Proliferation of rail transport on Safehold

In our own world some freight moves by sea, some by canal, some by plane, some by railroad, and some by truck. How cargo is transported depends on a number of factors. With overseas cargo: delivery by ship is slow but relatively cheap and cargo capacity is enormous, whereas planes can't fit nearly as much on board and are less cost efficient but get to the destination quickly.

Overland transport is dictated by geography and how fast things need to move. In places where there are large natural waterways or where it makes economic sense to dig a canal, you can move large cargoes that don't need to get where they're going quickly. Railroads, trucks, and planes can deliver smaller cargoes in a shorter time, and to spots far from any convenient bodies of water. A realm like Chisholm with resources and good locations for factories but not a lot of potential canals, would benefit enormously from rail lines. You'd expect to see the biggest expansions there, and in certain parts of Old Charis, first.

Where long established road and canal networks exist, as in most of the mainland realms, and there's little need to reach locations they don't serve, upgrading those would be the logical approach. Rails do require a lot of steel and if you're going to replace the roads with narrow pathways - call them sidewalks if you like - and several sets of parallel tracks, traffic along what's left of the road will be severely impeded until you're done (which could take a while).

People tend not to adopt a change until it's absolutely necessary. There's that natural human tendency to muddle along with the old familiar system as long as you can - and in some cases it even makes economic sense to keep the old system permanently. As other posters have pointed out, we still have canals that are not only operating but likely to remain so indefinitely.

Hi tjthw8s,

Welcome to the forums, please enjoy your favorite virtual beverage on the virtual forums.

The major block to new canals and high roads especially in the island nation was the expense, but thanks to the Mohryah lode that's now irrelevant; Charis can now build whatever it wants wherever it wants.

Safehold canals are very low energy transport systems, RR are not, but both have important roles to play; one of the old maps indicated rivers across Chisholm that if dredged and connected by short canals, could have speeded up the army's movement west considerably.

Current canals are incredibly efficient, extremely low energy transport systems; just 1740 pounds of grain [for 3 draft dragons] for pulling a 2 or 3000 ton barge 40-50 miles per day in ~13 hours is terrific!

However, I doubt steam tugs or barges could move more that 8 mph before erosion could become a problem, though being able to move a 2-3000 ton barge 212 miles per day, 26.51666 hours/5-day, means cargoes travelling 4-5 times farther each day once night illumination was available; which would spark an economic boom in its own right, regardless of the economy's previous condition, so Siddarmark ought to enjoy some advantage there, NTM the temple lands thanks to brother Lynkn etc.

A railroad connecting Delthak through the break in the mountain range to the southwest corner of Margaret Bay, then on to the west coast nearest Tarot, where another railroad headed to Tranjyr and to the north, west and and northwest coasts [all double tracked], would be both a commercial success and a considerable strategic advantage.

A line connecting Delthak to Tellesberg would permit the Duke to get there in a couple of days [test route already up to 60 mph], besides further integrating Margaret's Land into Charis.

A rail line on Howell Bay's east coast would connect to Hiawatha before following 'The Throat' along the coast to East Cape.

Even with steam tugs, the port of Tellesberg isn't going to be able to handle the huge cargo increase steam power will generate, so the RR will have to help spread the load.

A direct line to Silverlode and the Mohryah lode is also quite likely, as well as lines south, southeast, and southwest to truly tie the nation together.

For Chisholm a double tracked rail line from Port Royal to Maikelberg seems likely the first to be completed, while the Cheshire-Cherayth RR line would take longer but permit the imperial family access to the interior, besides reducing transit times between the capitols to a couple of 5days.

For Emerald, east-west and north-south lines are obvious, and the same for Corisande, Tarot, and Zebediah.

Cayleb and Sharleyan expect investors to pay for much of the cost, enabling the crown to point the way in more directions more economically.

Dohlar is small enough that few major routes are needed, so it will set quite an example to the other Haven and Howard nations.

The Armahk plan should include dredging and/or blasting the canals North Harchong has never had, indeed possibly following the original plans that was gunpowder's approved purpose, possibly as a sweetener for the emperor.

I believe the Armahk plan will include helping Siddarmark, probably through the resurrected Qwentyn bank network, which should have had all of its overseas assets etc restored as part of the peace agreement ending the jihad, but relatively short RR connecting the canals might be the best starting point.

