1) Why do you think Princess Celestia had her little ponies instal it ?

2) Do you think it was after Luna was to the Moon ?

3) Do you think it was the Unicorn and/or the Earth pony they frist ones to have it instal ?

4) Do you think thety have some trains that uses eletriserty ?
like Storm cloulds !?

5) Why don't we see Trains between Maretime-Bay, and Zepher-hights or BridalWood ?
p.s. Yes, they are... Tralies in Maretime-Bay, but not going to the 2 other place

6) They have train tracks from HillTop to ManeBourne
but none that goes to Panthera

7) p.s. should Seaddle and TallTale be come a lope ?

EDIT:
8) do you think it's better in Equestia ?

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My best guess for the lack of railways in G5 is that most of the system was abandoned when the tribes splintered. However, a leaked panel from an upcoming comic shows the characters taking a train somewhere.

Here's a map of Equestria's rail system as it looked before the Mount Aris extension opened, done in the style of Harry Beck.

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When a civilization collapses, knowledge is lost to the general public on how to maintain things. Look to our own history where the technology and infrastructure are lost when governments and nations inevitably collapse, such as what happened to the Nazi military during WWII who boasted the first Jet Fighters, only after suffering from a two-front war with the Soviet Union and Allied Powers saw the Jet aircraft being abandoned until the Cold War when German Scientists were recruited through OPERATION: Paperclip were integrated. Or the Aqueduct which was the primary method of delivering fresh water and promoting sanitation throughout Europe during the Roman Empire: and after they collapsed the technology to both make and maintain these structures would be lost until the Middle Ages.

This is a phenomenon that is present in other media such as Warhammer 40K, where due to The Age of Strife: Mankind lost all of their scientific knowledge and lost communication with it's own Colonies that would each slowly devolve back into tribalistic societies until The Man-Emperor of Mankind and Malcador The Sigilate managed to finally establish The Imperium of Man. Or there's also the noticeable gap in technology and general knowledge about The Force and it's teachings between the modern Post ABY Era of Star Wars from The Old Republic Era: whereas in The Old Republic Era, the concepts of Force Ghosts and the process needed to ascend were well-known, but by the time of The Clone Wars where the Jedi Order had fractured several times too many: Ki-Adi Mundi and most of the Jedi Council who had access to the ancient history and teachings passed down by the Jedi of old had doubted that Force Ghosts even exist when Yodas' claims that the Grandmaster had been in-contact with the long-dead Qui-Gon Jinn are seen by the other council members as either schizophrenia or a Sith attack on his mind.

The fact that The Three Tribes population during G5 had been so severely reduced from a once Continent-Spanning Empire to just a Coastal Region Mountaintop City and Oceanfront Harborage both just little more than a few days' walking distance from each-other that hadn't tried to maintain any trade or.contact with one-another after several generations apart explains so much about how far the Kingdom of Equestria and their world had fallen: in the time when Twilight Sparkle essentially burned down her house simply because there was a small and harmless spider inside of it that wasn't able to harm her...

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Slight correction: Soviet jet fighters were created by reverse engineering the Rolls-Royce Nene (the successor to the engine that powered the Gloucester Meteor), which was based on the jet engine developed by Frank Whittle (who had figured out jet propulsion independent of German input). American rocketry, though, is built very heavily on Nazi science (which is why I find the American veneration of Vernher von Braun a bit sickening; the weapons he built blew up a lot of my countrymen; a V1 fell on my hometown in 1944, for instance).

We can't be certain how far apart anything in G5 Equestria is; the movie makes heavy use of time compression for its travel montages so places being a fair distance apart is entirely possible. Case in point; London and Birmingham are 177 miles apart. Assuming a rate of travel of 3 miles per hour and being on the move for 12 hours a day, walking London to Birmingham would take 5 days give or take (and in the early days of the train it took five-six hours). My point being is you wouldn't attempt a journey like that without proper transport infrastructure, which G5 Equestria appears to lack. This is also consistent with human history; before the coming of the railways, people rarely travelled far from their hometowns.

There was absolutely no need to go into your Twilight spiel, though, as it's not relevant to the conversation.

