The Stone Dogs (77 page)
League.
The period after 1919 saw an enormous expansion of
the Domination's power grid as the New Territories
were settled. Hydro developments were very extensive,
often as part of multipurpose flood-irrigation-power
projects. The petroleum resources of the Persian Gulf,
Iran, Central Asia, and Ferghana were also brought
on-stream, but very little of the oil was used for central
power generation; instead, the natural gas was burned
in situ and used as the basis of a very extensive electro
metallurgical and electrochemical complex along the
Gulf.
The most startling development was the Bosporus
Project. Theoretical studies had been done before the
Great War, and had shown that the Gallipob-Golden
Horn strait between the Mediterranean and the Black
Sea contained two consistent and very powerful
currents, one at depth flowing into the Black Sea and
one on the surface flowing out. From 1920-1937, a series
of enormous underwater structures, a steel and
ferroconcrete grid, was inserted into many miles of the
strait, often in conjunction with elaborate surface
structures amounting to a minor city suspended over
the water. Large low-speed turbines fixed to the
underwater frames were driven by the currents, and
the power transferred to generators by hydraulic
pressure. Initial capacity (1927) was approximately
1,000 MW, and the final total was in the 6,000-7,000
MW range.
Railways and Road Transport Railways:
Railways—in the sense of roads with rails and wagons
running on flanged wheels, had been in use in mines for
centuries before 1800. In the 18th century a number of
British coal mines built small railways to link their pits
with water-transport; traction was by gravity or
horse-power. The mines of the Crown Colony of Drakia
quickly adopted internal rail systems, and shortly
thereafter built small surface lines-—to transport ore to
central crushing and smelting plants, or to bring coal
short distances to the fixed engines.
Application of steam power was an obvious
development, but practically impossible until a better
prime mover than the Watt engine was available.
Trevithick conducted a number of experiments using
the existing mine railways, and once the correct
road-bed was developed (crushed rock, timber crossties
and iron I-section rails spiked to the ties) began
developing locomotives to replace the existing
animal-traction systems. Once the concept was proven
on a local scale, he lobbied for the first main-line
systems; the Archona-Virconium was begun in 1805.
Like all subsequent main-line railways in the
Domination, this was built to a 1.75-meter gauge and
was government owned and operated. The locomotives
were much simpler than the road-engines being
developed at the same time, and the inflexibility of a
fixed route was offset by the lesser rolling friction on
iron rails. Railways were used for traffic between
towns, and for heavy-goods haulage: coal, stone, grain,
metals and so forth. Local distribution from the
railheads was by animal traction, or increasingly by
autosteamer and steam drag. The primary initial
limitation was the shortage of iron rail, but after the
conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars excess capacity in
England and the increasing domestic production
removed this bottleneck.
Railway mileage. Domination: Railway mileage,
U.S.A.
1810 50 1810 nil
1820 500 1820 100
1830 2,500 1830 1,000
1840 10,000 1840 3,500
1850 25,000 1850 12,000
1860 48,000 1860 40,000
1870 60,000 1870 50,000
1880 90,000 1880 100,000
1890 140,000 1890 195,000
1900 200,000 1900 230,000
1910 270,000 1910 310,000
The Transportation Directorate was organized in
1822, and became the major shareholder in the Drakian
Railroads and Harbors Combine, sole operator of rail
transport outside a few narrow-gauge specialty lines.
Since DR&H quickly became the world's largest single
railroad enterprise under one management, it was a
short step to becoming the world's greatest
manufacturer of locomotives, rolling stock, and other
equipment, however, this was so closely tailored to
local conditions that it had surprisingly little effect on
worldwide practice.
The first Trevithick locomotive engines had vertical
cylinders driving gear-trains which in turn powered the
wheels. By the mid-1820s, horizontal cylinders linked
directly to cranks on the outside of the driving wheels
had become standard. The Diskarapur Works began
turning out standardized "classes" of locomotive at
about this time, with interchangeable parts. Power and
size gradually increased, with fast-express passenger
trains reaching averages of about 40 mph by the 1840s.
Condenser cars (where the exhaust steam was
recondensed into water to feed the boilers) became an
early feature, as did petroleum fueling in the northern
provinces. Other notable innovations were
pneumatic-powered stokers and air brakes, introduced
in the 1830s. The nature of traffic on the DR&H (mostly
long-distance heavy minerals, coal, and agricultural
products) resulted in innovations in handling and
marshaling techniques, such as "unit" trains and
multiple locomotive use. Railway stations were usually
located on the outskirts of urban areas, with passengers
and goods distributed by autosteamer or later by
mass-transit systems.
Fast pneumatic-drive express trains were introduced
in the 1850s, with the Cape Town-Archona "Gold Train."
This was powered by a locomotive mounting an
industrial-type three-cylinder uniflow reciprocating
compressor, with a regenerative heat-pump to transfer
the waste compression heat to the feedwater.
Transmission was via axial-flow air motors on all
wheels, including those of the ten passenger cars;
speeds of up to 110 kph were achieved, especially on the
long straight stretches of the interior plateau. The
ultimate development came in the great
trans-continental expresses of the 1890s, the
Apollonaris-Suakim (Atlantic-Red Sea) and
Cape-Alexandria (Indian Ocean to Mediterranean) runs.
These huge passenger specials were radically
streamlined, constructed largely of new alloy-steels and
light metals, and powered by giant steam turbines
driving turbo-blowers; the wheels ran on frictionless
air bearings. Average speeds of 170 kph, with bursts of
up to 200 kph, were achieved.