So we are looking into a darkened room that only RFC knows of all of the unseen treasures within, like the hidden delights under the Christmas tree, but we're getting more eager and excited every day until TFT does come.

Keep smiling,

L


[quote="tjthw8s"]Developing rail transport would be fairly high on the agenda for many places post-fall-of-the-Group-Of-Four.

Chisolm most definitely; Sharlayan already proposing it to bypass unnavigable sections of rivers in a realm with few canals.

Again, any realm lacking in canal transport would probably find many advantages in developing a rail network.

Even Charis. And even with the advantages of Howell Bay.

For one possible example: suppose you build a seaport on the northeast coast of Margaret's Land on the coast of Tranjyr Passage. With a rail link south and east to Howsmyn's Delthak complex. Such a seaport would have a definite advantage for any commerce heading anywhere west of Charis, saving time since your ships no longer have to sail so far east before turning south thru Emerald Reach and the Charis Sea and then having to sail back WEST though The Throat into Howell Bay.

And, the Safehold Map from the downloads section appears to show a foothills region all along the western coast of the isthmus connecting Margaret's Land to Charis proper. A Rail line may be feasible all the way south to Telesberg itself.

Even steam powered freight trains would probably be able to maintain a speed of over 40 or 50 kilometres per hour. One could make the trip from Telesberg to Seaport in less than a five-day! And cut at least 3 or 4 five-days off the transit time a ship would take having to go the long way 'round.

And I would imagine that Corisande, Emerald and Zebadiah could certainly all have major benefits even to their own internal economies by developing rail networks.

Plus, even the mainland realms would probably jump on board as soon as they could get their own hands on steam power. Though I suspect Desnair may prioritize on steam power to increase their gold mines output first.

Thoughts?[/quote]

One thing that will limit the spread of railroads is the proscription of electricity. Without the telegraph, running single-track railroads safely will be highly inefficient, if not impossible. Yes, there's the semaphore network, but that's daylight limited. (Perhaps those signal lights we've seen used on airships will become a standard night-time adjunct to the semaphore network.) Railroads will be primarily double-tracked and thus limited to major routes because of the capital costs.

Also, so far the major focus in the books on the development of railroads has been on the engines, but there's plenty of other technology such as the safety coupler and the airbrake that could be mentioned.

Where'd you get the idea that the semaphore is daylight only?

It's not, although I believe that it's somewhat limited in the complexity of the code it can use at night since IIRC it's currently light/dark for each panel. I'm pretty sure the Charisians will be adding coloured-glass filters and carbide lamps to the repertoire if they haven't already.

Salisria wrote:One thing that will limit the spread of railroads is the proscription of electricity. Without the telegraph, running single-track railroads safely will be highly inefficient, if not impossible. Yes, there's the semaphore network, but that's daylight limited. (Perhaps those signal lights we've seen used on airships will become a standard night-time adjunct to the semaphore network.) Railroads will be primarily double-tracked and thus limited to major routes because of the capital costs.

Also, so far the major focus in the books on the development of railroads has been on the engines, but there's plenty of other technology such as the safety coupler and the airbrake that could be mentioned.

Louis R wrote:Where'd you get the idea that the semaphore is daylight only?

IIRC, it was stated several times in the books that the semaphore system, as operated by the Church pre-Merlin, was daylight limited. It certainly was/is weather limited. Given the communication needs of the Church, that sufficed for what they needed then.

As I stated, going to carbide lamps is an obvious improvement for adding a nighttime capacity to the existing system. That assumes it'll be economical enough for civilian use. Historically, the calcium carbide lamp didn't come into use until a fairly cheap method of producing in an electric arc furnace was devised. For all we know, calcium carbide could be as precious and expensive as aluminium was before the Hall–Héroult process was developed. (Fun fact: the Washington Monument was topped by an aluminium lightning rod because of aluminium's rarity then.) Still, for semaphore use, a heavier and less compact light source should suffice now that they have the necessary lenses to focus the light.

Sigh...

1. Whatever you might have thought you read, the system is _not_ daylight limited. In fact, AFAIK there's no real description of the system or it's capabilities in the books at all.