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"Time Compression" my arse. Considering how quick and efficient a tech-company CanterLogic is, especially when it completely disregards OSHA Standards and is primed for warfare underneath the militant leadership of Sprout Cloverleaf that by the time The Mane Five were able to return to Maretime Bay after going on their journey to get the Unity Crystal pieces: Sprout was prepared to launch his genocide. So my point still stands that the Equestrian territory is too compact of a region following the nations' collapse in G4.

When a civilization had suffered from such a massive-scale depopulation as Equestria had, the teachings and basic education requirements would begin to downsize: especially in-regards to the maintenance of heavy industrial equipment like Airships and Railroads which is evident in how there aren't any of either type of vehicle or other method of transportation that was seen in Equestria during G4 that is shown in G5: especially with the abandoned Airship Terminal Zipp has in Zephyr Heights. This indicates that as the Tribes began to grow insular and cutting off any method of trade and transportation with their immediate neighbors that each settlement had all but forgotten that the other two Tribes are within spitting distance of each-other; the knowledge to maintain these complex systems along with the population requirements that are needed to necessitate these innovations began to get abandoned for smaller-scale systems that have a limited reach and capacity for transit such as the Trolleys in Maretime Bay. However judging by the population density that is present in Zephyr Heights; that's likely not going to be an issue any longer now that the Pegasi can fly again.

Sun: Wow, sure is, uh, crowded, huh?
Blake: Yes. Yes, it is.
Sun: Is it always so... cramped?
Blake: Well, when you try and take an entire species and put them on an island that's two-thirds desert, yeah, it tends to be cramped.
Sun: What! You guys have that much more space? Why waste it? A little desert never hurt anyone!

-RWBY, Volume 4, "Menagerie"

Instead of doing a Villain storyline with Opaline that went absolutely nowhere for two years and created an unsatisfying mess that served to piss off so many, G5 should have tried focusing on a theme of rediscovery and exploration: with the Mane Five trying to help solidify the union between all three Tribes and have them redevelop their nations' lost technology once more and use it to reclaim the rest of the Continent once again with the Ponies sending out expeditions to create new settlements and colonies in order to have the Ponies stumble across unique problems of each region they setup camo in and making the audience feel like giving a damn about these Ponies as they slowly struggle and scrape their way back into greatness once again, with Season One ultimately ending with The Mane Five and the group they have been traveling with having now rediscovered the ruins of Ponyville as Sunny Starscout enters the Castle of Friendship and awakens the Map Table to show them the rest of Equestria in-comparison to the small coastal region they had all been born, grown, and lived in all their lives until this point as the Expeditionary team rediscovers the local train station and seeks to rebuild the railway lines that had carried Ponies so easily from one corner of the Equestrian continent to another.

And if you really have such a hard-on for Opaline being the main antagonist: set her up as a stinger at the end of Season One where she is now awakened due to her feeling the presence of Ponies within the Equestrian Heartland once again, and that her goal is to not rule over the Three Tribes but to exterminate them for trespassing into the Alicorn Lands that she and her people had claimed from "The Forsaken Outcasts" that were Celestia and Luna.

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"Time Compression" my arse. Considering how quick and efficient a tech-company CanterLogic is, especially when it completely disregards OSHA Standards and is primed for warfare underneath the militant leadership of Sprout Cloverleaf that by the time The Mane Five were able to return to Maretime Bay after going on their journey to get the Unity Crystal pieces: Sprout was prepared to launch his genocide. So my point still stands that the Equestrian territory is too compact of a region following the nations' collapse in G4.

Terribly sorry, but I'm struggling to see how CanterLogic has any bearing on distances. Sprout's war machine only made it as far as a lighthouse on the edge of town and broke down after crashing into said lighthouse twice (in other words, about as reliable as the Conquerer tank). Considering Sprout's ego it was probably extremely shoddily built; much of the other CanterLogic equipment is poorly designed, so that's hardly surprising. AFAWK only the pegasi have a standing army, one that clearly hadn't fought a war in a long time considering how Thunder and Zoom reacted to the war machine.

Anyway, watch 'I'm looking out for you' again and notice what's going on in the background. There are numerous skips in time during the sequence, and the map we see in the film has no scale on it. You're also assuming that the journey back from Bridlewood took one day when there's nothing in the film to suggest it.

