                        RULES


                  1. Introduction

A wide-spread railroad network starts embracing continents in the
dawn of  19-th century.  With the  development  of infrastructure
manufacturing  of locomotives  and railroad cars  grows,  traffic
gradualy increases...

You are in charge for railroad traffic control on a major section
of sophisticated railroad network with siding, switches, signals,
crossings and other means of shunting.  You goal  is to assure an
uninterrupted  collision-free  passage  of  differrent  trains to
destination points through this section.

You success both in traffic dispatching and railroad managing and
constructing determines your score.


                    2. History period

The period of time simulated is from  1800 to 2000.  You will get
the oppotunity  to control  the trains specific  for every period
over these two centuries.   As you progress in the time scale the
technical characteristics of  the trains are getting better.  The
power and speed increase.  You will see  all kinds of locomotives
starting  from the ancient steamer to be followed by the electric
traction and diesel ones and up to the gas turbine machines.


                     3. Railnet

The  ShortLine  railnet is to be constructed from several various
elementary track parcels, switches, signals, crossings, dead-ends
bridges and other elements.

The railnet  at the play screen  has from  1  up to  6  entrances
(outlets).  These  are  the track parcels crossing left and right
boundaries of the play screen. Each entrance parcel is surrounded
by  several  houses  of the same  bright  color  forming together
Yellow,  Red,  Cyan,  Blue,  Green and White towns. It is only at
these entrances that the trains enter or leave railnet.

You can construct any railnet configuration by adding any  parcel
provided you have enough money for its building.  So the topology
and  geometry  of  the  railnet  is  under your control.  Several
topology  restrictions  on it still exist:  for instance,  you'll
not be allowed to construct triple switches etc.


                       4. Trains 

The  trains enter your railnet from occasional towns (entrances).
The  color  of  the  train  determines  the  color  of  the  town
(entrance)  where  this  train  should be routed to. For example,
the  yellow train  (coming from Red or any other town)  should be
routed to Yellow town. 

Before  the train enters  the play screen you will see the signal
of  the corresponding color  in the display at the upper right at
your screen.  You will  also hear a  sound signal.  It means that
there's  a train ready to enter the railnet from the town of this
color.  In order  to let  the train  leave  the town  for its way
through  the railroad place the cursor to the corresponding color
at  the colored  scale  beneath  the display and click left mouse
button.  Be aware  of waiting  too long:  you will  be charged  a
PENALTY for each year of waiting.

You can use switches  and signals to control the train. The train
moving to either closed  switch or closed  (red) signal will stop
and then  immediately  CHANGE ITS DIRECTION FOR THE OPPOSITE  and
CONTINUE MOVING.  So each  closed control element provides such a
reflection.  After  reflection  the train moves backward in usual
manner  and  may be  routed to  the  destination town.  The train
itself  IS NOT UNDER YOUR CONTROL;  you only control the means of
traffic  organization  and  use the  railnet topology you'd built
instead.

Every  type  of locomotive  has  its  own  power characteristics.
Generally  the  power  gradually  grows  as you  move forward two
centuries time scale mentioned earlier.  The power  of locomotive
determines the maximum  speed that  the train  can move at.  Each
train is moving with its constant linear acceleration that mainly
depends on  its total  weight that in turn is proportional to the
number of  the cars in this train.  The train  then  reaches  its
maximum speed and continues moving with it.

For any accident with the trains you'll be charged for the amount
of money proportional to the number of cars involved in the clash.
You will pay  SEVERAL TIMES MORE FOR EACH PASSENGER CAR  compared
to non-passenger car.

Each  train  routed  to its  destination  town crosses the screen
boundary  and disappears.  You  will  get your money for each car
routed.  Each  train  being routed to the town different from its
destination  will  just  be  reflected  as  it occurs at ordinary
dead-end.

