18XX

18XX is the collective name for a family of board games that recreate the founding and operation of railroad corporations, most often during the nineteenth century. Individual titles are usually named for a year marking the start of railway development in the region they depict, such as 1830 for the northeastern United States, or for an "18" prefix combined with a geographic code, as in 18EU for a game set across the European Union; a few titles set outside that historical window, including the futuristic 2038 and the ancient-history Poseidon and Ur, 1830 BC, are still counted as 18XX games. The series descends from Francis Tresham's 1829, first produced in the mid-1970s, with Avalon Hill's 1986 release of 1830 establishing the format's wide American audience. The games combine stock-market investment in railroad companies with operational decisions about track building and train running, typically for two to six players with no random elements, and by January 2025 BoardGameGeek catalogued 293 titles and expansions in the series.