Sunlight was touching the forest around the track, giving us a true image of the accident. It was a complete catastrophe.
The train was folded and twisted, laying half across the tracks and half down, some wagons among the trees.
But what’s worse… much, much worse…
The tracks were ruined. The thick steel twisted and bent like straws, the bank they were sitting on itself was seriously disturbed. All of which showed what kind of forces were involved
Nocturnis relied on imports on a lot of things. Even something as simple as grains…
Securing the surface just turned from important to absolutely critical.
I stomped my hoof against the metal bottom of the cart I had been standing on, I turned around and jumped off, spreading my wings and gliding down to the ground before walking back towards the small encampment that had been set up outside the royal carriage with the wounded in it. It wasn’t much really, but it was a fire and an improvised tent.
The fire helped. None of the things in the jungle liked it. Some like a Rexosaurus wouldn’t care, but at least it kept most of the smaller ones away.
If we were in a Rexosaurus territory, it would likely be more interested in the dead turtle thing in any case.
Predators in general tend to be lazy and a dead massive clump of meat would be a lot more attractive then a bunch of much smaller ones that try to run away.
Flower looked up from where she was by the fire before she lifted a kettle off the head and poured a cup before moving to meet me, “Tea, your highness?” she asked with a tired smile.
The small thestral looked a bit of a mess, her normally carefully styled mane was matted and had leaves in it and her coat was dusty. But she was unhurt, other than favoring her left rear leg slightly.
“Thank you, Flower,” I said and took the cup in my magic, “How are you holding up?”
“I’m fine,” she said softly, “Just a bit tired.”
I nodded, “Go get some rest, okay.”
She shook her head, “All I can do is help with the food. I’m useless for anything else right now, it’s the least I can do.”
I put my hoof on her shoulder, “Flower, go rest. You’re not good for anything if you end up passing out in the mud. Everypony else has taken turns resting, even Amber has taken a nap. Now is your turn.”
“...You haven’t… Princess Twilight hasn't.”
“Alicorns,” I told her with a small smile, “We’ll be fine, just go rest, okay? Somepony else can handle the food for the next meal.”
Flower Rain hesitated and then nodded, “I’m just going to rest some in the carriage if you need me, your highness.”
“Sweet dreams, Flower.”
She wasn’t wrong though. I was tired. And if I was tired, then Sparks was at least twice as tired as she had been much more active than I had been. Never mind teleporting dozens of tons of mushed turtle beast thing.
Taking a gulp of my tea, I headed towards the carriage of the wounded and walked in through the new door. I had cut it out where one of the windows had been earlier so anypony needing to get in and out didn’t need to climb to do so. Made things easier.
“How does it look?” Sunset asked as she walked up to me. Her normally freely flowing mane was tied back in a quick braid, tied off with what looked like a piece of makeshift bandage.
I sighed softly and shook my head, “Bad,” I said and frowned, “The tracks are completely bucked. I’m not a train pony, but I can’t imagine this sort of thing being easily repaired, especially here.”
Sunset nodded grimmly, “Yeah,” she agreed, “Buck.”
“Has Sparks taken a nap yet?” I then asked, looking towards her where she was putting a cast on one of the injured with the medical pony and Amber. It may be mildly disgusting, but changeling resin was about as good as you could get for casting material. If you could ignore her spitting it up.
Sunset shook her head, “Not yet.”
“She needs to,” I said, “Because if we’re attacked, we need her rested, not asleep on her hooves.”
“You tell her that she needs to go to sleep when there are ponies that need help, I tired and it didn’t take,” Sunset told me before she smiled slightly, “And that goes for you too.”
“I’m not anywhere near as useful against a Rexosaurus,” I told her seriously, “I’ll talk to her.”
Sunny sighed softly and nodded, “...I guess you’re right,” she admitted, “Maybe she’ll listen to you,” and turned around, walking over to Twilight and whispered something into her ear.
Twilight blinked at her and then nodded, passing the bandages she was holding over to Sunsets magic as Sunset took over, leaving her free to walk over to me,
“Sunset said you wanted to talk about something?”
I nodded, “You should get some rest.”
