Relative size of combatants

Jonathan_S wrote:

Mil-tech bard wrote:Why bother with hot air balloons when you can put in a cable car?

Cableway technology was used for excavation in railway right of ways from the 1860s onward.

A tramway cable car system to move men, equipment and draft animals from the top to the bottom of the cliffs would have been an early part of the Traisum cut engineering effort.

Once the Cable car was expanded to large capacity in the middle of the cut engineering effort, the exploration up-chain would have continued. Albeit at a limited, live off the land, pace.

As the cut neared completion, the cliff top to bottom cable car system would have had a great deal of excess capability to devote to the exploration effort up chain.

Once the cut was complete and the railway was building rail line up-chain, the cable car system would have been disassembled by the Trans Temporal Authority (TAA?) for possible use elsewhere.

There are significant story possibilities in terms of this equipment being available to the Sharonan's at Traisum.

Cable car systems work when you can put in support towers at reasonable intervals, so the cable doesn't have to support the weight of the load plus the entire weight of the cable.

So they'd work fine for moving people and equipment up the slopes of the mountains on the Traisum sides of the portal.
But for moving people and goods down the roughly km high vertical cliff on the Karys side is a different matter. Only today, with carbon fiber rope, is anyone attempting to make a mine elevator cable capable of handling a single km-long shaft.


Without that advanced materials you need an indefeasibly thick cable to support the weight of the load plus the substantial weight of the free hanging cable. (Space elevator problem writ small)

Now you can do what most deep mines do, have you switch elevators part way down, to limit the total length of any one elevator's cable. But that takes some substatial engineering on an exposed cliff face - where you're vulnerable to magic from the Arcanan's in Karis. (Plus of course it's a length install job).

Castenea wrote:I agree with Mil-tech A rope way would have been quite likely.

Mil-tech bard wrote:You might want to read the following, then revise and extend those remarks

Astelon wrote:

Castenea wrote:I agree with Mil-tech A rope way would have been quite likely.

Are you saying a rope way existed at the portal before the cut was created? without access to Karys you could not build a rope way, because you would not be able to anchor at to the bottom. Once the cut was in their is no reason to build one, so no rope way, no anchors for it, and no platforms.

Mil-tech bard wrote:You might want to read the following, then revise and extend those remarks

You still need support towers at regular intervals, regardless of how long the actual rope way is. The longer the ropeway, the more towers you need.

Astelon wrote:

Castenea wrote:I agree with Mil-tech A rope way would have been quite likely.

Are you saying a rope way existed at the portal before the cut was created? without access to Karys you could not build a rope way, because you would not be able to anchor at to the bottom. Once the cut was in their is no reason to build one, so no rope way, no anchors for it, and no platforms.

Mil-tech bard wrote:You might want to read the following, then revise and extend those remarks

You still need support towers at regular intervals, regardless of how long the actual rope way is. The longer the ropeway, the more towers you need.

Applications of cargo ropeways

Comparatively, few aerial ropeways were built for passenger transportation at the turn of the 20th century, where their primary function was solidified as a means for cargo transportation. Applications were many and diverse, and they occurred all over the world.

Ropeway receptacles

There is no information to be found on the total amount of ropeways that were once in existence, but some sketchy bits of data give us an idea. A source from 1899 names 900 aerial ropeways of a certain technical type in operation worldwide. A product catalog from 1909, still well before the heydays of cargo ropeways, names a figure of 2,000 ropeways worldwide of a certain brand (the Bleichert system), aggregating over 1300 miles in length and transporting 160 million tons annually. Evidently, this was not an obscure technology.

Ropeway in the alps Warfare

Early modern ropeway technology was led by the Europeans, particularly Germany and the Alpine countries - Austria, Switzerland, France and Italy. Aerial ropeways were extensively used for warfare in the Alps between the early 1900s and 1945. Italy used ropeways in the war against Turkey in 1908. During World War I and World War II, aerial ropeways were widely used in the mountain battles between Italy and Austria. Almost 2,000 ropeways were operated by the Italians and over 400 by the Austrians, with most of them being portable.

