The year is 1843, and Great Britain is poised to see the country gripped by a new disease - Railway Mania. Rail transportation to link industrial Great Britain together has captured the public imagination, and thanks to a rapidly expanding affluent middle class, more than enough money is available to build that rail net. Scores of new railway companies spring up. With virtually no governmental oversight, many fraudulent or economically unfeasible railways appear, financed by a tidal wave of cash from starry-eyed investors. By 1849 the spectacular railway construction bubble completely bursts, thousands of individual investors are ruined, and the surviving well-run rail lines move into the financial wreckage to salvage the workable lines, continue construction through the next decade, and grow stronger.

1862: Railway Mania in the Eastern Counties is set in this cauldron of railway construction. Players will vie to start railway companies, invest money in railway shares, and attempt to run the railways