Ultimate Railroads

Ultimate Railroads is a collection of games in the Russian Railroads series. The series includes variants of the original Russian Railroads, built on the same core engine, a worker placement engine. This is for fans who want more of the same. So far I have played German Railroads and Asian Railroads. Both contain tweaks to the original, while retaining most of the original mechanisms. 

This is all familiar

One new element in German Railroads is customisable tracks. There are several track sections in dotted lines which are blank. When you first have a track piece enter such a section, you get to choose a section tile to place on that section. You have several options, and you can pick one which helps you most in your strategy. These section tiles are first come first served. Players will end up with different railroads. 

There are many options for those customisable sections (first three rows)

One more new thing in German Railroads is how there is a split in the Munich line (the middle one). When you get to the fork you have to make a choice. Depending on the branch you choose, you will have different rewards to work towards. 

Allen recruited many engineers (tiles on the right)

Han spent much effort on upgrading the middle track

Asian Railroads is more different. The biggest one being the shared industry board. Player boards no longer have the industry track. Industrialisation is all done on the same shared board. There are some optional detours which let you perform specific actions. Like the base game, you can only advance past certain positions if you have placed a factory to link up the path. Here the board is shared, which means if your opponent has placed such a factory, you can say thank you and use it.  

Another new element is the wagons. These are your pieces which can be placed on the industrialisation board. Sometimes you get to place these next to factories. On your turn, instead of placing a worker you can exhaust a wagon to perform the action associated with it. 

The three train routes have some train slots which are initially locked. You need to make progress to certain positions before you can unlock these slots. When you have the opportunity to unlock, you have to consider carefully which route will need that additional train slot.