Maretime Bay's streetcar system is possibly a remnant of a larger rail network; quite a few tramways in the UK are built on old railway alignments (Manchester Metro, Nottingham Express Transit, Croydon Tramlink, etc). It's also quite likely Zephyr Heights has internal public transit networks, or each tribe has internal networks for travel. As a historical example, when India and Pakistan were partioned, the two rail systems which had formally been one network were disconnected (as you're probably aware India and Pakistan were originally one country).

So, in order to differentiate it from G4 your proposal is to have G5 repeat G4's primary mistake of expanding the world way too fast? I, for one, am glad we got a smaller cast as it gave us more time with them, rather than ending up with millions of locales as we did by Season 3 of G4.

And if you really have such a hard-on for Opaline being the main antagonist

Seriously, Ohvist, grow up.

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I'm struggling to see how CanterLogic has any bearing on distances.

CanterLogic indeed has a bearing on both distance and time it takes for Sprout to go from a bumbling idiot to a full-blown Facist with an armed and operational motorized siege engine: all within the same timeframe it takes for Sunny Starscout to go from Maretime Bay to Zephyr Heights and Bridlewood before coming back home all on foot at a leisurely pace.
Do you even understand that the fact that the mobile weapons platform was mounted with the already-existing technology that was debut earlier in the film, indicating that these are dependable and industrious employees of the company? Albeit structurally-incompetent employees due to the dual-mounted splat-a-pults being misaligned in such a way to also cause friendly-fire. But the fact remains that the weapons platform is operational enough for rapid mobility shows that the entire adventure that Sunny Starscout went on across Equestria lasted less than a week.

A Week that Sunny and Izzy spent a few days dicking around the countryside after leaving Maretime Bay trying to reach Zephyr Heights, followed shortly thereafter by an offscreen escape from the Pegasi (seriously NetFlix, you think we don't want to see how the group of five managed to escape from the middle of Zephyr Heights with both of the now-treasonous Princesses: without raising any suspicion from the hostile populace that would have even more reason to now hunt for them??), and how it was a matter of Hours for a despondent Sunny Starscout to just slowly walk back from the outskirts of Bridlewood to reach her Lighthouse that same afternoon.

Again: less than a Week of just the five of them who had no idea where they were going to go to all of these places on their own without any sort of map. Now that the pathways to the three towns are known and established, the foot traffic to all three locations is now much more faster: at least a full day to get from Maretime Bay all the way to Zephyr Heights on foot, while it's only a matter of less than half an hour for Izzy to get from Maretime Bay all the way back to Bridlewood to try and deal with Opaline Adderall in the Series Finale: with Zipp and Pipp returning to Zephyr Heights in the same amount of time within The Marestream. The distance between the towns is arguably so close that it takes The Marestream just around 15 minutes of travel in unfavorable weather conditions to get to all three towns in less than an afternoon: most of which was spent with the five of them attending holiday festivities in those towns for several hours before returning to Maretime Bay later that same evening.

Now, compare this to how large Equestria once was in G4: where it stretched from coastline-to-coastline across the Continent that it takes:

• A few hours for The Element Bearers to get from Ponyville all the way up to Canterlot by Train.
• A few days to get from Canterlot down to Dodge Junction by Train.
• At least a week to go from Ponyville to Appleloosa by a broken-down Train.
• A few days to go from Ponyville all the way to the outskirts of Our Town By TRAIN!

Correct me if I am somehow wrong, Mr. Conductor: But, isn't a Train able to cross more distance in a day than traveling on Horseback, doubly-so for a steam locomotive like what G4 Equestria utilized?

So yes, Equestria has become a Vestigial Empire in G5 with only a small coastal region as its' sum territory compared to the grandeur that was a once Continent-Spanning Empire.

I, for one, am glad we got a smaller cast as it gave us more time with them.

Depends on how the characters are even utilized within the narrative, and as pointed out multiple times before by people other than me: Zipp Storm and Misty Brightdawn are the actual Main Characters who are driving the plot of this Series forward and getting shit done: whom Opium sees as both her greatest opponent and as her most-important adversary respectively. All-the-while Sunny Starscout whos' supposed to be the Protagonist of the Series that the show is meant to center around simply starts and ends the Series as nothing more than the "Best Background Pony".

Seriously, Ohvist, grow up.

