Great Southern Railway

The Great Southern Railway or Great Southern Tri-Monorail, known colloquially as Grace or Old Iron Grandma connects the townships of New Milton on the East Coast to Fustergate on the western seaboard over 1,394 miles of unique tri-monorail track. It was the last railway system constructed during the age of steam and the only one using both suspended and straddle-type monorails. It is notable for its unique technological approach to what seemed at the time an intractable religious problem.

Religious resistance to railway plans

Since ancient times, trade routes between East and West have, by topological necessity, passed through the Truthful Lands and its system of ravines and gorges under the auspices of the owners of the Truthful Lands, the People of Wisdom, who grew prosperous thanks to their taxation of the trade. The People of Wisdom follow the religion of the Holy Tome of Wisdom; one part of that work, the Book of Keith, laid the foundation for their strict refusal to permit railway construction.

According to their belief, Keith The Wise was a holy figure who saved the People of Wisdom from certain death at the hands of their enemies the Ravishers by creating an impassable wall of steam, which held back the attackers and gave the People enough time to escape. The central passage is Keith 3:19:

And then Keith spake, "all steam of the land have I gathered, and with the holy spirit of war is it now embued; so hear me, my people, the steam is become death, and ye must not travel its path; for now it is our holy guardian, the form of a wall for us it be; and where it kisses the earth, there awaits death."

The advent of the steam locomotive therefore posed a problem, as this religious law forbids the People of Wisdom both from traveling the path of steam as well as letting it touch the earth. Attempts by the government to force railway construction by Royal Warrant led in 1859 to the notorious Purple Spring Uprising.

The matter of the railway was then put aside for many years, until J. Morgan Bottomshine, an engineer and son of a preacher man, hit upon the idea of two suspended monorail locomotives running side-by-side, pulling straddle-beam monorail carriages via two long chains. The locomotives being suspended would keep the steam from touching the earth, and keeping their track away from the track along which the carriages run meant that the People are not "traveling its path". His father, who held a divinities degree, agreed, and construction began in 1893 with the blessing of religious authorities.

Although steam locomotives are no longer used, religious leaders consider the newer electric locomotives to be subject to the same restrictions. The tri-monorail system therefore remains in place.

Tri-monorail system

Arrangement

The central straddle-beam monorail, called the wanderer, features a smooth running surface 26 inches wide, with a minimum ground clearance of 60 inches. The carriages have rubber wheels which run along the top surface, which smaller rollers run along the sides of the profile which must be maintained down to 18 inches below the running surface. Originally the top surface was made of varnished walnut and the sides of oak or birch; the modern rails are concrete, but dimensionally fully compatible. Original carriages such as the Royal Carriage (built in 1898) can run on modern rails; conversely, all modern carriages can run on the few stretches of wooden rail that remains, albeit with a speed limitation.

On each side of the wanderer the suspended monorails, called the saviours, run at a distance of around 150 yards to either side. Each of these consists of a single run of standard steel rail suspended at a height of 38 feet. The running rail is mounted (using normal railway construction methods) to steel or concrete beams for strength, which in turn are held aloft from below by pylons arching away from the centre-line, allowing the locomotives to hang freely beneath. The locomotives run essentially normal flanged steel wheels along the rail and hang below them rather like a cable car.

Locomotives

The first locomotives were 18 horsepower dual-boiler steam engines, capable of up to 60 mph, and connected to the front carriage via hemp ropes, each 230 yards in length. Each locomotive carried its own tender and water tank and was manned by three people - the driver, the stoker and the braker.

In 1962, a power rail was retrofitted to each of the saviours, supplying the new electric locomotives with 1200V DC traction current. Due to union rules, these still ran with three people; the stoker was now responsible for the electrical switchgear. The latest generation of electric locomotives contain two synchronous motors each developing up to 1200 kWh of power and controlled by IGBT technology. They connect to the front carriage with a rope spun out of carbon nanotube fibers, synthetic spider silk and kevlar; the new rope is just half an inch thick.

Synchronization

The central challenge of the system has always been to run both locomotives at the same speed - or, to be more precise, to keep the tension of the two ropes roughly equal. On the original railway, the midpoint of each rope was painted bright yellow; this allowed the driver to determine the sag and, therefore, the tension of the ropes. The drivers then communicated their intentions to each other via a system of tuned horns. It was far from ideal, however, and carriages being lifted off the wanderer to one side by an errant locomotive became a common sight. Although over 320 derailments have been recorded, there have never been any casualties. The People of Wisdom interpret this as their God's approval of the scheme.

Modern locomotives measure the tension through stress sensors embedded in the ropes and communicate via a dedicated digital radio link. Normal practice is to operate in master-slave mode, where the driver in the left-hand locomotive controls both traction units. Union rules still, however, require three workers per locomotive. It has become customary for the driver of the right-hand locomotive to bake elaborately decorated Steam Cakes during the journey.

Braking

The carriages do not have brakes; plans to develop them have been rejected by religious leaders, who consider acceleration and braking as "two sides of the same coin" and therefore forbid a powered braking system. The locomotives brake the entire train by allowing the front carriage to run ahead of them, then pulling back on the ropes with their own extremely powerful brakes.

Recently, researchers have developed separate braking units, which run on the saviours and are attached via their own ropes to the rear carriage. They are not used in revenue service due to the cost.

Crossings and switching

Because it is forbidden to travel the path of the steam, crossings over roads, paths or other lines are always at a precise right angle. Religious leaders have stated that it is acceptable to pass underneath a running locomotive provided one keeps in as straight a line as possible; nevertheless, the more devout will typically wait until the train has passed before using a crossing.

Talk

I like it! Sounds like the start of a cool new universe. Makes me want to know more about the People of Wisdom and how the rest of the world progressed outside their boarders. Are they like the Amish, or is the rest of the world very different too (despite having fancy electronics and nano-fibers. I'll have to come back to this one and do some writing when I'm feeling less braindead. Great entry Komet! Syntaxbad 22:58, 21 June 2010 (EDT)

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