I played this yesterday and today and I had pretty much connected up all the towns by 1902 and purchased most of the industry also, so from then on there was nothing to do so, I spent some enjoyable time riding around on the trains, about all I did after that was build a tire factory and a couple of auto plants, I hit supergold in 1923, and this was on expert with no tycooning.
[ I had restarted the game because the first time around I started up three companies and it was looking to be too easy to hit the goals.]
If I might make a suggestion, and I don't know how difficult this would be. Start with the player at the Railroads original start location, and make it a connected rail scenario with only one company.
![thank you !$th_u$!](./images/smilies/thanx.gif)
I did enjoy playing and I will revisit this one.