I'll gladly redirect that comment over to Opium; she really needs to receive more of that sort of kick in the pants from her fans.
How else can you expect a Main Antagonist that had been slowly built up over the course of the Series that was responsible for destroying G4 Equestria back in a time when Magic was abundant and the knowledge to control it was commonplace: to just go down like a punk time-and-again? Is she a threat capable of ending all life in Equestria that a Magical Goddess like Twilight Sparkle saw no other option but to seal away Magic to starve her? Or is Opium just a pathetic wretch that constantly goes down like a punk many times over to an untrained Novice of Magic like Sunny Starscout?

The fact that Opium's in such a weakened state right now is no excuse to not try a different avenue of conquest outside of a direct approach like she had been doing. Powerhouses like Tirek, Queen Chrysalis, and Cozy Glow knew how to use subterfuge and their wit to navigate around The Mane Six and authorities numerous times in G4. So you're telling me that Twilight Sparkle couldn't immediately see the red flags that Opium was definitely rising and not try to call upon her other Non-Dragon Allies to go and nuke that bitch into the next millennium? And after seeing Magics' return and learning that nobody knew that she was the one responsible for destroying Equestria in the first place: Opium didn't try to capitalize on her Alicorn status and use that to leverage her knowledge of Magic to coerce other Ponies into slowly granting her authority over them that by the time The Mane Five find out the truth: she had already gained complete and total control over the populace that they wouldn't dare to question her wisdom? Don't you want to have a more cerebral villain be the cause of Equestrias' downfall in G4 instead of just some pathetic Bint nobody that has all the charismatic powers of a rotten pumpkin?
We were owed a Moriarty at this point for G5 to have a longer shelf-life than what we got from its' run as a Post-G4 Sequel Series.

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You extraplate all sorts of weird things from this. There's a key sequence in the film which suggests that CanterLogic is having difficulty constructing the machine:

Sprout: [slurping] Ahhh! Why aren't you finished yet?
Toots: W-We're working as fast as we can, but we've run out of rivets.
Sprout: Rivet-ing story. [laughs, sighs] Just make it work, okay?!

The lack of construction materials would suggest a project of this scale has never been attempted. For the sake of comparison, the Landships took about 18 months to go from first drawings to combat deployment, which would cast doubt on your week theory; military tech like this, even fitted with existing weapons, cannot simply be built that fast.

you think we don't want to see how the group of five managed to escape from the middle of Zephyr Heights

Pipp knew of an escape tunnel. It's plausible the royal family had them built in case they were ever backed into a corner. Westminster has a maze of tunnels underneath it for evacuation purposes.

and how it was a matter of Hours for a despondent Sunny Starscout to just slowly walk back from the outskirts of Bridlewood to reach her Lighthouse that same afternoon.

There's nothing in the script or the visuals to suggest it is the same day. The light level is darker in Bridlewood when Sunny leaves than when she gets home, suggesting a travel time of at least a few days.

to go to all of these places on their own without any sort of map.

without any sort of map.

without any sort of map.

This is why people didn't take you seriously on the Official G5 site; you wilfully ignore evidence presented to us onscreen.

The distance between the towns is arguably so close that it takes The Marestream just around 15 minutes of travel in unfavorable weather conditions to get to all three towns in less than an afternoon

Planes fly very, very fast; most modern airliners cruise at a speed of around 560-600 miles an hour. This is not a useful metric for establishing how far apart things are, especially as we never see what time they depart Maretime Bay and when they get back.

Correct me if I am somehow wrong, Mr. Conductor: But, isn't a Train able to cross more distance in a day than traveling on Horseback, doubly-so for a steam locomotive like what G4 Equestria utilized?

G4 steam locomotives are on the same technological level as 1860s locomotives:

These engines were, in theory, capable of about 40 mph, but in practice usually ran at around 25-30 miles per hour (which is why crossing the United States took about 6 days back then). The fact that Equestria's trains can move people about in what is seemingly the same day (case in point; the train used in The Last Problem sets off the same day as the Coronation and arrives some point around that evening) would suggest these two settlements are reasonably close together. We have no evidence of anypony developing more advanced engines (the fanbase is still at a loss as to how to categorise the Crystal Empire locomotives as in terms of engineering they make very little sense).

All-the-while Sunny Starscout whos' supposed to be the Protagonist of the Series that the show is meant to center around simply starts and ends the Series as nothing more than the "Best Background Pony".

Seriously, dude, have you forgotten Ali-Conned existed? This also applies to your Opaline arguments; your wilful ignorance of onscreen evidence is the reason you became the laughing stock of the G5 group.