“I can’t yet, I need-”
“To get some rest,” I said and moved closer, “Seriously, you’re asleep on your hooves.”
Twilight sighed and shook her head, “Page, everypony is tired, we need to-”
“Not everypony is critical to defend against a large attack,” I told her seriously and walked up, resting my cheek against hers, “I know you want to help,” I continued quietly, “And I know exactly how you feel about resting when you can do other things to help. I know exactly how you feel about it, but the best thing you can do right now for these ponies is to sleep. Anypony can watch over the wounded, nopony else can keep us safe.”
Twilight didn’t move for a long moment before she shook her head and blinked back tears, “Page, I…” she started to say before she nodded with a sigh, “...I know,” she said quietly, “It just feels wrong.”
“That’s how I felt about not going out and helping after the crash,” I told her quietly, looking into her eyes, “Every fibre of my being screamed at me to help, but it wasn’t what would actually be the most helpful and might even have made things worse as it would distract the guards from their jobs. We’re not normal ponies, Twilight. We can’t always do just what we think is right.”
“We have to think steps ahead and of consequences for every action,” Twilight agreed with a slight nod, “I know, I remember that lesson too. But it still feels wrong.”
“I know. We got this, Sparks, go get some sleep.”
“You should rest too.”
I nodded, “I will, but later. Me being rested is a lot less critical than you getting some sleep. What I can do however is to make sure everypony has something to eat and keep morale up. After that I’ll get some rest, I promise.”
She gave me a small tired smile and kissed my cheek before moving over to a clear corner and settling down, closing her eyes.
I swear, she was asleep before her head set down on her hooves.
Floating my tea back to myself, I finished the cup before I nodded to myself and headed back out. Everypony will be hungry soon, let’s see what I can salvage from the kitchen. Might not be a good cook, but I can make soup.
I hope help arrives soon
When help comes it will be nice
A very unfortunate situation. I can't really think of a solution to prevent it from happening again. Building a fence to keep wildlife out would be impractical over such great distances and would be useless against such big animals. Same problem with a cow catcher or wedge on the front to force animals off the track. It would be useless against such big animals. The only practical solution that I can think off would be to have some sort of small scout train to run 20-30 min in front of the train to clear the tracks or to warn the train to slow down from much further back, allowing the train much more time to stop. The MUCH smaller and lighter scout train would be able to break for any hazards much sooner. The trains will need to be able to communicate with each other. I'm not such what Equestria's level of technology is in this fic, if they have access to radio communications, otherwise a messenger pigeon would work fine.
So after all this, the best options are:
Alternative means of travel: Which there aren't many of.
Long distance transport: Currently unfeasible, may be possible in the future.
Clearing the ground of creatures: Very tricky to manage, would take a lot of effort, may not be successful.
Continuing to use trains: Would work, but would have to take precautionary measures to prevent this from repeating, with measures ranging from plausible to not feasible.
I still think the best option would be to somehow combine enchanted stones to both protect the tracks and warn trains of blockages/breaks on the tracks. Have a line of stones in place that are connected to each other, and if the chain of stones is somehow broken they flash red. If something is on the tracks the ones within a decent distance shine red, Meanwhile the ends of the track of a few enchanted stones which will glow or flash if something trips them, and from there they can inform the train/send a scout train to find the problem.
And glad to see Flower survived this, too.
11052655
Having Unicorns that can teleport letters between the trains could be an option. Or they could have pegasi "runners" going between the trains.
The weight of the crown is heavy.
One of the reasons Celestia can be excused to not help the mane six personaly.
Still... Military support is different in a real life setting.
I think you meant "tried".
This needs an apostrophe.
11052655
Flares. Magical or chemical. Can't beat the speed of light.
11052678
given where they are and how they've built their home its a wonder they haven't setup an airship mast yet and just say 'screw you' to the ground.
11052655
irl we didn't start equipping trains with radios until like the 1970s, before then it was an elaborate series of hand waving, signaling, and sticky notes on message poles
they generally managed by having rails managed by people assigned to a section of track or even just one tricky bit of track like a specific crossing or feature. People's lives were cheap to buy back then, especially if you built them a house to live in
C'mon, Page! You've got TWO Twilight Sparkles--put them on Morning/Afternoon shift work, just like Sunbutt & Moonbutt are on Day/Night shift.
