Article by Joe Celko ([email protected]).
These games takes their family name from the feature that the players build their own private trains instead of playing on a shared layout for the initial part of the game.
The goal is to domino, since scores are based on the tiles left in the other players hands.
This family is usually played with a larger domino set, say double nine or double twelve, but it is possible to play them with a double nine or double six set for a faster game. A smaller set and fewer players is not as good a game, however. You would need to adjust the size of the hands according.
Given a double twelve set, you can make smaller non-traditional sets to adjust the games to either less time or a smaller number of players. If you decide to build a smaller set, you should consider the problem of whether or not a single train exists, since it will affect the game.