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Seriously, dude, have you forgotten Ali-Conned existed?

One single Episode in a series that consists of 23: doesn't justify Sunny being the Protagonist and Hero that we are to look up to most of all in this Series. Especially where most of the time the episodes focus on either Misty Brightdawn going through her Character Arc of becoming her own person that could stand up to Opium, or Zipp Storm going through her internal struggles over being her mothers' successor for ruling over Zephyr Heights and putting in the effort to search for more information into Twilight Sparkles' warning that Sunny Starscout had actively ignored since the very beginning to the point that following the events of Ali-Conned and entering Manesquerade Ball: Opium registered Zipp Storm as someone to really worry about more than Sunny Starscout when she sends Misty to go retrieve information from the Library: the kind of attitude that a Main Antagonist is shown to worry of when his Minion is sent off expecting them to confront The Hero.

Church: And last is the orange one, that's Grif. He's really lazy, and really annoying.
Simmons: Yeah.
Church: But, at least he's smart. In fact I think he might be the smartest one of the bunch.
Simmons: You mean smarter than all of the ones there now.
Church: No I mean all of them put together man.

-Red Vs. Blue, Season 4 Episode 70 "Sneaking In"

Sunny Starscout is a character that had peaked in the Movie as the Main Protagonist of this story, and struggled to remain relevant in her single Limelight Episode where the narrative is meant to focus on her: only for her role in the episode to be completely inconsequential to the overarching narrative of the Series going forward considering that the Compact Opium Adderall tried using on Sunny gets abandoned by Sunny in that Episode and doesn't get brought up again throughout the rest of the Series. And no, Tell Your Tale episodes don't count towards Make Your Mark Episodes, so don't bother trying to use those Disney Bucks at this Caesar's Palace.

"Am I seriously getting nostalgic for the flippin' Death Game?! The heck is wrong with me?! What, can I not be happy unless the whole world rests on my emaciated shoulders? You think you're a big shot?! You think you don't have Asthma?! Well, I got a reality check for you, Nerdo! You're just a Kid who's good at Video Games, and that was useful exactly ONCE! There was only one place on Earth where you had the social leverage to make anyone like you, and it's GONE! They're... gone..."

-Kirito, Sword Art Online Abridged Eisode 17

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MYM is an ensemble show, which means the characters take turns to get the spotlight and do stuff (rather like how episodes of G4 focused on characters other than Twiggles). Here's a full list of episodes in which Sunny is prominent:

Growing Pains: she shares the spotlight with Hitch, with Izzy taking on the B-Plot.
Ali-Conned: already discussed.
Cutie Mark Mixup: again, shares the spotlight with Hitch and triggers the conflict of the story.
Hoof Done It: Sunny is the focus of the episode's B-Plot, with Hitch and Izzy pushed to the background.
Have you Seen this Dragon: Sunny is the one who stops the others from fighting, and pursuades Hitch to drop his Batman impression. The music is also her suggestion.
Winter Wishday: The travel plans are Sunny's idea, and fitting the travel into a single day is also hers; the plot is a result of her desire to see both her friend's traditions and for them to see the Wishing Star.
Bridlewoodstock: Sunny recruits the Dreamlands and is able to convince them to come back together. She's also critical to defeating the Troggles.
Top Remodel: Remodelling the former CanterLogic plant is her idea, and she fields the bulk of the ideas for redoing it.
Sunny Side Up: Sunny and Hitch are the focus of the episode's A-Plot; it's Sunny's speech to the camera which gives Misty the push she needs to change sides.
Manesquerade Ball: Sunny's insistent on the dance she came up with is the primary cause of conflict in the episode's A-Plot.
A Little Horse: Sunny's hunt for the soup forms the episode's B-Plot.
Missing the Mark: Sunny holds off Opaline for long enough for the Cutie Mark Magic to activate, allowing them to temporarily imprison her,
Family Trees: Going to Bridlewood is Sunny's idea, and her butting heads with Zipp over the correct approach to follow forms a core part of the episode's conflict.
Father of the Bridlewood: Sunny and Zipp share the episode's B-Plot, which reveals more lore about the world.
Mane Smelody: Sunny and Zipp share the B-Plot in this episode as well; not only do they unearth more historical lore, they also recover the artefact which proves critical to stopping Opaline. Sunny also plays a key role in getting the A-Plot rolling, as her response to the stinkthistle chemicals kickstart the Mane Smelody challenge.
Nightmare on Mane Street: Sunny's desire to keep Nightmare Night the same way it was when she was young causes the main conflict of the story.
Isle of Scaley: Sunny serves as the primary negotiator with the dragons, and her knowledge of the Imperial Equestrian era is key to convincing Spike to join forces with them.
Roots of All Evil, Part 1: Sunny spends much of the episode acting as primary security for the crystals alongside Misty.
Roots of All Evil, Part 2: Sunny fights Opaline in a delaying action; not only is this important for buying time for the rest of Equestria to rally, the previously mentioned artefact holds Opaline off for long enough for Sparky to activate the tree and trap Opaline.