MAD train.  At the higher levels of the game you may occasionally
see the blinking train.  This is the MAD train. The train without
the  operator  (as well  as with  dragged or overdrunk operator),
with  fault  control  system,   with  the  hostages  captured  by
criminals, etc.  is the MAD train.  Mad train  does not obey your
control AT ALL:  it will not reverse on red signal and will clash
at closed switch or dead-end.  However it still will disappear at
any entrance.  So the best you can do with mad trains is to route
them to any entrance or at least force it to clash.


                   5. Entrances (more)

You  start  the game  in 1800 and will have a couple of entrances
soon in the beginning.  The  land  is still virgin over there and
you  can see  several forests around. Then you begin constructing
your  own railnet  to provide  the routes  between  each  pair of
towns.  As the time passes  you'll  notice the houses appear once
in  a few years.  These are  the future towns and every  40 years
you will get the new entrance in the new town. So you'll manage 6
entrances railnet by the end of 20-th century.
  

               6. Contructing the railnet

You should know that  1) every parcel cost you 2) there is a few
topology restriction  3) you will be charged for any tree in the
forests  you will  cut down or any house  destroyed and  4) each
bridge will cost you much more compared to an ordinary track.


                  7. Destruction 

The  rails  get  older  and  sometimes  you  railnet  will  have
destructions  on it.  You  can  see  them  as the small blinking
red-border  white triangle  with a bang  in the center  (traffic
danger sign).  The  destruction  also appears at the location of
the accident. The train meeting the track damage on its way will
have  an accident  in  turn  so  you  need  to repair the track.
The longer is entire  railnet the more destructions occur on it.


                      8. Repair

To repair  the  track  you should use the special platform named
server.  Server is called from any entrance and may be routed to
any entrance then  or kept in the railnet.  You pay just for its
call not for using.  The server  meeting  the destruction of the
track on its way makes  a short stop and repairs the track.  Any
number of servers can operate simultaneously over you railnet.


                     9. Levels

The  game  has  potentially  infinite number of levels.  Any new
level introduces the higher flow of incoming trains,  the higher
intensity of destruction and adds one or more new events.

When  you succesfully reach  2000 year in the game you just have
the  same initial  situation in  1800  but your money and routed
trains counters are from previous level. 


       10. Pausing, saving and restoring the game

Any  time during the simulation you can just strike any keyboard
button and you'll get in  PAUSE mode.  The menu appearing on the
screen offers either to go on or save or quit.

Save  the  game  when  you  have  to  return to current point of
simulation  later  or  keep  it for somebody else or investigate
another  'realization' in the future. All the saved games reside
in the working  directory on your disk and may be restored later.
Each save takes about 4K of disk space.

To  restore  the game  you choose "LOAD GAME" option in the main
menu.  You may see  ARCHIVE menu then.  It provides you with the
opportunity to look  through all the saved games showing you the
full  saved  game  screen  and  current  characteristics of that
session  and  the file.  Here you can also delete the old games.
Having  chosen the saved  game you just use menu  "GO" option to
start simulation.


                   11. Person profiling

All  your  achivements, records and saved  games are profiled by
users (players) names.  Once you run SHORTLINE from  DOS command
line using  you name as the argument the  system registrates you
and will keep track of your sessions later.  Now you name may be
shown in the record table. Also you can identify the saved files
by your name.  Finally, the system will follow your current play
level  and if you  start new game you'll  be proposed to play at
the level you have already reached before.

Running SHORTLINE without player names will cause profiling with
the name "Unknown".

You  can  load and play somebody's game with no restrictions but
all the best results will belong to the owner of the saved game.


                      12. Controls

You use 2-button mouse to control the simulation and keyboard to
work with menus. There are only 5 mouse actions that control all
the simulation.

        MOUSE                             ACTION
------------------------------------------------------------------
click 2 buttons together   - toggle between ROUTE and BUILD modes
left button  (ROUTE mode)  - toggle the nearest switch or signal
right button (ROUTE mode)  - call the server from nearest entrance
left button  (BUILD mode)  - choose the track parcels to be build
right button (BUILD mode)  - build the track parcel shown
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