Light trains and stocks card game

I like the idea of the 18xx games, but I know I'd never get one on to the table. Game length would almost certainly rule it out, and most require 3 or more players, whilst I usually have the single opponent.

So my idea is to make a light card game that captures some of the feel of an 18xx. I've taken some inspiration from Bindle Rails and Cleveland Interurban and come up with the follow.

The railway building is abstracted as much as possible. So there are 4 railway lines, and I have a route map for each. The routes go something like this:

track - track - city - track - bridge - town - track - track - city/town

So players build the routes by playing cards.

There are the following cards:

red/blue/yellow/black track
bridges
5 different cities (2 copies of each)
8 different town (2 copies of each)
engine upgrades
event (accident, maintenance, urban decline, market crash, market rally, washout)
managers

Managers let you do useful stuff:

Route Manager - connect 2 railways that share a common stop, both immediately pay a dividend
Finance Manager - perform or prevent a share swap, alternatively, discard set of 3 to force dividend for a single railway
Operations Manager - Prevent 1 bridge being washed out, or avoid maintenance on a single railway
Infrastructure Manager - upgrade a city, or prevent an upgraded city suffering urban decline

Manager cards can also be discarded to draw 2 new cards.

Everything apart from events (which are resolved immediately) and Manager (excluding Infrastructure Manager which does have a cost) have a cost associated with them

Every non-event card has a cash amount at the bottom. Players can play cards to their own Operating Capital pile and then use these cards to pay for other cards.

So a player turn goes as follows:

1. Play any number of cards from your hand to your Operating Capital pile
2. Take upto 3 actions from any combination of the following:
a. Take income (discard a card from your Operating Capital, increase your Net Worth, may only do this once per turn)
b. Play a card from your hand
c. Buy or sell shares in a single company
3. Draw back up to 5 cards, or if you've used Managers to draw additional cards, discard down to 7 cards (if the deck is exhausted simply reshuffle the discard pile)

Buying and Selling Shares

Each company has a Current Value, this starts at $5, and is increased by adding cities and towns to the route, upgrading engines, market rallies, etc. It can also go down due to various events, and share sales.

The current share price is the Current Value divided by the total number of shares issued (5 or 3 depending on the railway company) rounded up. To buy a shares the player simply discards the relevant amount from their Operating Capital (no change given!) and puts their marker on that company share space.

Selling shares is similar. The share price is determined in the same way. However, the selling player must first give other players the option to purchase the share(s). The other players make an offer, the highest offer that at least matches the current share price must be accepted. The buying player must then discard cards from their Operating Capital. Whether the shares are bought by another player or the bank, the selling player's Net Worth increases by the relevant amount.

The share price then falls, by half the share price, again rounded up.

Engine Upgrades

All the railways start with the 1 Engine, which has a value of $5, hence each railway company has an initial value of $5. As engine upgrades are performed, these additional engines are added to the railway, and the company value increases. However, some upgrades then cause older engine technologies to become obsolete. For example Engine 3, causes Engine 1 to become obsolete. This can cause issues for the other railways. A railway requires 2 engines on the route they have currently constructed, and they have the 1 engine and the 2 engine. A different railway then upgrades to Engine 3, causing engine 1 to become obsolete. All the engine 1s are removed from the tracker. This means the first railway can no longer service it's route (having been reduced to one engine). It's shares are therefore suspended (cannot be bought or sold) and no dividends are paid on this railway, until an engine upgrade can be performed.

Similarly, a washout can cause a railway to have it's shares suspended.

Share Swaps.

A share swap is fairly self explanatory. A player plays a Finance Manager and selects an opponents share in play. If that opponent doesn't have a Finance Manager of their own to prevent the swap then the swapping player discards the current share price from their Working Capital pile, increases the opponents Net Worth, and replaces the share marker with their own.

Game End/Winning
The game ends when 3 of the 4 railways are complete. The player with the highest Net Worth wins.

In 2 players games, play with just 3 of the 4 railways, removing the track cards, 1 city (both cards), 2 towns (both copies of each) and 1 engine upgrade from the draw deck.

I've designed a tracker sheet for Net Worth/Company Value, Engine Upgrades and Connections, plus all 4 routes, and all the cards.

Does anybody have any thoughts? Does anybody want to playtest this, I can provide all the files and/or share an Artscow album of the cards (there are 108 cards in total, 2 identical 54 card decks).

I think the basic game play is solid, I worry there may not be enough player interaction, but really need to playtest more to prove that one way or another. If necessary the Events can be tweaked so they are quite as random, allowing players to influence them, thus creating another player interaction point.

I should mention the game supports 2-4 players and takes around an hour.