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In the American edition of Monopoly, there is a Chance card that says:

Advance token to nearest railroad

Pay owner twice the rental to which he/she is entitled. If railroad is unowned, you may buy it from the bank.

this is the Chance card

However, is this the closest railroad, or the next one? If you are standing on the Chance spot in the light blues, do you go all around the board to Reading, which is the closest to you, or do you go to Pennsylvania, which is the first one you land on?

Community
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Mithical
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4 Answers4

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Look closely at the card and it tells you exactly what to do.

Advance token to nearest railroad

Pay owner twice the rental to which he/she is entitled. If railroad is unowned, you may buy it from the bank.

Advance means you are moving forward on the board, so this will always move you to the railroad that you run into. In your example, it means that you would stop at Pennsylvania.

From what it sounds like, you are reading way too much into a simple card. In the game of Monopoly, there is no way to go backwards, so you never look behind you when you are trying to calculate distance.

To break it down from the Chance spot that is in the light blues, the ranking of railroads in terms of distance is

  1. Pennsylvania (8 spaces away with normal movement)
  2. B. & O. (18 spaces away with normal movement)
  3. Short Line (28 spaces away with normal movement)
  4. Reading (38 spaces away with normal movement)

The only time you can pass go with that card is on the Chance spot right after the Short Line spot on the board.

You always need to remember that when playing a board game (unless specifically stated) you calculate distance based on the direction you move.

As for the comment about the Go to Jail card, it does not instruct you to advance to jail. That card is specifying changes to the movement rules on the card because it wants you to treat it differently than other cards that direct you to move to a location.

Go to jail

Go directly to jail
Do not pass go
Do not collect $200

There are other cards which break the movement rules, and those cards fully describe the changes to the rules.

Go back 3 spaces

This card clearly describes a movement that is outside of the normal rules, and does not use the word advance so it can't be confused with normal movement.

Official Tournament Rules where passing go a second time by this card is not mentioned even though it does mention passing go a second time from this space

GO Each time a player’s token lands on or passes over GO, whether by throw of the dice or by drawing a card, the Banker pays the player a $200 salary. The $200 is paid only once each time around the board. However, if a player passing GO on the throw of a dice lands 2 spaces beyond it on Community Chest, or 7 spaces beyond it on Chance, and draws the “Advance to GO” card, he/she collects $200 for passing GO the first time and another $200 for reaching it the second time by instructions on the card.

