wellington

- Transport a total of 150 loads of wool to either/any of Sydney, Newcastle and Wollongong

Restrictions:

- This is now a Government railway, so no share or company dealing

- Construction materials are limited: you get 100 cells of new track each year. This can be increased by an extra 50 cells for exceeding each of these targets within a calendar year:

- 10 loads of wool

- 20 loads of lumber

- 5 loads o steel

- a quota of total loads, which increases each year (the increment depends on game difficulty level)

(Note: you get an extra 50 cells for each of these targets, so a maximum of 300 per year.)

Author's Comments: Sydney is located on a fertile plain, but hemmed in between the Pacific Ocean and the Blue Mountains, a rugged sandstone range running parallel to the coast. For many years after the colony's foundation no Europeans had even crossed the ranges (although of course the indigenous population travelled freely among them). When they were finally penetrated in 1813 a vast expanse of excellent grazing land was discovered, and by 1855 there are large flocks of sheep out on the Western Plains. So far the cockies have relied on slow, unreliable bullock wagons to bring out the clip, but there is a desperate need for better transport.

The Sydney Railway Company has just gone bust trying to build the colony's first railway. As usual there were various factors, but the main ones were lack of a skilled workforce (competition from gold rushes, first in California and then closer to home in NSW and Victoria), overambitious plans and the expense and delay of shipping materials and equipment from the Old World.