Transportation in Sasainn

Ancient Wagonways
The first 'railways' in Sassain were stone track ways for horse drawn wagons. The system became quite sophisticated and on the busy routes around Nummenor and in the productive northern coast the stone tracks were replaced with iron rails with steel wheeled wagons. The track between Nummenor and Vladimir Bay was the most impressive of the horse drawn trackways. Ten short carriages were pulled by upto 12 specially bred horses. These horses could average 12 mph leading to travel times of around 16 hours including stops and horse changes. Usually split into two stints as travel at night was considered dangerous for passenger trains. Each train had a brake van at the rear which ensured the train would not run into the horses when travelling downhill. On particularly steep down sections the horses would be tied to the rear of the train and run behind. Each train needed 5 staff to drive and operate. Although the savings in time were only approximately 50%, the massive increased efficiency of this method when compared to individual carriages was huge; 12 horses could pull as much as 50 if they had gone by traditional carriage.

Engineering in the horse drawn era
The Caladras mountains proved a significant barrier, but as the two largest cities Nummenor and Abhean were separated by them this was a top priority. Well paved and engineered roads had existed over Esua Pass for many years but despite the cost a horse drawn waggon way was planned. The crossing was an engineering feat and remains one of the seven wonders of Sassain. An impressive route of switchbacks and loops curled its way up the each face to a point where waggons were transferred onto a chain pulled railway which dragged the carriages up the steep sections to the summit of the pass where they could use gravity to descend the other side. The alignments of the ascent and descent paths were quite different. Eventually the descent on the chain railways was replaced by a gravity line. The engineering was so impressive that on the western side, from the summit, trains travelled for 20 miles without any assistance but gravity.

The technology employed was basic and a number of accidents occurred. The worst of which included the 'Feburary chain disaster' where a broken chain cost the lives of 62 people and 2 horses.

The modern era
By the beginning of the modern era, the network included a western coast network line from Vladimir Bay all the way to Moldavi via , Nummenor and Partick, on the east coast from Trotsky to Vladimir Bay via Abhean, and across from Abhean to Nummenor. In the north a line ran from Vladimir west to Beira.

By the beginning of the steam era the waggon ways had become an industry in their own right. Several different breeds of horse existed each tailored to their own job and terrain. The fastest were the 'Blacks' which could canter for hours at a time, the 'Esua ponies' were bred especially for the long hill climbs up passes and in mountains and the 'Peona' were bred for slow but heavy freight trains.

Ironically, steam traction took a while to become established as the entire infrastructure was built for horses and the nationally owned railways were averse to risk and concerned about their employees striking. Steam was introduced between Nummenor and Vladimir Bay and was a predictable success.

At the beginning of the modern era the mainlines were electrified and during the great jump the entire west and east coast lines, northern mainline and Esua pass lines were re-aligned and made much faster, the old lines were retained for freight and local journeys. The Esua pass is now said to now resembles a river of spaghetti's, as the numerous old alignments, original horse waggon, gravity lines, steam lines, modern highspeed line, roads and modern highway criss cross and meander across the pass.