Speculation for Nahrmahn' Little Brainstorm?

My recollection of the discussions of using balloons is that one of the key points was the fact that they were anchored and therefore not "flying".

saber964 wrote:The last generation of the USN's range finders and keepers were mechanical analog computers and used no electricity. These computers were very accurate IIRC they could fire a round into a target 100 ft across at a range of 15 miles and place a 9 round broadside within a football field at the same range. When the USN recommissioned the USS New Jersey the USN had to replace all of its targets after one gunex at San Clementie Is. Gunnery range according to one story I heard the New Jersey direct hit on a M48 tank and the largest chunk they could ID was breach of the main gun.

They were actually electromechanical, so they did rely on electricity.

n7axw wrote:

Hildum wrote:
[snip]

I can see the steam engine based economy for manufacturing, but I am having a hard time seeing how it is going to help the transportation industry - the signaling and control functions of all railroads quickly made use of electricity to detect the presence of trains in blocks.

Even with full double tracking, you need signal blocks to be sure that it is safe to proceed. Without that, you cannot run very many trains, nor very frequently. And what are you going to do to report switch settings?

Dunno the answers to these questions... but I do know that there was an extensive railroad industry prior to the widespread use of electricity. So they must have figured it out somehow.

Don

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They did, but . . . .

The problem was that every effort to improve safety reduced flow density and so lowered efficiency, and so each effort was countered &/or ignored (to some extent at least) to get efficiency back up again. There were some pretty horrendous accidents, notably Quintinshill. The vast majority were ascribed to human error, but you have to read each individual case to make a judgement on whether the "error" was an outright blunder, or the results of somebody bending the rules.
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n7axw wrote:
I know there isn't any textev to disallow flight. I am not aware that we have any comment or canon on it apart from speculation on the forum.

I will speculate that it would be allowed provided it can be accomplished within the means of existing technlology that doesn't violate the proscriptions.

Don

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Tethered hot air balloons should be easily doable within existing technology. The fancy silk substitute cloth and some means of heating and off you go. 'Flammable air' production from coal and moderate pressure cylinders to contain it are well within existing tech and hard to see how they would conflict with the Proscriptions. I think there is a fairly simple way of producing hydrogen on site with acid and iron filings which is a bigger jump, but again unlikely to conflict with the Proscriptions, unless there is something which specifically bans it.

Part of the reason people have assumed a proscription on flight is that hot air balloons are so easy it is surprising we haven't seen them yet, unless they are proscribed.

Peter2 wrote:
They did, but . . . .

The problem was that every effort to improve safety reduced flow density and so lowered efficiency, and so each effort was countered &/or ignored (to some extent at least) to get efficiency back up again. There were some pretty horrendous accidents, notably Quintinshill. The vast majority were ascribed to human error, but you have to read each individual case to make a judgement on whether the "error" was an outright blunder, or the results of somebody bending the rules.
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Safehold currently has a very efficient semaphore system. I would see no reason to believe that it couldn't be adapted to manage rail traffic.

Don

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n7axw wrote:

Peter2 wrote:
They did, but . . . .

The problem was that every effort to improve safety reduced flow density and so lowered efficiency, and so each effort was countered &/or ignored (to some extent at least) to get efficiency back up again. There were some pretty horrendous accidents, notably Quintinshill. The vast majority were ascribed to human error, but you have to read each individual case to make a judgement on whether the "error" was an outright blunder, or the results of somebody bending the rules.
.

Safehold currently has a very efficient semaphore system. I would see no reason to believe that it couldn't be adapted to manage rail traffic.

Don

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That would mean that the rail lines would have to follow the semaphore lines or they would have to expand the semaphore lines to go where the rail lines were wanted, with a concurrent increase in trained personnel to operate the semaphore lines.

Also, please remember that the semaphore lines are not the waggley armed semaphores of Europe (and possibly the Americas), they are big boxes with windows that indicators get put in. Personally, I imagine them to be like manually operated baseball score boards.

Keith_w wrote:That would mean that the rail lines would have to follow the semaphore lines or they would have to expand the semaphore lines to go where the rail lines were wanted, with a concurrent increase in trained personnel to operate the semaphore lines.

Rail lines are initially going to follow the canals anyway because the routes are already surveyed and graded. Using the existing semaphore network and/or building new semaphore lines concurrently with new rail lines is going to be a very minor impediment to using the semaphores to manage rail traffic.

Semaphores would be nice, but they aren't really necessary to run a safe railroad: "block keys aka Railway Tokens" and double track construction don't rely on communication to maintain safe operations.

Weird Harold wrote:

Keith_w wrote:That would mean that the rail lines would have to follow the semaphore lines or they would have to expand the semaphore lines to go where the rail lines were wanted, with a concurrent increase in trained personnel to operate the semaphore lines.

Rail lines are initially going to follow the canals anyway because the routes are already surveyed and graded. Using the existing semaphore network and/or building new semaphore lines concurrently with new rail lines is going to be a very minor impediment to using the semaphores to manage rail traffic.

Semaphores would be nice, but they aren't really necessary to run a safe railroad: "block keys aka Railway Tokens" and double track construction don't rely on communication to maintain safe operations.

Why would you need to have rail lines following the canals - you already have a means of reasonably rapid transportation, especially if you start towing the barges with steamboats. I would think that you would want your railroads to go where canals don't, at least initially. Also, places like Charis and Ravensland are not canal heavy in the first place, what are you going to do there?

Keith_w wrote:Why would you need to have rail lines following the canals

For the same reason that many early railroads followed canals -- canals are mostly flat and are routed along a mostly level grade.

It won't take long for railroads to find their own routes, but it will take competing directly with canals to prove their viability/utility to the general public.

Rails typically follow traffic. Canals have to follow topography. Not necessarily the same. Oops, when you don't have multi-gigawatt lasers available, that is.

Look at some of the rail lines in Colorado that were built for the ore traffic first, passengers second.

The southern transcontinental route through New Mexico, too.

Howsmyn and his ore/coal needs are just the same. When necessity demands it, the rails will go in just as soon as the proof of concept shows that it will be economically viable/profitable.

Plus, what handles the ships through the Panama canal? Electric locomotives!