How do railways get damaged?

[Lovenought]

Is it ONLY during combat? I've tried bombing railways intensely with air attacks, but it only seems to use up capacity, not actually damage the tracks. Unless I just can't see it.

Also, is it possible to pre-emptively destroy your own railways with ground units? I think it would be really useful in specific situations.

[Devonport]

I think the reduction in capacity is how the rail damage is shown.

I only play as allies, but whenever I capture hexes with railways they are already damaged, so I assume that it occurs automatically with the change of hex ownership.

[RedLancer]

You impact railways using air power in two ways:

- Damaging Railyards reduces available Railyard Points which are equivalent to rolling stock. AFAIK you need available Railyard Pts within 20 MPs of your journey.

- Attacking a rail in a hex adds additional congestion (i.e. movement cost in SMPs) to the network which then also raises the cost in railyard points to move through the hex.