SWITCHLIST

SWITCHLIST is a hump yard game. You work the master retarder on the night shift: the switcher shoves a drag of freight cars over the crest, gravity takes each car down the ladder to its class track, and your one brake decides how it arrives.

How it plays. Hold Space or the pedal to squeeze the shoes while a car is between them. The marker ahead of the car shows where it will stop and how hard it will hit, worked from the paper figures for that car. A joint under 4.5 mph pays a bonus and builds a streak. Overbrake and the car dies on the ladder while the hump stands and the engine shoves it clear. Underbrake and it corners the joint, wrecks, and blocks the track. Keys 1 to 6 set a car out onto another track, which costs a misroute but beats coupling into a wreck. Tracks pull to the departure yard at six cars, with double pay for a clean track. Every drag the pace rises and the cuts get longer. Eight damage claims and the yardmaster pulls you off the hump.

The twist. Every car rolls differently: loads roll far, empties die early, plain bearings squeal at the crest and roll stiff, a tail wind turns light cars wild, and the paper is close but never exact. The shoes also serve two jobs at once, because a car braked too deep sits in the path of the next one. A car that catches its leader couples on the roll and follows the leader's switches, so sometimes the right play is to let a car run hot and take the fair joint.

How it was made. One hand-written HTML file: Canvas 2D, WebAudio synthesis for the retarder screech, wheel rumble, couplings, diesel idle and wind, no external assets. The rollout physics, forced follows at fouled switches, and run-in merges were tuned and verified headless with Playwright, including a scripted operator that classified 56 cars over five drags.