That works out to 20 of 27 episodes, or about 75%.

Now, in the interest of getting this thread back on topic, what were your thoughts on the other things I had to say?

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Prominent as a Co-Star, not as a Main Lead.

The lack of construction materials would suggest a project of this scale has never been attempted.

To my knowledge, building and maintaining a completely functional Trolley Network seems a lot more complex than building a truck, and due to the presence of the damaged Trolley Car that would become The Marestream: CanterLogic had likely decided to cannibalize a number of their Trolleys for Sprouts' weapons platform which housed the sum total of CanterLogics' barely-functional prototypes.
The fact that this things' construction was indeed fast enough for Sunny to get from Maretime Bay, spend days traveling to Zephyr Heights and Bridlewood before returning to Maretime Bay hours after leaving Bridlewood likely using the same path that Izzy took to go to Maretime Bay indicates enough that all three towns are within daily walking distance from each-other without the need of an established road system that's built for Wagons or Caravans, something that was still likely being built during the time of Winter Wishday: compared to how many cities and towns that were part of Equestria in G4 that to quickly travel from one city to another required an hourly or daily commute on a functioning train network which again is a lot faster than the Ponies just hoofing it. The fact that it takes Zipp and Pipp a few hours to fly from Zephyr Heights to Maretime Bay under their own wing power is also telling of how close their settlements really are: where flying in a straight line without having to worry about navigating around poorly-managed terrain and a lack of actual road systems that had been built at the time of the episode really nails down how small Equestria had shrunk in G5.

It's highly unlikely that Sunny would have still been moping around for a several days-long trip from Bridlewood bsck to Maretime Bay: where it'd have been just as likely for any of the others to try convincing her that there might have been a missing Earth Pony Crystal they didn't think about or that since they could bring the Unicorns and Pegasi together for a talk they could try to convince them to find a way to work together as a Coalition with the Earth Ponies to figure out how to restore Magic again.

And two can play the game: you have yet to answer my question if a more cerebral villain in the same veins as Grand Admiral Thrawn or Salem or Moriarty would have been seen as a more preferable and better recieved Main Antagonist for G5 compared to the Opium Adderall we got.

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As a tram enthusiast, Maretime Bay's streetcar system is strange. It lacks any overhead wires, which suggests either cable haulage (like the San Fransisco system) or third rail power (similar to what London trams used on the Kingsway underpass). The noises the streetcar which was later rebuilt into the Marestream makes are more consistent with electric tramways. Tramways also tend to be government or local authority managed.

Anyway, I question why Sprout would take bits out of streetcars to build Maximus, seeing as the noises it makes are consistent with an internal combustion vehicle. Internal combustion road vehicles usually transmit power to the wheels through gears. Of course, it's possible that Maximus uses petrol electric transmission, but that seems like an unnecessary level of complication; the Ferdinand, a tank destroyer that used this system, was plagued by technical problems.

A recently leaked comic will probably interest you, as it suggests the rail network is being reopened.

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And the reason NetFlix and Hasbro didn't want to make an episode involving Zipp, Izzy, and Phyllis working together to build up the groundwork for a rail line and reinventing a steam locomotive to travel that railway from Maretime Bay to Zephyr Heights, because?

Seriously, if Dr. Stone could make a an entire arc about getting the equipment to create Antibiotics and have it be both amazing and entertaining, than there's no excuse for Hasbro and NetFlix to not do the same.

