How It Works
The aim is to get the best set of train cards possible. At first, five cards are drawn at random for each player and each player looks at the cards they’ve got, without showing anyone else.
From here, players can choose which cards they want to hold and which cards they want to redraw. At the end of the round, all player’s cards are revealed, and the player with the best cards wins the round. Cards are reshuffled after every round; players do not keep cards.
The Deck
The deck consists of 52 cards in total, although it is in no way similar to a real card deck. There are six different cards with their own ranking, plus one “joker” card.
In order from best to worst, these are the Crossrail cards, the Northern cards, the Central, the Metropolitan, the District and then the Hillingdon Buses. The joker card is the Croydon Trams.
The deck contains eleven Hillingdon Bus cards, eleven District cards, nine Metropolitan cards, eight Central cards, seven Northern cards, and five Crossrail cards.
The first indicator of whether a player has won or not is how many of a single card they have.
The second indicator is the value of the cards themselves.
For example, if Player 1 obtains two pairs, and Player 2 obtains three of a kind, Player 2 will win the round.
Of course, there will be times when both Player 1 and Player 2 obtain the same rankings. In these scenarios the second factor, being the card value, is considered.
For example, if Player 1 obtains a clean sweep of Metropolitans, and Player 2 obtains a clean sweep of Centrals, Player 2 will win the round. In the case where both players obtain junk cards (all different), the highest value card of each will win the round. If players obtain the exact same cards in any scenario, it is a draw.
Obtaining a full house of Crossrails is technically a guaranteed win.
The one caveat to this is that if the joker card happens to appear, the player will automatically lose!
Taken from the original v1 of the game, here are the card pairings in order of how successful they are.
Extras
Some extras can be added to the game for additional fun. For example, if a player achieves a clean sweep of 745s, everyone at the table buys them a drink. Players could also drink when they lose, or chug a shot of something gross if they get the joker card. Or, the game could be played with real money if desired.