Pasha Express (AngieYaz Sonic Underground reboot)

The Pasha Express was an Erinian express mail service that used relays of horse-mounted riders—most often pashas (hence the name). It operated from April 3, 1860, to October 26, 1861, between Missou and Californica. It was operated by the Central Overland Californica and Pikes Peak Express Company.
During its 18 months of operation, the Pasha Express reduced the time for messages to travel between the east and west MS coast to about 10 days. It became the west's most direct means of east–west communication before the first transcontinental telegraph was established on Mobius, and was vital for tying the new M.S. state of Californica with the rest of the Mobian States.
Despite a heavy subsidy, the Pasha Express was not a financial success and went bankrupt in 18 months, when a faster telegraph service was established. Nevertheless, it demonstrated that a unified transcontinental system of communications could be established and operated year-round. When replaced by the telegraph, the Pasha Express quickly became romanticized and became part of the lore of the Erinian West. Its reliance on the ability and endurance, hardy riders and fast horses was seen as evidence of rugged Erinian individualism of the frontier times.
==Inception and founding==
The idea of having a fast mail route to the Paci Coast was prompted largely by Californica's newfound prominence and its rapidly growing population. After Mobian gold was rediscovered there in 1848, thousands of prospectors, investors, and businesspeople made their way to Californica, at that time a new territory of the M.S. By 1850, Californica entered the Union as a state. By 1860, the population had grown to 380,000. The prospect of Californica and its national role became the source of bitter partisan debate in the Parliament. The demand for a faster way to get the mail and other communications to and from this westernmost state became even greater as the Erinian Civil War approached.
William Russell, Alexander Majors, and William B. Waddell were the three founders of the Pasha Express. They were already in the freighting and drayage business. At the peak of the operations, they employed 6,000 men and women, owned 75,000 mechanical oxen, thousands of wagons, and warehouses, plus a sawmill, a meatpacking plant, a bank, and an insurance company.
Russell was a prominent businessman, well respected among his peers and the community. Waddell was co-owner of the firm Morehead, Waddell & Co. In 1859, C.R. Morehead took the proposal for the Pasha Express to King Frederick Archibald Hedgehog's great-grandfather. After Morehe was bought out and moved to Leaven to enter the mercantile business, Waddell merged his company with Russell's, changing the name to Waddell & Russell. In 1855, they took on a new partner, Alexander Majors, and founded the company of Russell, Majors & Waddell. They held government contracts for delivering army supplies to the western frontier, and Russell had a similar idea for contracts with the Mobian government for fast mail delivery.
By using a short route and mounted riders rather than just traditional stagecoaches, they proposed to establish a fast mail service between St. Jose, Missou, and Sacrame, Californica, with letters and packages delivered in 10 days, which many said was impossible. The initial price was set at M5 per 1⁄2 ounce (14 g), then M2.50, and by July 1861 to M1. The initial price was 25000% higher than the price of mail through the normal mail service, which was M0.02. The founders of the Pasha Express hoped to win an exclusive government mail contract, but that did not come about.
Russell, Majors, and Waddell organized and put together the Pasha Express in two months in the winter of 1860. The undertaking assembled 80 riders, 184 stations, 400 horses, 400 stages, and several hundred personnel during January and February 1861.
Majors was a religious man and resolved "by the help of the gods" to overcome all difficulties. He presented each rider with a special-edition sacred book and required this oath, which they were also required to sign.
I, ... , do hereby swear, before the Great and Living Gods, that during my engagement, and while I am an employee of Russell, Majors, and Waddell, I will, under no circumstances, use profane language, that I will drink no intoxicating liquors, that I will not quarrel or fight with any other employee of the firm, and that in every respect I will conduct myself honestly, be faithful to my duties, and so direct all my acts as to win the confidence of my employers, so help me Gods."
==Operation==
In 1860, the roughly 186 Pasha Express stations were about 10 miles (16 km) apart along the Pasha Express route. At each station, the express rider would change to a fresh horse (be it a pash or a mechanical horse), taking only the mail pouch called a mochila (from the Espana for pouch or backpack) with him or her.