Do you know why people liked the Villains in G4 over Opium Adderall? Because the villains in G4 didn't spend 99% of their overall screentime just dicking around on their throne in their HQ with the remaining 1% of it doing their plot. Go for a jog, tend to a garden, read a book on strategy, play chess with Misty while talking with her: just do SOMETHING to show that Opium Adderall isn't just some one-dimensional punk who just got insanely lucky in G4 because she only managed to defeat Twilight Sparkle that one time because The Princess of Friendship and the entirety of the Equestrian Continent was experiencing some massive drug-fueled hangover of complete stupidity!

Also, now that I've gotten to a PC: there's a little detail about that Map: not only is none of it to scale, but that there's no topography or elevation map for it to describe what sort of obstacles like gorges, rivers, and ravines Sunny and Izzy might have run into that needed to be walked around when going from Maretime Bay to Zephyr Heights: such as that noticeable canyon leading from Zephyr Heights towards Bridlewood that had a broken stone bridge.

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I suspect technical concerns when it comes to animation: steam locomotives are notoriously difficult to animate as they have hundreds of moving parts.

This is an LMS Black 5, which is a design from the 1930s. The sheer number of moving parts is astounding, which would probably be as much of a drain on GPU as Misty's mane. Interestingly, G4 steam locomotives lack outside cylinders for the same reason:

I did write a story about this topic, though (link is below in case you're interested):

ERailway Adventure: a New Generation

• MLP Gen 5
• Adventure
• Comedy

The classic tale, reimagined for an entirely new era.

• Queen Haven
• Mane 5
• Opaline
• Misty

The Blue EM2 · 23k words  ·  19  5 · 429 views

I'll respond to your comments on the map in a bit; I need to catch a bus now.

Edit: the cartography is severly limited, which is why I was making the point that we don't know the distances.

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This is also consistent with human history; before the coming of the railways, people rarely travelled far from their hometowns.

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(Anachronistic Anachronism)

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A recently leaked comic will probably interest you, as it suggests the rail network is being reopened.

Please show it to me !

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1. Precisely. The USA's town placement is partly based on where the railroads went.

2. The characters are seen taking a train in one of the Kenbucky Roller Derby comics.

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I mean, trains are probably one of, if not the, most efficient mode of land transport? Especially for freight? Assuming that, as per the canon map, Equestria is a vast country that's mostly inland, then before trains transport of goods and ponies would be be limited by navigable rivers, canals (if any), and the real wild card, how much pegasi could haul by air. If we assumed the practical limit for the latter is far short of enough to make good speed with a big, heavy cargo, then trains would offer a practical solution. (Or rather, since trains exist, we can assume they are a practical solution and therefore that pegasi cannot operate at that level on a sufficient scale as to provide for all of Equestria's needs.)

Now as for who introduced them... well, there's a good chance they could be foreign imports, put together by some other race like the minotaurs and adopted by Equestria once the benefits became clear. But if of Equestrian origin, the obvious candidates are earth ponies, of course, for various reasons. That they are most concerned with land transport of goods in the first place (likely having operated vast pony -hauled wagon trains as well as river and canal boats), that they are likely predominant in the mining industry, where steam engines may have been first used to drive pumps, and which would provide the metal used to make trains and tracks, and that having (just my headcanon here) both the largest population, one in which many were not able to afford air travel, and with tight-knit but still often widespread families who would appreciate being able to visit each other more often. The same things give them reason to advocate it's import, of course.

Still, on the other hand, the very fact that many earthponies were involved in the prior transport methods which would be mostly obsoleted would likely lead to a backlash from that sector, perhaps finding common cause in pegasus sky haulers who would foresee a reduction in demand. Many other pegasi would likely not care - affairs of the ground not being their concern - while some might actually see the potential in what would basically giant guidelines to follow while flying. As for the unicorns... well, some might find the crude early locomotives a bit barbarous, but others might see the potential and develop proposals for both scientifically and magically improving both tracks and locomotives - not that all earthponies would welcome such, of course, but those who pulled it off would likely come out ahead in the long run.

Naturally, the opinion of the ruling Princess would be relevant, and it's possible that Celestia's endorsement would greatly smooth matters... but would she give it? At least, I don't think it would have gone anywhere if she had been outright negative about it, but perhaps she considered it a curiosity unlikely to have a major impact... or at least, gave the appearance of doing so. As it is, though, I doubt she's unhappy about the increased interconnectedness of her realm, which was once more like a bunch of realms.

