Every conductor in Europe ate the bad mussels.
At the Grand Banquet of the Railways in Rivebelle, the chef brought out his famous mussels. By morning not one conductor in Europe could stand. Thirteen railways, thirteen trains, and nobody to drive them, until somebody remembered you: ninety-three years old, long retired, and never once invited to the banquet.
You said yes. What nobody knows is that your glasses are as thick as bottle ends, and you only see which way the line goes at the very last moment.
One clear line. Pick it. Fast.
At every junction the dispatcher's map pops up: the lines ahead, and what is waiting on each of them. One is clear. The others have an oncoming train, or something sitting on the rails: cows, a fallen tree, a stuck tractor, Lipizzaner horses, a river of lava. Press up or down (or left or right, where the line splits three ways) before your train reaches the points.
Get it wrong and things fly. Every crash costs a life and sends you back to the first platform of the line. Lose every life and the whole journey starts again from Chapter I. Beat a chapter and the next line opens.
Thirteen towns, from France to Iceland
Each chapter is its own little world, with its own engine, its own rival train, its own weather and its own tune. The station signs, the junction cards and the cries when it all goes wrong are in the local language.