The period 1890-1910 saw a further burst of
innovation. The increasing use of electrical power in
industry naturally provoked interest in the
Transportation Directorate. Experiments with electric
locomotives had been going on in a low key since the
1860s, but it was not until large-scale power generation
and long-distance transmission got underway in the
late 1880s that main-line use became practical. The first
line to be electrified (on a 5,500-volt AC system) was,
understandably, the Alexandria-Quattara line, in 1884.
Some sections of the southern network were converted
to electric traction in 1886-90; in particular the
perennially overloaded Archona-Virconium and
Archona-Shahnapur. Electric traction showed
numerous advantages: central power stations were
more efficient than locomotive prime movers, electric'
locomotives could operate well above their rated
horsepower in "burst" mode, and with regenerative
braking they fed power back into the net on downslope
runs. As additional bonuses electric locomotives
required no water supply, were indifferent to altitude
and temperature; they proved to be simpler to maintain
than the various steam engines and, once the
techniques were mastered, easier to build. In 1900 the
25,000-volt overhead system was standardized and a
10-year plan to electrify most of the heavy-traffic main
lines was launched, and by 1914 30% of the
Domination's mileage and 50% of the ton-miles were
electrified. The all-electric Cape Town to Alexandria
express of 1912 maintained an average speed of over 190
kph.
Direct-drive steam engines remained popular
everywhere, due to their huge numbers and industrial
inertia if nothing else. The European networks
(particularly in Switzerland and other countries rich in
hydropower) had installed significant mileage of
electrified line by 1914, and were experimenting with
direct and hydraulic-transmission diesel systems. The
Americas had some electrification, but were pioneers in
internal-combustion/electric (particularly
diesel-electric) traction. The high-speed diesels
developed for airships in the 1880s and 1890s proved to
be ideal for this purpose, and by 1910 were supplanting
steam engines on fast express runs.
There were also important advances in fixed way and
rolling stock in the period before the Great War.
Central traffic direction was introduced (Domination, c.
1900; US, a few years later) and made much higher
traffic densities safely possible. The Domination began
converting to ferroconcrete ties and welded rails in the
1890s, re-laying about 40% of their track by 1914 and
making considerable savings in maintenance costs.
Improved suspensions were instrumental in raising
average speeds, and specialized cars of all types grew in
number and complexity. Sealed freight-containers of
standard size were another innovation, originally
(1895) German, but rapidly taken up in other European
countries and the US; they also spread to shipping and
the new intercontinental airfreight services in the same
period.
Alter the Great War, the Domination's primary
problem was extending its rail net to the 3,000,000+
square miles of additional territory gained in 1914-1919.
A Draka-financed line had been built between Bandar
Abbas and Tehran in 1905-1910, and was within 100
miles of the Russian network in Turkestan at the
outbreak of the war. The Domination also inherited
some 10,000 miles of Turkish and 3,000 miles of
Russian line, although these were of different gauges
and substandard quality. Between 1917-1940
approximately 100,000 miles of line was built to the
1.75-meter, all-welded standard in the new territories.
Electric traction was also extended, but was risky in
imperfectly pacified areas, as the power lines were easy
to sabotage. Because of this, and for use in areas where
traffic density did not justify the capital cost of
electrification, in 1920-22 a new series of locomotives
using turbocompound-electric power were brought into
service. These gradually replaced the remaining steam
fleet; construction of new steam locomotives was
phased out in the 1940s, and the last engines removed
from service in the 1960s. With advances in power
transmission and construction, the vastly increased
network of the post-Eurasian War period was mostly
electrified; by the 1960s, speeds of up to 240 kph were
common for intercity express trains. Total mileage
exceeded 1,000,000 by the time construction was
complete in 1990.
Urban mass-transit systems developed concurrently
during the 1850s. After experimenting with
steam-powered street tramcars, the municipal
governments of Archona, Shahnapur, and Alexandria
decided to switch to elevated pneumatic-powered rail
systems. These were supported on ferroconcrete
pillars, and ran with rubber-tired wheels on single
concrete "rails"; essentially a monorail. Propulsion was
supplied by a tube in the fixed way, kept at
overpressure by central pumping stations and with a
longitudinal slit sealed by rubberized fabric. The cars
were attached to pistons in the tubes, fastened to the
bodies by L-shaped bars which lifted and replaced the
fabric cover as they moved. Systems of this type were
built in the larger cities, usually to link suburbs with
central business districts, as "ring roads" around the
urban perimeter, and to shuttle crowds to and from
railway stations, harbors, and later airship havens and
airports. The rights-of-way were usually park zones
(since the system was pollution-free and relatively
quiet) with escalators at widely-spaced intervals. The
original pneumatic system was replaced with electric
motors in the 1880s, and these in turn by linear
induction in the late 1930s.
Road Transport:
Trevithick's initial experiments had included both
road and rail engines. Rail quickly proved to be more
efficient for long-distance hulk transport, but initial
capital costs were high, and the fixed rail lines required
a "catchment area" large enough to provide a constant
stream of traffic. Since much of the Domination was
thinly-populated, with most freight (e.g., agricultural
goods) available only seasonally, rail lines were
impractical for local transport. Road engines were the
obvious answer, since they could flexibly collect goods
from scattered locations and "bulk" them at convenient
locations for rail transport. Roads were cheaper to
construct than railways, particularly on the extensive
flat plateau surfaces of the interior, and road-engines
proved to be much better at handling steep grades than
rail. Since roads (especially after the appointment of
John L. McAdam as Chief Inspector) could be built by
chain-gangs of unskilled labor, the advantages were
obvious.