Great Imperial Express

The Great Imperial Express is a rail line between Nesaria and Onshi, running from Cliffs Prime Transfer (CPT) to Hoshami and having only one mid-route stop at the Asmocarian city of Baman. The Great Imperial Express is generally considered to be directly responsible for transforming Baman from a small settlement into a major city, and it also greatly contributed to the growth of Hoshami - which was rivalling Onshi itself as the largest city in Onshitama before its annihilation during the Imperial Civil War. Directly connecting Nesaria and Onshitama with the world's largest over-land cargo shipping system also greatly facilitated the development of the Industrial Revolution in both countries.

The Great Imperial Express is the longest single rail line in Inecuria; it is over 3100 kilometres (1926 miles) long, and only makes one stop between CPT and Hoshami, in the Asmocarian industrial town of Taigan, which lies almost exactly in the middle of the route. This therefore gives the Great Imperial Express the world record for the longest distance between stops on a regular train service, of approximately 1550 kilometres (963 miles), a journey the modern Express makes in one day. However, the Great Imperial Express is most famous for its other world record, which is the widest track gauge by a significant margin. The gauge of 4.8 metres (roughly 15' 9") is almost three times the width of the next widest gauge, and holds the largest train cars in the world. Each of the three locomotives used on the line through its history have held the world record for being the largest and most powerful train engines, and are some of the most powerful engines ever made.

The Great Imperial Express began construction in 1733. For context, the first commercial rail line was established in Inecuria in 1693, which came 35 years after the release of the first commercial steam engine in 1658. The line took twelve years to complete, but it lay dormant for three more years as the train which would run on it was not finished until 1748. It made a test run of the line in the winter of that year, but concerns were raised over speed and fuel efficiency which delayed the official opening for two more years as improvements were made to the locomotive. It was in the early summer of 1750 that the first true maiden journey began, and the locomotive was named by Emperor Ragon himself as the *Mechanical Titan*.

The original *Mechanical Titan* went through extensive maintenance through its long lifespan, including two full engine replacements, but the Imperial state eventually recognised the locomotive as being both well past its lifespan and utterly technologically obsolete, and comissioned a replacement in 1963. This replacement was intentionally aesthetically similar, but used a diesel engine rather than a coal-powered steam engine. It was introduced to the Great Imperial Express in 1968, and the original *Mechanical Titan* was retired. The original was simply kept in a warehouse until 1983, when it was relocated to the Capera Museum of Industry. Folk legend tells that none of the engineers working on the replacement knew what to call the replacement, and referred to it by the temporary name of *Mechanical Titan II* - however, the name stuck, and this became the official name of the locomotive. *Mechanical Titan II* was retired and also moved to the Capera Museum of Industry in 2013 when a new replacement, *Mechanical Titan III*, was finished and introduced. *Mechanical Titan III* makes use of a hybrid electric and diesel engine, chiefly using the electrical component when at low speeds and for acceleration (since electrical engines have very high torque) and using the diesel component for high-speed cruising.

## Mechanical Titan

The original *Mechanical Titan* faced immense engineering challenges which elongated its development to seventeen years, longer than it took to build the track itself. These challenges were overcome significantly more easily in the *Titan*'s two successors, since it is substantially easier and safer to construct and operate a large diesel engine than a large steam engine.

It was determined early on in development that because of the inescapable presence of coal dust suspended in the air in all compartments related to coal storage and engine operation, the engine crew would be limited solely to Dungors. The respiratory system of this species is naturally capable of filtering out particles in the air, whereas the constant presence of coal dust would be extremely hazardous to any other race. This decision had the added benefit of reducing the physical size necessary for compartments of the locomotive related to engine operation, since they only needed to fit Dungors, who are small in stature compared to other races.

The *Mechanical Titan* made use of coal as fuel. A lengthy debate raged amongst the engineers as to whether the boiler should burn coal normally or make use of the new, highly efficient but also largely untested and potentially dangerous pulverised coal-fired boiler system. The party supporting the pulverised coal system won out, but only after proving that such a system could be safely and effectively used on a steam locomotive elsewhere, which significantly delayed development as an entirely separate locomotive had to be constructed and extensively tested. Pulverised coal, in addition to burning both faster and more efficiently, made much more efficient use of storage space; the gaps between larger lumps of coal result in wasted space, which would add up to a significant amount of wasted storage space in the huge coal container on the *Titan*.

A much more pressing issue was water. Steam engines require a substantial amount of water to operate, and the vast steam engine aboard the *Titan* required monstrous volumes of water. It was simply not feasible to have the locomotive carry all the water it required for the long journey, since the tank required to store such a ludicrous volume of water would be both impractically large and heavy. The engineers were therefore tasked with making the engine's usage of water as efficient as possible. The enormous size of the locomotive proved to be very useful in developing the steam recapture system; not all of the total exhaust steam was required to provide a consistent draft out of the chimney, since a small portion of the total steam output was still very large. The rest of the exhaust steam was sent through a condensing pipe that was routed along the outside of the locomotive to cool down the steam as much as possible. The sheer size of the locomotive allowed the condensing pipe to be long enough to allow the extremely hot steam to cool down and condense into water, which was fed back into the storage tank.

## Cars

For all three incarnations of the *Mechanical Titan*, the locomotive itself is entirely set aside for fuel storage and crew quarters, and the first two attached cars are for passengers, the first for first-class travellers and the second for second-class travellers. Obviously, first-class facilities are more spacious and luxurious, and generally offer better privacy. However, even the second-class facilities have bedrooms and facilities that are more alike a hotel than a typical sleeper train, and the price for just second-class tickets is high. Both classes enjoy the same on-board restaurant, which boasts one Michelin star. The remainder of the attached cars are dedicated to cargo, and are capable of hauling an extremely large volume of a diverse range of goods between Nesaria and Onshi. During the War of Independence, these huge cargo cars often hauled convoys of tanks across the continent to where they were needed.