tripleee
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Joe W
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    Yes, I know - so we like to go all the way around the board and collect another $200 ;). That's advancing to the nearest. We wouldn't go backwards. – Mithical Jun 11 '17 at 16:03
  • @Mithrandir I updated the answer to try and clarify that passing go is not possible in this case. – Joe W Jun 11 '17 at 16:12
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    This sounds like opinion rather than a 100% certain interpretation of the game rule. If they meant to advance to the next railroad why wouldn’t they say that? Yes, you need to advance but they specify the nearest instead of the next railroad. There’s nothing in the rules that states the nearest is only in the direction of travel. It could very well be that you pick the nearest, forward or backward, and then advance to it. –  Jun 11 '17 at 18:47
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    @ColGraff If you where to advance to the nearest of something would you pass by multiple matching locations? Or would you stop at the first one you got to? For example if you where traveling down a one way street and where asked to stop at the nearest gas station would you pick one that was behind you even if you passed several more on your way to get to it? The real point here is that in a situation where you can only move in one direction the next and nearest are the same thing. – Joe W Jun 11 '17 at 18:51
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    in the game of monopoly there is no way to go backwards What about "Go directly to Jail. Do not pass Go."? I always took that to mean you had to move backwards. – MrLore Jun 11 '17 at 18:53
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    @JoeW It’s not a matter of passing multiple locations, this is not a real-world example. For some reason a railroad is picked and you advance to it. In this case the only question is if “nearest” is synonymous with “next”. Obviously, in a dictionary definition they have different connotations. I would go with a literal meaning over an interpreted one if there was no further guidance on the matter from the rules or the manufacturer. “Nearest” literally means which one is closer in any direction. –  Jun 11 '17 at 18:55
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    @ColGraff another way to look at it is in the game there is only one legal direction to move and all distances are measured from that direction. To get to Pennsylvania it would take a roll of 8. To get to Reading from that same spot it would take a roll of 38 (yes i mean a series of rolls). – Joe W Jun 11 '17 at 19:01
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    @JoeW And what about the “Go Back 3 Spaces” card? Surely that shows there is support in the rules for cards that reference the back direction. –  Jun 11 '17 at 19:08
  • @ColGraff that is an exception to the rule card and doesn't change the fact that under normal movement rules that one railroad is 8 spaces away and the other is 38 spaces away. – Joe W Jun 11 '17 at 19:15
  • They don’t mention any of the “advance” cards in that tournament rule section, such as "Advance to Illinois Ave.”, with the exception of “Advance to GO”. It is mentioned simply because it is an exception to the “pay once” ruling set there. That ruling likely has no impact on this discussion. –  Jun 11 '17 at 20:03
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    @ColGraff It's not a case of "nearest" on its own being a synonym of "next", but of interpreting the full sentence. There is a conflict between "advance" (implying a forward direction; you do not "advance backwards") and "nearest" (which you rightly say does not imply a direction). The interpretation in this answer is that "advance to nearest" means "travel in the normal direction until you reach the next". Ultimately, the card is badly worded, but this interpretation feels consistent with the rest of the game play, so it seems likely it is what was intended. – IMSoP Jun 12 '17 at 14:51
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    @IMSoP I agree that the conflict between the two words is confusing. Ultimately someone can decide it means one thing or the other. I prefer to do as little reading between the lines as possible and go with literal meanings. Without further guidance from the manufacturer I still believe that “nearest” means real distance, not forward distance. –  Jun 12 '17 at 14:59
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    @ColGraff You have to ignore the literal meaning of "advance" in order to take the literal meaning of "nearest", so it really just comes down to a judgement call. Saying that you "advance backwards", or travel an almost complete circuit of the board to get to the "nearest" something, feels very unintuitive to me. I wonder if any of the many historical, international, and special editions has a version of this card with less ambiguous wording. – IMSoP Jun 12 '17 at 15:09
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    @IMSoP Why do you have to ignore “advance”? Perhaps the creator wanted you to go around the board if the nearest was behind you so you could collect from GO on the way around. Note that even if it doesn’t say to collect there are other cards which advance you and either say or don’t say to collect - "Advance to Illinois Ave.” vs "Advance to St. Charles Place”. –  Jun 12 '17 at 15:20
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    @ColGraff If I say "go east to the nearest shop", and there's a shop just west of you, would you assume I meant to travel eastwards around the world until you came back to nearly but not quite where you started. ignoring all the other shops you passed on your travels? It's certainly a valid interpretation, but language is very rarely amenable to such purely logical analysis, and it feels perfectly natural to me (and others here) for "advance to nearest..." to mean "go forwards until you encounter...". – IMSoP Jun 12 '17 at 15:37
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    @IMSoP An example of going around the world vs around a game board is a bit of a stretch. If that’s how your group interprets the card then it’s perfectly valid for you to play that way. However, it is adding in additional logic that is not mentioned in the game at all. You can justify all sorts of things in a game just by assuming there's hidden meaning in a card. –  Jun 12 '17 at 15:44
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    Mathematician dropping in: If you view the board as a continuous helix (and going backwards isn't allowed), then even if it looks like a railroad is 2 spaces behind you, that's not nearest because if you try to get there going forwards, you can't. You'll be on the same railroad but one turn up the helix. (For those versed in complex analysis, basically a branch cut) – Carl Witthoft Jun 12 '17 at 19:04
  • The go back 3 spaces card is a chance card so it is not possible to cross GO with it. – StrongBad Jun 12 '17 at 19:22
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    The edition of Monopoly (UK, I believe) I had as a kid also had a "Go back to Old Kent Road" card. That's also moving backwards. – Angew is no longer proud of SO Jun 13 '17 at 08:02
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The wording is ambiguous, but in the many years that I've played this game, I have never heard it interpreted as "Find the closest railroad in front of or behind you, and advance until you arrive there".

While I know of no official ruling that spells this out (which is, in itself, somewhat telling, since most people seem to assume that "nearest" only applies to spaces in front of you, and this consensus was apparently clear enough that the makers never felt the need to clarify), there have been a number of official Monopoly video games released over the years. I certainly haven't played them all, but I've played 3 or 4 different versions, and never once has any of them advanced me around the board, past "Go", to reach a railroad station behind me when drawing this card.

As these were officially licensed versions of the game, I believe that is a fairly clear indication that the rules for this card are intended to only apply to railroads in front of you.

Beofett
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According to Hasbro, publishers of Monopoly, you move forward to the next railroad.

Here is the answer I received from Hasbro's Global Customer Care Representative :

Answer from Hasbro Customer Care

Robert Miller
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According to the creator in monopoly, when the card says advance to the nearest station, you go to the nearest station, no matter if it is behind you, this and the card that states “go back 3 spaces” are the only times you go backwards.

Many people make this mistake because of advance

Jack hosted
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