It's triggered by # of track pieces, so this explains quite easily why you didn't see it. That's changeable for sure. I can check for any connection in that area. Should be better.
There is no carry-over at month end. However, your stockpile (this is Game Variable 4) will be credited with the un-laid track. This checks to the nearest 10 units. So you are right you do lose a little, you would lose 4 if you end the month with 74. At month end GV4 will be increased by +70. The events at the start of month use SET to allocate track for that month. As always, probably the rounding errors can be improved.What is worth mentioning is that the ruddy thing steals your stash of track. 10 units in December is all very well, but if you have 20 units left at the end of November guess what happens? Or if you have 74 units left at the end of September. This is not a good look, IMO, when you are expecting people to bulk order, at a premium price, in advance. Instead of "reset their stash of track to some piddling amount which will really get up their noses" I think it would be better to "add this month's allowance to whatever they already have" unless they already have heaps. 75 units isn't heaps anyway. It barely gets you out the door of the pub and halfway to the nearest phone box.
If Game Variable 4 is a bit confusing in the events that's because JSS did a dual use. GV4>20 also indicates that you aren't just looking around. He was ambitious with this one. This is where any mention of an "reserve for emergencies" comes in: you can't "use" the last 20 pieces. If there isn't more than 95 at the start of a summer build month, you wont get the 75 untis for that month, but instead will get a message to buy emergency supplies. If you really run out of track in the stockpile (GV4) you will get the offer to buy emergency supplies.
From your comments I think at the very least there needs to be a more detailed explanation of the track laying. I could add to the ledger the expected monthly allocation as well. The caveat here is that events like weather (and quite a few more like theft/visit etc. that are likely to only trigger on the normal path) may reduce or increase this amount in a given month. Some months you can end up with 125 and another maybe only 30 for example.
You used to be able to take the logging company over. I gave George F. Train majority ownership now. He isn't good at trading stocks: it's very hard to shake him out. But if I turn on issuing stocks again, if the company has a more average first year it might issue stock and then you can get that majority.The bank is a good one to merge early, and the sawmill/logging camp/weird yellow icon with bloodshot eyes company pays out massive dividends early in the game. Can't get a majority of stock early on, but the dividends are a good thing anyway.
Ok. What should have happened here is that his cash was set to negative 40% of his current stock value. His margin would be close enough that you could probably arrange some shorts to get him to a tipping point where he is margin-called. I found that if I was too aggressive with the setting and made him bankrupt immediately the other AI chairmen will be buying up all the cheap shares and you can't get any advantage in ownership this way. For the record I tried at month end. I could experiment with setting this to the end of the first week in the month, I'm not sure if he will margin call until the end of the month though. But at least the other AI chairmen will only try to buy then, and you would have a chance against them.By the way, with the elections thing I got a good guess one year and took the "wait and see what they offer" option. Got a newspaper telling me Sir Something Hincks (I think) would be going to court and would have some of his stock shaken loose. The court case went ahead, and he got a prison sentence, but his stock holdings remained exactly the same. This didn't bother me since I wasn't interested in any of his stock at the time, but I thought it was odd.
There is the option to disable said player - remove him from the game at that point: all his shares get returned to public investors. Even though I put a lot of effort into the current setup, this would be simpler and perhaps more balanced compared to the other bonus offers. Would that have made more sense to you?