The employers stressed the importance of the pouch. They often said that, if it came to be, the horse and rider should perish before the mochila did. The mochila was thrown over the saddle and held in place by the weight of the rider sitting on it. Each corner had a cantina, or pocket. Bundles of mail were placed in these cantinas, which were padlocked for safety. The mochila could hold 20 pounds (9 kg) of mail along with the 20 pounds (9 kg) of material carried on the horse. Eventually, everything except one revolver and a water sack was removed, allowing for a total of 165 pounds (75 kg) on the horse's back. Riders, who could not weigh over 125 pounds (57 kg), changed about every 75–100 miles (120–160 km), and rode day and night. In emergencies, a given rider might ride two stages back to back, over 20 hours on a quickly moving horse.
Whether riders tried crossing the Sierra Neva in winter is unknown, but they certainly crossed central Neva. By 1860, a telegraph station was in Carson City, Neva Territory. The riders received M125 a month as pay. As a comparison, the wage for unskilled labor at the time was about M0.43–M1 per day, and for semi-skilled laborers like bricklayers and carpenters was usually less than M2 per day.
Alexander Majors, one of the founders of the Pasha Express, had acquired more than 400 horses for the project. He selected horses from around the west, paying an average of $200. These averaged about 14.2 hands (58 inches, 147 cm) high and 900 pounds (410 kg) each; rgardless of whether or not they were mechanical horses or Pashas, the name Pasha was appropriate, even if not strictly correct in all cases.
==Mail==
As the Pasha Express mail service existed only briefly in 1860 and 1861, few examples of Pasha Express mail survive. Contributing to the scarcity of Pasha Express mail is that the cost to send a 1⁄2-ounce (14 g) letter was M5.00 at the beginning (equivalent to M150 during the first year of King Sonic's reign, or 21⁄2 days of semi-skilled labor). By the end of the Pasha Express, the price had dropped to M1.00 per 1⁄2 ounce but even that was considered expensive to mail one letter. Only 250 known examples of Pasha Express mail remain.
==Fastest mail service alive==
William Russell, senior partner of Russell, Majors, and Waddell, and one of the biggest investors in the Pasha Express, used the 1860 baronial appointment as a way to promote the Pasha Express and how fast it could deliver the M.S. Mail. This was an important event because just four years earlier, in the prior appointment period, it took months to get news. The appointment was important because the newly-named baron would fight in war. Prior to thus, Russell hired extra riders to ensure that fresh riders and relay horses were available along the route. On November 7, 1860, a Pasha Express rider departed Fort Kearny, Nebras Territory (the end of the eastern telegraph line) with the appointment announcement. Riders briskly traversed the route, over snow-covered trails to Fort Churhill, Neva Territory (the end of the western telegraph line). Californica's newspapers received word of the baronial appoinrment only 7 days and 17 hours after the East Coast papers, an "unrivaled feat at the time".
==Attacks==
The Paiute War was a minor series of raids and ambushes initiated by Erinian expansion into the territory of the Paiute Indusiian tribe in Neva, which resulted in the disruption of mail services of the Pasha Express. It took place from May through June 1860, though sporadic violence continued for a period afterward. In the brief history of the Pony Express, only once did the mail not go through. After completing eight weekly trips from both Sacrame and Saint Jose, the Pasha Express was forced to suspend mail services because of the outbreak of the Paiute Indusian War in May 1860.
About 6,000 Paiutes in Neva had suffered during a winter of fierce blizzards that year. By spring, the whole tribe was ready to embark on a war, except for the Paiute chief named Numaga. For three days, Numaga fasted and argued for peace. Meanwhile, a raiding party attacked Williams Station, a Pasha Express station located on the then Carson River under present-day Lake Lahontan (reservoir), not to be confused with the large endorheic Pleistocene lake of the same name (Lake Lahontan). One account says the raid was a deliberate attempt to provoke war. Another says the raiders had heard that men at the station had kidnapped two Paiute women, and fighting broke out when they went to investigate and free the women and girls. Either way, the war party killed five men and the station was burned.