As for when this all took place... well I know the show had the Friendship Express in an old Granny Smith flashback, but personally I prefer it to be a relatively recent change, fitting with Equestria's vaguely old-timey feel. So I would say that while the first experimental rail lines might have come to Equestria by the time Ponyville was settled, it didn't take off in a big way until about half a century before the show, when Bright Mac and Buttercup were young - and even now not everywhere in Equestria is connected, although they're getting close. (Ponyville's own direct rail connection to Canterlot may well have come about during the Mane cast's lifetime.)

As for propulsion methods, steam is predominant - many do produce it with coal (which would have been the norm abroad if trains came from there) but the use of magic or pegasi arts to boil the water is also not uncommon. (There are "hybrids" as well.) As for non-steam propulsion, that's' still mostly experimental, but a lot of futurists have visions full of sleek, smooth, fast trains which run on pure magic and don't even need wheels. That's still mainly the stuff of fiction for now, though, just like speaking telegraphs.

Lastly (for G4) I'll just throw in a word for one of the predominant train providers, the Friendship Express. It's name was picked as part of an ad campaign painting it as a way to meet and bond with strangers on journeys. while it's highly distinct design was (according to official press at least) drawn up by the company owner's foals as their idea of "the coolest train".

As for G5... G5 is hard to worldbuild! (Especially since I haven't seen most of it.) Still, I'll assume Zephyr Heights probably has some kind of metro, and Maretime Bay's train... well, there's really no sense to it, but maybe it goes out to some farmsteads outside the city?

(Speaking of other settings, I'll just add appropos of nothing that one of my semi-original pony settings has a single rail line connceting Ponytown - where everything interesting happens - to Nessce City - where all the things which allow Ponytown to exist in the first-world state it does go on. There's one stop on the way, at a railside inn/restaurant/store which serves as a sort of neutral ground between the two.)

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1) Yes, but what about Equestria ?

2) Can you show that Comic ?
CoffeeCup

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1) Yes, but with Teleporting magic, and the power to have 1/3 to fly over monties
we have to compare it to the steam engine with the Romans

3.1) None ponies, mhm....
While the unicorn could hold the nail with their magic, while the earth-pony uses the hammer

3.2) and the first Equestian Union was made
maybe they had some of the unicorns use " Rarity's Gem" finding spell, to find the Metals

?) Why wouldn't she be happy that Equestian is conected ?
it's easyer to contral a place that is conected that one which tacks a year to from one end to the other side

2) I'm just going to live this video here

Also I have to point out that the Castle-of-the-2-Sisters is where PonyVille will ones be
so... having the first Train-tracks made to conected the Ruling-Pirncesses home, to the Capital....

Ya, but think about if a pegasus can bring a cloud down, kick it to make Lightning
Why wouldn't you used that as power
Look at the Legend of Korra, Lightning Benders are used to make power

Maybe that was the tack Line in the Show-World

... it doesn't seem like it



and you should look at the Map of Maretime Bay again

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As for G5... G5 is hard to worldbuild! (Especially since I haven't seen most of it.) Still, I'll assume Zephyr Heights probably has some kind of metro, and Maretime Bay's train... well, there's really no sense to it, but maybe it goes out to some farmsteads outside the city?

There is precedent for this in the real world; many real life tramways in the United Kingdom also served rural areas, and the United States was dotted with interurban networks which connected multiple towns together. Scranton, PA, still has one; it connects the town centre to Montage, PA.

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I mean, the towns all have to get their food from somewhere, so unseen rural regions must exist... right?

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1) Teleportation is a very rare skill. Flight does open up more options, but if it made trains redundant, they wouldn't have any, and they do, so it mustn't. QED.

Indeed, as I said Celestia would be glad of unifying inventions like the train and telegraph, which have seen "Equestria" become much more of a place rather than a bunch of places she happened to rule over the last century.

The Castle of the Two Sisters was abandoned long, long before trains. No-one is going to run lines into the Everfree.

Electricity from clouds is probably too volatile for small-scale power generation. Perhaps it's used in large power plants.

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Exactly. And as CanterLogic can build what is basically a tank, it's not beyond the realms of possibility that the earth ponies can build combine harvesters or have access to fertiliser.

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it's not beyond the realms of possibility that the earth ponies can build combine harvesters or have access to fertiliser.

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You have fine taste in music.