If you want to understand my family's love for the 18xx genre of train-investment board games, watch this excellent video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QErygzM4W_Y

I got my train nut dad into boardgames by giving him 1830 for his birthday. Soon he'd discovered there was more out there, and he bought everything.

My personal favourite is 18EU, which plays pretty quickly (relative speaking of course) while feeling far more epic than that. It starts by auctioning a whopping 15 minor companies which (unlike privates) do run trains, and can later merge into major (regular) companies.

Recently we got my 11 year-old son into Steam Over Holland, the latest of many, many attempts at an 18xx game in Netherland. My son loves it and is excellent at it, once even beating my dad (now a veteran with decades of experience) in a one-on-one game because my dad foolishly thought he could operate 3 companies at the same time. (That kind of hubris deserves to be punished, of course.) I think this might mean Steam Over Holland could be a fairly suitable beginner game. Its only real downside is that the title doesn't start with '18'.

Your version of 1830 looks gorgeous, by the way. Totally different from the various copies I've played. It's worth noting that most 18xx games are not as aggressive as 1830, which is among the most aggressive games in the genre. For a completely opposite experience, try the very German 1835.

Also, in our group, it's not remotely true that nothing happens during the last couple of operating round; we keep optimising routes until the very end, trying to squeeze that last drop of money out of our 5-train + D-train combination, frying our brain in the process. Running two permanent trains per company is frequently key to victory and a splitting headache.

#18xx