Money

The ledger

Everything that touches your balance is in the finances tab, and it is worth knowing the categories exactly, because they behave differently:

Line	What it is	When it hits
Fares	Revenue from riders	Every simulated day
Running trains	Cost of the vehicles in service	Every day, per vehicle
Upkeep	Cost of the track, stations and upgrades you own	Every day, built or not
New trains	Vehicles bought	One-off
Construction	Track, stations, upgrades, passages	One-off
Loan	Borrowing and repayments	Per the loan terms

The game's headline profit is fares − running − upkeep. That is the number to watch day to day, because it excludes the one-off costs that would otherwise make every build week look like a catastrophe.

Upkeep is the quiet one

Upkeep is charged on what you have built, whether or not anything uses it. That has three consequences that catch people out:

1. Empty track costs the same as busy track. A speculative branch to nowhere is a permanent bill.
2. Upgrades are permanent. Removing a built upgrade refunds nothing; the cost is sunk. Decide before you build.
3. A line can be profitable and still make the network poorer if its upkeep outweighs its fares. The line panel's profit figure is per line; the ledger is the truth.

History

The finances tab keeps a history with three spans —1 day, 30 days and all time — broken into revenue and expenses and by category. The all-time view is the one that matters for a strategy question: it shows cumulative fares against cumulative running costs, upkeep, vehicle purchases and construction. If construction dominates the bar, you have been building faster than you have been earning.

The top bar also shows since day 1: fares minus running costs, upkeep, trains and construction. It is the same calculation in one number, and it is the most honest summary of a network's life.

Borrowing

Loans exist because the interesting builds are lumpy: a bridge, a terminal, a fleet — all at once, before any of it earns. The terms are explicit:

• The amount, the term (in game days) and the payment per day are quoted together.
• Interest accrues per day on what is left of the loan, so paying it down early saves real money.
• A repay option pays the remainder from cash, if you have it.

The game will refuse a loan it thinks you cannot service, and it tells you why: it compares the payment with yesterday's profit, or with the average over the past few days. That is a useful signal in itself — if the bank says no, the build is probably too big for the current network.

Points

Separately from money, the game awards points: one for each trip, and one for each kilometre travelled. Points are the leaderboard currency, counted over the past 24 hours, and they are deliberately not the same as profit — a busy long-distance network scores more than a small profitable one.

Points are per city and per world, and sandbox games are not listed. If you want to compete, the two levers are ridership and distance: more riders, and longer trips for the riders you have.

Where the money is counted

One subtlety with real consequences: a line's fares count where its riders board and travel, its running costs count where its trains run, and construction and upkeep count where the track and stations are. In a network that crosses a border or a region, a line can look profitable in one place and be a cost centre in another — and the regional breakdown is showing you something true, not a rounding error.

Five rules that hold up

1. Build where the demand is, not where the map looks empty. Empty map, empty fares.
2. Match capacity to load. A half-empty line loses money twice: it earns less and it costs the same.
3. Cut before you borrow. If a line is losing money, the fix is usually a schedule change, not a loan.
4. Watch upkeep after every build. It is the only cost that never goes away on its own.
5. Read the all-time ledger once a session. It tells you which of the last ten decisions actually worked.