History of the Trolleys and Railways of the Planet Mars

Midnight on the Martian Plains

All aboard for Issue 8 of RailNutterNews! Our current feature, by inter-planetary rail adventurer Boaz Lev, takes us to the Lowell Line of the Intra-Mars Dome Railways (IMD) along with a history of rail and Trolley service on the Planet Mars and the Moons of Jupiter, as well as rail carriage and engine manufacturing in the Outer Solar System.

Positron Robotic Nul-Force Engine

Intra-MarsDome and Jupiter Moons System Railroad (IMD & JMS RR)
By Boaz Lev

Arriving at the Mars Interplanetary Spaceport in the morning local time, I cleared Martian Customs in the early evening and was able to see the sunset riding the Lowell Line of the Intra-MarsDome Railway to HarmonyDome.

IMD Lowell Line with Phantom airlock car

The Lowell Line consists of 34 Hyperion class airtight interlinked carriages, 3 Phantom airlock carriages, and a Positron Robotic Nul-Force Engine in IMD animated colors. Utilizing standard Antigrav T7 modulators with factory installed modification for Mars Gravity, the entire line is trackless-enabled via the OutBack undercarriage addition of RailLessRII induction manifolds. Although the latter adds considerable weight, even in Mars gravity, the mass vs propulsion variable hardly affects the Nul-Force engine’s ability to accelerate the train at an average speed of 345 KPH over most terrain.

Hyperion Airtight carriage

Cognoscenti of the Outer System railroads will, of course, recognize the old Hyperion and Phantom passenger carriages as having belonged to the JMS (Jupiter Moon Systems) railroad’s original rolling stock prior to the merger with IMD after the Moon Wars. In the interest of promoting nostalgia oriented tourism, in fact, IMD now employs the same Charonian stewards and conductors on the Lowell Line, who had been the hallmark of fine service on the moon railways in the old days.

The Hyperion cars have meticulously restored genuine antique Ganymede-works green marbleized plastic wainscoting throughout their luxurious interiors. All the restoration was done, after transshipment from the outer system, at the refurbished Glenn Carbarns outside GagarinDome near the Martin Arctic. Even the re-breather apparatus’, at either end of each car, are in original bronze coloured sconces (although recalibrated for Martian conditions) thus lending an air of old time Outer System elegance.

Phantom Airlock Carriage

The Lowell Line makes 14 stops between the SpaceDrome and HarmonyDome. Eight stops still require the use of the AirLock doors on the Phatom cars at small Kibbutz hydroponics microdomes that are unable to afford the air loss of an full interior railway shed entrance. (The airlock doors are required for emergency rescue as well; a fact which the outposts count on for continued regular rail service.) Once entering the suburban domes surrounding HarmonyDome, the line runs entirely on an interior right of way in the interconnecting tubes between the domes. Thirty kilometers outside of HarmonyDome the line runs underground until its arrival at UnionPen Station. The station has 130 platforms serving 547 commuter and intra-dome rail lines. There are extensive railyards below the station in the old interconnected caverns that formed the original settlement nearly 400 years ago. It is possible, with a bit of advance vidcoming, to arrange a visit to the small rail museum containing the old atomic generator that powered the original electric trolleys of the early days on Mars. The HarmonyDome Rail Museum can be ‘commed at V-Blue-YF1-999subAG.mu (interplanetary access P, Mars access 04, HarmonyDome: A33).

HarmonyDomeStation

History of the Intra-MarsDome Railways:

In the early days of Mars colonization, some 500 years ago, there was practically no manufacturing on the planet and everything had to be transshipped from mother Earth at enormous expense for mass and size.

With domes springing up thousands of kilometers from each other, some safe reliable means of ground transportation had to be developed beyond the limited range and reliability of battery powered rovers. According to archaic disc records in the Sheppard University archives, there was even an early scheme to use dome-goats to pull light rail trolley cars. The idea was that the rebreather equipped animals’ droppings would contribute to the centuries-long process of fertilization and planetary atmospheric change. This impractical scheme was never carried out; however, it demonstrates the characteristic peculiar ingenuity of the early Martian Pioneers. Eventually a private entrepreneur, the now legendary Baroness Lilach Zill, created an independent trolley line following her release from political imprisonment in the Asteroid Farms. Convincing a group of investors to finance the salvage of an atomic generator from an abandoned orbiting Bulgarian observation station, she began what was to become a transit empire spanning nearly one hemisphere of Mars.

Original Robo-Canister Trolley

The first, so called, trolley carriages were simply scavenged robo-shipment canisters, windowless, and so unreliably airtight that passengers wore their own re-breathers throughout the cramped torturous journeys.

The Baroness overcame safety requirements, with her notorious cleverness, by hiring Andean Sherpa émigrés as drivers. Those sherpas sat, with their own rebreathers, atop the transit canisters much like old wild west American stage coach drivers.

As CottageDome manufacturing began, the original canisters were at first refurbished with widowports and seats. Later actual airtight trolley cars were built at the Baroness’ own Zill-works in NewLisbon Dome where the gigantic Positron Robotic Nul-Force Engines are now made.