Strategy
Wagons
This category aims to provide guidance for when to purchase, what to purchase and where to place your wagons as well as other strategic guidance you might need to know.
Purchases
You can't go wrong with an early dynamite. You can't always get one early, but make sure you save some bolts to buy it and upgrade it to max as soon as possible. The level 3 dynamite is really strong at breaking through areas ahead fast so you'll always want at least one on your train.
[ I'll leave the rest of this section for more experienced players to fill out ]
Placement
Currently, the world record for distance places a second water tank in the rear and then replaces the water in the front with a track crafter with two dynamite at the back in front of the water. There are two reasons for this. Ideally, you want your water tank further back and your tracks as far forward as possible. Jumping the crafter to the front solves both of these problems at the same time, and it's fairly inexpensive.
[ There's plenty more to discuss here for anyone interested ]
Engines & Speed
When do you buy that engine upgrade? Well, if you have an experienced team, you can push to 600-700m fairly safely in the first biome. With that said, the world record pushes it to double that on Easy. Ideally you want to avoid buying a new engine until the train is going too fast for your team. That will vary based on your team's experience level of course.
Bolts
Something to keep in mind when avoiding engine upgrades for a long time, is that you don't have to care about missions or the hidden bolts in the map. For example, if you're pushing really far into the first grassland biome, you will have more bolts than you can even use. So once you have your train maxed out for the first biome, don't waste time on difficult missions or hidden bolts in the map.
Track placement
This category attempts to share insights and tips on efficient routing
Path clearing
When mining a path through resources for the train, it is helpful to ensure that the entire cleared route is at least 2 spaces in width so that players can move alongside the train without a bottleneck. If time allows, increasing the width to 3 spaces will allow multiple players to move back and forth instead of having to take turns.
Teamwork & Responsibilities
It is important to designate a single person to lay tracks because 2 people can't lay tracks at the same time without causing the tracks to be double placed and possibly derailing the train. The ideal team is 3 players: 1 miner, 1 track layer, and 1 resource gatherer/dynamite user. The players can multitask but, as the train gains speed, they must focus on their own tasks.