They could quickly be disassembled, moved using pack animals, and assembled somewhere else. Military ropeways were used to reinforce difficult terrain with troops, supplies, howitzers, ammunition and fortification building materials. They were also a short term solution for destroyed bridges and other water crossings, or to lower casualties to hospitals in stretcher carriages (as an alternative to specially equipped pack horses).

Length, speed and capacity of the lines

Length and capacity of aerial tramways gradually increased throughout the century. In 1911, aerial ropeway lines were typically 1,000 to 15,000 feet (305 to 4,600 metres) long, with a daily cargo capacity of 15 to 200 tons and speeds of around 2 to 5 mph (3,2 to 8 km/h). Some gravity powered installations were faster, with speeds around 15 to 30 mph (24 to 48 km/h), but higher speeds were considered to be a negative influence on wear and tear. Weight of the individual loads varied from 25 to 375 kilograms.

Motive power, if applied, was generally from about 2 to 15 HP. The fall was between zero (almost horizontal lines) and 4,000 feet (1,220 metres). Working staff amounted to 2 to 5 people. Some lines were built parallel to each other in order to increase cargo capacity (the maximum capacity of a single ropeway was about 800 tonnes per day). Some early ropeways were longer and more powerful. The Usambara ropeway in Africa was 5.6 miles (9 kilometres) long and transported tree trunks weighing up to one tonne each (picture above). At its highest point, the ropeway was 130 metres above the ground.

The Garrucha ropeway, an installation at iron ore mines in Almeria, Spain, was 9.75 miles (15 km) long. The construction of the line took only 6 months. It had a daily transport capacity of 420 tons (working ten hours per day), powered by a 100 HP engine. Similar tramways were built in mines in Basque country, north-western Spain (two pictures below).

The Transylvanian wire ropeway, an installation at blast furnaces in Hungary transporting charcoal and ore, was nearly 19 miles (30,6 km) in length, and had a fall of almost 3,000 feet (915 metres). Capacity was around 800 tons per working day. A ropeway in Argentina (picture above), in operation from 1906 to 1927, was 21.3 miles (35 km) long.

The 1920s saw the construction of even longer ropeways. The longest in Europe was the line erected in 1925 in Granada, Spain. It was used to carry goods from the city to the harbour in Motril over a distance of 39 kilometres. The infrastructure consisted of 240 towers and 7 stations. The 300 vehicles with a loading capacity of 700 kg each travelled at a speed of 3 metres per second.

phillies wrote:Fortunately, we are not aware of a portal that formed, say, 30 miles up. It would happily have sucked much of the air out of the multiverse for a long distance.

Howard T. Map-addict wrote:My opinion is that,
were these difference in Elevations of Portals
only a single mile, or even less,
then the different Elevations would still be
significant in this way: Changing Air Pressure.

There would be Worlds where the air would be too thin
to breath, half a mile above Sea Level,
or even at or below Sea Level.
There would be other Worlds where the thick air at Sea
Level would cause Rapture of the Deep.

Therefore, I would have advised Weber & Evans to make
sure that both sides of each Gate were at the same level.

But instead, they have ignored this effect entirely.
Whatever strong winds pass through a Gate,
have never changed a World's air pressure, at all.

Howard T. Map-addict

Mil-tech bard wrote:The problem with this --

Howard T. Map-addict wrote:My opinion is that,
were these difference in Elevations of Portals
only a single mile, or even less,
then the different Elevations would still be
significant in this way: Changing Air Pressure.

There would be Worlds where the air would be too thin
to breath, half a mile above Sea Level,
or even at or below Sea Level.
There would be other Worlds where the thick air at Sea
Level would cause Rapture of the Deep.

Therefore, I would have advised Weber & Evans to make
sure that both sides of each Gate were at the same level.

But instead, they have ignored this effect entirely.
Whatever strong winds pass through a Gate,
have never changed a World's air pressure, at all.

Howard T. Map-addict

..is that air pressure wants to equalize across _ALL PORTALS_ in a multiverse chain.

IWO, when Traisum opened up down chain to Sharona, there would have been a 100 year hurricane headed towards there too.