How to Clear Level 25 - Panama Canal

This level seems to be a roadblock for some people, so here's a guide to help you through this tricky map that has new mechanics and a sudden difficulty spike.

A Man, A Plan, A Canal, Panama

If you have come to this guide, than you have likely already discovered that the canal floods as you are playing, destroying any track or trains in the way! Overcoming this unique challenge can be frustrating and counterintuitive without a plan worthy of Teddy Roosevelt.

Our plan is to work from the top of the map downward, utilizing the crossings that will eventually flood for as long as possible. Throughout this guide I will refer to the leftmost town as "Town 1," and the rightmost town as "Town 2."

Understanding Flooding

The sections that flood serve as the most effective way to cross the canal since you cannot build bridges, so it's important to utilize them as much as you can before they are destroyed. This image shows the three canal sections that will be flooded:

Here's a table which gives exact timings for when the flooding begins and ends for each section.

Section #	Flooding Begins	Flood Complete
1	4:00	4:15
2	8:25	8:40
3	12:55	13:10

You can move trains across rail that is flooding, but once the flooding is complete the rail is unusable, and any trains which are completely on flooded track will be destroyed.

Coal Rush

You have 4 minutes to use the free Coal Factory at the top left of the map, so we want to start sending workers there right away. Unfortunately, building a straight-line track from Town 1 to it doesn't work, due to the hills and narrow terrain. You might think to connect Town 2 instead, but that uses your entire budget and results in a very long trip.

We are going to use a trick which allows us to get from Town 1 to the Coal Factory quickly, without a direct line.

Build a line from Town 1 to the Copper Ingot Factory, then connect to the Coal Factory to this line as shown:
Then, you should have just enough budget to connect Town 2 to the Copper Ore Factory, allowing you to send trains from both towns at once at the start. Here is how the rails will look before you send out your first trains:
Here's where the trick comes in. After Town 1's train has passed the railroad crossing, click on it to stop it, then reverse it, and finally flip the rail switch so it goes to the Coal Factory:
Be sure to let the train go all the way past the crossing before reversing it. There is a bit of a learning curve to this, be patient and willing to restart as you may mess it up the first few times! Also be careful about when you send another train from Town 1 behind it; since you need to manually reverse the trains this can easily result in an unwitting crash.

Using this trick allows us to get to the coal quickly, while still allowing us to use workers from Town 2 to work the copper ore which will soon be needed for the Ingot Factory.

Copper Ingots

As soon as you have the budget for it, build a line that takes the produced raw copper to the Ingot Factory. You already have a completed line from the coal to the Ingot Factory, so use that when you have batches of 4 coal ready to go.

We need a total of 22 ingots; 12 for Town 1, along with 10 for the Wire Factory.

Spend the rest of the first 4 minutes pumping copper, coal, and workers into the factory, and sending ingots out to Town 1. If you time everything decently, you can have 16 batches of coal sent out. Remember that the factory can't store more than 10 coal, so get it producing ASAP so that you can put in additional coal.

Use the money you make during this time to connect Town 2 to the Wire Factory, and start saving $30,000 for the Coal Factory on the lower left.

Post-Flood 1

After the connection to the first Coal Factory is cut off, we need to focus on using the connection in section 2 which floods at 8:25. This is the heartline for our Copper Ingot Factory, so ideally we want to transport all 22 ingots to their proper destination before 8:25.

Purchase the Coal Factory, and establish a connection to it from Town 1. Since the terrain makes getting workers to the power from Town 1 awkward, I recommend planning ahead and setting it up like this:
Making the loop is a little weird since you need to stop one tile before the intersection while building, but it does work. I promise this loop will come in handy when it comes to linking everything to the power later, just draw a quick line from the coal to the loop and you are good to go.

It is important that you get the last bit of coal you need from this factory to the Copper Ingot Factory and send out the last ingots to the Wire Factory all before 8:25! If you don't you will need to build a very expensive tunnel to reconnect to the Ingot Factory.

While moving materials, spend your money on connections to the Oil and Polymer Factories. Look for opportunities to send workers to these factories; they won't have materials yet, but it's good to have the workers ready and use the crossings while you still can.

Post-Flood 2 & Finishing it Up

As long as you have finished using the Copper Ingot Factory by the second flooding, I feel the hard part of the level has been overcome and I trust you can use your Train Valley skills that got you this far to finish it out! Still, here are some tips to clear it quickly and nab that 5 stars:

1. Move all oil to the Polymer Factory before 12:55.

2. Once you have a few polymers produced, send them to the Copper Wire Factory which should already have workers and ingot. This allows both factories to use the power, meaning you need to use less overall workers and coal for power.

3. When section 3 floods, build a tunnel in the lower left corner to connect the power to the right side of the canal using the pre-built bridge.

4. The two pre-built tracks that go off-screen serve as a loop - when you go off the corner of one side you will appear on the other side after a while. This is useful at the end when you only have the bridge and still need to transport finished products to the towns.

5. Meeting the goal of earning at least $650,000 is really a matter of speed. If you play well enough you can have all the town's needs met by around 15:30. Just sit on the last load that is necessary and send workers and produced goods around until you hit the earning threshold.

Closing

I hope this guide has helped you clear this surprisingly challenging level. I tried to write it in such a way that helps with the tricky, counterintuitive parts, without getting in the way of the creative problem solving that makes Train Valley 2 so much fun.

[Hank Murphy]

Thanks!
You can sell tracks in the canal right before they flood.
The timing of the first train reversal is the most important one. Pause and unpause as it crosses the junction until you can just see the whole arrowhead behind the train.
You can get all 22 coal from the north mine. After sending 12 workers to each mine, you should have $21000. Upgrade one train, send 5 workers to the coal mine, then immediately send 5 coal to the copper ingot factory. Use it twice more to send 5 workers and bring 5 coal out. Leave the last coal train stopped in the middle of the canal until there's room in the ingot factory.
You still have to build the south coal mine for power, but you can take your time. Instead I built a tunnel into the wire factory to get 10 workers and ingots there fast.
Making 5 extra polymers and sending them to the wire factory, and keeping the coal power cycle going in the southwest was enough to get to $650K.

[Charlie Mile]

Hi, really useful. Just wanted to confirm, is there anything in the gameplay that tells you how little time you have left before it floods, or is it just something you have to be aware of?

[moyang]

There's a bridge on the right-down side edge of the map. Destroy it for $30000 and some railroads for more money. Then You can just make tunnel to the coal mine from the start. Place rails on second flood zone, so you don't have to remake roads after the first flood. Overproduce Copper ingot before the second flood to hit that $650000 income.

[Mizohican]

Thanks!