What the Mexican Train Actually Is

The game is named after it, and it is the single thing beginners misunderstand most. The Mexican Train is not your train, and it is not the row of tiles in the middle. It is a separate, shared train that anybody may play on at any time — and knowing when to start it is a real decision.

The three kinds of train

	Who can play on it	How it starts
Your personal train	Only you — until it opens up	You start it from the engine
Somebody else’s train, opened	Everybody	It opens when they cannot play after drawing
The Mexican Train	Everybody, always	Any player may start it, once per round

So in a four-player game there can be five trains going: one each, plus the Mexican Train. It is the only one that belongs to nobody.

How it starts

Like any other train, it begins with a tile matching the engine. If the round’s engine is the 12-12, the Mexican Train has to start with a tile showing a 12.

Any player can start it, on their turn, instead of playing elsewhere. There is only one, so once somebody has started it, that is that for the round — everybody plays onto the same shared line from then on.

Why you might start it

• You are stuck. The commonest reason. Nothing fits anywhere, but you hold a tile matching the engine — starting the Mexican Train is a legal play and saves you drawing.
• You need somewhere to unload. With your own train closed and everybody else’s closed too, the Mexican Train may be the only place you can reach.
• You are being generous. It gives everybody an outlet, and it makes the game friendlier and faster. Some groups start it early every round on purpose.

Why you might not

Because it helps your opponents exactly as much as it helps you. If you are sitting comfortably and somebody else is visibly stuck, opening a train they can use is doing them a favour. In a two-player game this calculation is most of the strategy — with only three trains on the table, whoever controls the shared one controls the round.

There is a timing judgement, too. Start it early and you get first use of it, but you also give it away for the rest of the round. Hold on and you keep the table tight, but you may find yourself drawing when you could have played.

Where the name comes from

Nobody is quite sure, and the tidy explanations you find online mostly disagree with each other. The game as it is played now is usually dated to the 1990s, and the shared train it is named for is what makes it different from the older private-train domino games it grew out of.

On screen

Online the Mexican Train gets its own column, alongside the players’ trains, so there is never any doubt about which is which. When it has not been started yet, that is shown too — so you can see at a glance whether it is still available.

For everything else, read how to play Mexican Train.

Keep reading

• How to play Mexican Train — the whole game
• How to win at Mexican Train
• Setting up a round
• Playing with two, where it matters most