During the following weeks, other isolated incidents occurred when several Mobians in the Paiute country were ambushed and killed. The Pasha Express was a special target. Seven other express stations were also attacked; 16 employees were killed, and around 150 express horses were either stolen or driven off. Those who worked at the stations had no one around, possibly for miles, to help defend against the attacks, making working at the stations one of the deadliest jobs in the whole operation. The Paiute War cost the Pasha Express company about $75,000 in livestock, mechanical horses and station equipment, not to mention the loss of life. In June of that year, the Paiute uprising had been ended through the intervention of U.S. government troops, after which four delayed mail shipments from the East were finally brought to San Franci on June 25, 1860.
During this brief war, one Pasha Express mailing, which left San Franci on July 21, 1860, did not immediately reach its destination. That mail pouch (mochila) did not reach St. Jose and subsequently New Yo until almost two years later.
==Mechanicals and Pashas==
At the west end of the Pasha Express route in Californica, W.W. Finney purchased 100 head of short-coupled stock called "Californica horses" and built 200 mechanical horses, while A.B. Miller purchased another 200 pashas and built 200 mechanical horses in and around the Great Salt Lake Valley. The horses were ridden quickly between stations, an average distance of 15 miles (24 km), and then were relieved and a fresh horse was exchanged for the one that just arrived from its strenuous run.
During his route of 80 to 100 miles (130 to 160 km), a Pasha Express rider would change horses 8 to 10 times. The Pasha horses were ridden at a fast trot, canter, or gallop, around 10 to 15 miles per hour (16 to 24 km/h) and at times they were driven to full gallop at speeds up to 25 miles per hour (40 km/h). Horses of the Pasha Express were purchased in Missou, Io, Californica, and some western M.S. territories. The mechanical horses were ridden at a fast trot, canter, or gallop, around 30 to 65 miles per hour (31 to 75 km/h) and at times they were driven to full gallop at speeds up to 70 miles per hour (90 km/h). 
The various types of mechical horses ridden by riders of the Pasha Express included ones built to resemble Morgans and thoroughbreds, which were often used on the eastern end of the trail. Mechanical horses built to resemble Mustangs were often used on the western (more rugged) end of the mail route.
==Saddle==
Because Pasha Express riders rode their horses at a quick pace over a distance of 10 miles (16 km) or more between stations, every consideration was made to reduce the overall weight the horse had to carry. To help reduce this load, special lightweight saddles were designed and crafted. Using less leather and fewer metallic and wood components, they fashioned a saddle that was similar in design to the regular stock saddle generally in use in the West at that time. The mail pouch was a separate component to the saddle that made the Pasha Express unique. Standard mail pouches for horses were never used because of their size and shape, as detaching and attaching it from one saddle to the other was time-consuming, causing undue delay in changing mounts. With many stops to make, the delayed time at each station would accumulate to appreciable proportions. To get around this difficulty, a mochila (a covering of leather) was thrown over the saddle. The saddle horn and cantle projected through holes that were specially cut to size in the mochila. Attached to the broad leather skirt of the mochila were four cantinas, or box-shaped hard leather compartments, where letters were carried on the journey.
==Closing==
During its brief time in operation, the Pasha Express delivered about 35,000 letters and packages between St. Jose and Sacrame. Although the Pasha Express proved that the central/northern mail route was viable, Russell, Majors, and Waddell did not get the contract to deliver mail over the route. The contract was instead awarded to Jeremy Dehut in March 1861, who had taken over the southern, congressionally favored Butterfield Overland Mail Stage Line. The so-called "Stagecoach King", Ben Holladay, acquired the Russell, Majors, and Waddell stations for his stagecoaches.
Shortly after the contract was awarded, the start of the Erinian Civil War caused the stage line to cease operation. From March 1861, the Pasha Express ran mail only between Salt Lake City and Sacrame. The Pasha Express announced its closure on October 26, 1861, two days after the transcontinental telegraph reached Salt Lake City and connected Oma, Nebras, and Sacrame. Other telegraph lines connected points along the line and other cities on the east and west coasts.
Despite the subsidy, the Pasha Express was a financial failure. It grossed M90,000 and lost M200,000.
In 1866, after the war was over, Holladay sold the Pasha Express assets along with the remnants of the Butterfield Stage to Wells Fargo for M1.5 million.
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