2. They have _always_ had the necessary lenses, or at least the capacity to make them. Right from the 'creation'.

How do I know? Himself told us so, years ago. My apologies for taking so long tracking it down, but the specifics are here: https://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/e ... old/229/1/

Salisria wrote:

Louis R wrote:Where'd you get the idea that the semaphore is daylight only?

IIRC, it was stated several times in the books that the semaphore system, as operated by the Church pre-Merlin, was daylight limited. It certainly was/is weather limited. Given the communication needs of the Church, that sufficed for what they needed then.

As I stated, going to carbide lamps is an obvious improvement for adding a nighttime capacity to the existing system. That assumes it'll be economical enough for civilian use. Historically, the calcium carbide lamp didn't come into use until a fairly cheap method of producing in an electric arc furnace was devised. For all we know, calcium carbide could be as precious and expensive as aluminium was before the Hall–Héroult process was developed. (Fun fact: the Washington Monument was topped by an aluminium lightning rod because of aluminium's rarity then.) Still, for semaphore use, a heavier and less compact light source should suffice now that they have the necessary lenses to focus the light.

To quote from that infodump:

And there are extremely limited night-signaling capabilities, as well.

That implies to me that communicating pre-arranged emergency messages can be handled at night, but not that the multiple channels available during the day are limited to a singular available night-time channel operating at the same bandwidth as one of the multiple daytime channels.

That infodump also doesn't change that in the books themselves, senior commanders on the Temple side at several points were apparently unaware of any night-time capabilities, though perhaps those capabilities were merely insufficient to convey the messages they needed to send, or they had access only to a minor semaphore chain as described in the infodump that lacked them. I think it's safe to say that any route that would have had enough message traffic to warrant a major semaphore chain would likely generate sufficient rail traffic to warrant double tracking the route. So, it still looks like single track railroads will be effectively daylight limited except in rare circumstances.

Salisria wrote:One thing that will limit the spread of railroads is the proscription of electricity. Without the telegraph, running single-track railroads safely will be highly inefficient, if not impossible. Yes, there's the semaphore network, but that's daylight limited. (Perhaps those signal lights we've seen used on airships will become a standard night-time adjunct to the semaphore network.) Railroads will be primarily double-tracked and thus limited to major routes because of the capital costs.

Also, so far the major focus in the books on the development of railroads has been on the engines, but there's plenty of other technology such as the safety coupler and the airbrake that could be mentioned.

There are ways around this, which I have seen discussed I think here someplace or other.

The Panama Canal has a rail line running roughly parallel to it which is primarily a FREIGHT LINE with secondary use as commuter/consumer railroad.
The original lock system of the Panama canal is pairs of locks which are used for Bidirectional traffic. The complementary rail system evolved from the original rail system needed to move people and goods/equipment for the construction. And then you got to the point of ship size vs. ability to transit the canal and the amount of traffic the canal could handle. Too big and you either went around South American or had to do something like is now the Land Bridge routes across the US and Canada where primarily containers are moved to a port on the West Coast and moved by rail to the East Coast.
There are intermodal yards at both ends of the Canal which receive primarily containers from ships. Partially that was for ships dropping their loads of containers to be transported across the isthmus and receiving traffic the other way. Ships either too large for the original locks or were not going to transit the canal and head elsewhere in the Atlantic. There is also "coaster" traffic doing local transport along the West or Gulf coasts.
The opening of the new pairs of locks to handle the Super-Max container ships doesn't really impact the amount of traffic for the smaller ships -they don't just add multiple small merchant/container ships into the same lock as a Super-Max.
Not sure if they have changed some of the size/type of the well-cars for the Panama Canal Railroad but lets just say that there was always a pilfering problem. If you have seen intermodal well cars (taking two containers stacked with the part of the lower one sitting down in the superstructure of the car) they are mostly with little above the low sidewall of the car. But the EARLY model intermodal cars have steel frames reaching up from the ends of the container well which both prevented the upper container from moving/falling off (that really really really doesn't happen often) but it does prevent the doors of the UPPER car from being opened and you have to use the heavy-lift cranes (LoJack is one style) to put containers into or take out of the cars. Physical keeping of the doors from being opened, not just padlocks which you can cut off.