The Land of Equestria: Part 3 · 11:01am Mar 13th, 2015
Hello, and welcome to part 3 of "The Land of Equestria"! This week we'll be looking at the wonderfully riveting world of...Public transportation. Admittedly not as exciting a concept as the military...but no less thought provoking. In fact, looking in to the matter raised a few interesting questions....
Starting right off, The Land's biggest mode of public transportation: Trains. Looking at the map of Equestria (as seen and confirmed in the season 4 finale), The landscape is laced with railroad, interconnecting everything it can. Railroad has been shown to lead even to remote towns, such as The Crystal Empire (in the far North), and Even a recently established town, Appleoosa. That last one indicates that railroad construction is an absolute priority, and why wouldn't it be? After all, it ties the country together.
Otherwise, very little has been seen of any other form of public transports. There have been taxies, and some lighter-than-air craft, but Trains are, beyond a shadow of a doubt, Equestria's top form of Public transportation.
Now, Such a service must be relatively pricey to maintain, correct? So how much would, say, a ride from Ponyville to Canterlot cost? The answer may surprise you: Absolutely nothing. Skeptical? Take a look, At no point has anyone in the show bought a train ticket, nor have train tickets been advertised. If you're looking for something more convincing, take the CMC as an example. In the episodes "Just for Sidekicks", "Flight to the Finish" and "For whom the Sweetie Belle Tolls", the Crusaders easily board the trains and travel to both the Crystal Empire and Canterlot, no questions asked. So, assuming the theory is correct and Train rides in Equestria are, in fact, free, then how does the Service keep itself up? How does it handle maintenance costs?
Well, as with any government service "freely" provided to the public, the cost is split evenly, through taxes. Now exactly how these taxes would work, I can only guess. The government could just make a transit tax for every citizen, but those who rarely leave their own town might protest against it. The tax could be issued to those who have ridden the train, but that would imply some Kind of check-in process, which has not been seen in the show. Or perhaps it's not even it's own tax, and Is deducted from a range of other taxes.
...or I'm thinking a little hard about a Train Hasbro gave screen time so they could sell it.
Oh, and I haven't got a clue how they publicly transport visitors to Cloudsdale. The mane 6 had their own balloon, so that can't count. [Insert Pony Shrug image here].
Hello there! If you're just joining us, here's the recap!
-The main form of public transit in Equestria is Trains
-the train service is most likely free
-Taxes cover the cost of this "free" Ride.
-The writer should probably try writing these earlier in the week and posting them on Thursday, instead of literally writing them on the spot.
-Cloudsdale probably has very little revenue from tourism.
As always, Continue on everyone!
I'm Ironsmith, Invent on!
In just for sidekicks, Mister Spike has to pay for the CMC and the pets to go to the Crystal Empire. It seems to be a case of DHX just not showing us the ticket-buying in most cases.
This article is incomplete:
It needs to cover the balloon and who operates it:
Hasbro calls it Twilight's Balloon, but the writers and DHX have shown Cherry Berry operate it and flying machines.
We have Pegasus-chariots.
We have stage-coaches.
We have ferries.
We have airships.
We have various other methods.
This article needs expansion.
3191238
Hmm...you bring up very good points! Perhaps I should re-title this Equestria's Railroads, tweak it a bit, and then make an entirely different article on other vehicles. Thanks for the help!