11052856
What about low visibility conditions like fog or dense tree cover?
11052897
Also depends on how straight the track is, since it should be cleared of trees. Though I wonder how much of a problem it would be if they can make the flare really, really bright.
FEW DAYS LATER...
Page: So...can you fix the train tracks?
Discord: Oh NOW I exist for you!
Page: Can you or not?!
Discord: NOPE! Chaos magic. I can either make it nonsensical or revert back to its original state before the spell...and its original state right now is broken.
Page: ...how silly we talking?
Discord: Trains can't run on gummy worm and graham cracker train tracks Page...how unfortunate.
Page: BUCK!
11052679
Back before telegraph were useful, the early railroads had to invent a number of ways to control and signal trains. An example from the 1830s is the highball signs which could be read at a distance by train engineers. https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/ball_signal
Right now equestrian technology seems to be just around the same stage. Steam trains but no telegraphs.
Do they still have access to Sunset’s mirror world? It would make a lot of sense to start importing some basic electronics from there, like short wave radios and electric fences. If they invest some gold they could probably get enough parts and information to set up some cell phone towers
11052914
Only when the portal opens naturally every 30 moons, and the way they jailbroke it in canon will require waiting for that before they can use it.
Page makes a good point about the predators, but still... Also yeah, those repairs will be a pain to do this far out.
On the note of Page, his dialogue felt very stilted in this chapter. Too many 'go's without enough 'and's mainly, I think, especially given how two out of three conversations basically boil down to 'go and sleep for a bit'.
11052678
Simplest way would probably just be to cut the jungle back for half a kilometre either side of the tracks. That should keep most of the wildlife from straying there.
11052914
They have access to the mirror world, but only through the old schedule since Twilight never rigged the mirror to be manually openable (no need for it to be otherwise, what with Sunset being back home). I would point out however that smuggling large quantities of parts through would be difficult without being caught, and that attempting to open diplomatic relations would be... Well, ask the Japanese how well that went in the lead up to the Boshin War, or the Chinese about the opium trade and you'll get the idea of how bad an idea that could be, assuming the people on the other side of the mirror aren't as docile as hobbits (which admittedly, they might be).
For grammar jackboots, see Sebastian's post (number eight).
11052894
Sounds reasonable. However, sometimes having someone else who understands you, and is as capable as you, to help as a "second hand" on certain projects speeds things up considerably.
It just comes down to what you think is more important: A constant work flow over time with shifts; or twice as much work done in the same time frame, with the down side of the work flow stopped for breaks.
11052655
They have pegasi. Just have a few that fly out ahead of any train on the tracks looking for problems. The train may still get stuck due to damage but they can at least avoid derailment.
Might need 6 or 8, plus slower speeds at night, but it is still cheaper than the damage that just happened.
11053236
we've seen them put trains through tunnels, in the show. They could excavate a trench and put tracks underground. If the panama canal can put a cargo ship over a mountain range, they can put a train underground.
11053776
A slightly elevated track would be easier than excavating several tons of earth. Moving earth is NOT easy, nor is securing the walls and roof against collapse, doubly so in a high rainfall environment.
11053236
I doubt many Pegasi can fly as fast as a train, let alone Thestrals.
11052655
That seems like a pretty solid idea to me, especially with magic motors and whatnot available.
11055192
You think flying magical horses are slower than 200km/h?
Dash can fly at mach 10 and wonderbolt are said to fly fast enough yo break the sound barrier, it is to expect a normal pegasi could fly at 300 km/h without much effort, just don't know about distance.
11858246
Yes, I do think they're slower than that. Citing Rainbow Dash as a metric for Pegasi is like citing Twilight, Starswirl or Starlight for Unicorns. As for other Wonderbolts, that's still an extremely elite organisation. Also with regard to rainbooms... Well, I can cite some science about those which a rather smart chap worked out with a clear potential to occur without involving mach speeds, but unless you're specifically interested I'll hold off on that.
P.S Nice username. Mahtan is an interesting character who could have done with more exploration. As could Nerdanel tbh.