Rail transport in Edury

The railway system in Edury is the oldest network in the world, the first public railway line being opened between Eduvesting and Scudipilus in 1824. The track, rolling stock, and infrastructure are owned and operated by National Rail, the state-owned operating body. In 2018, National Rail's annual report announced that there were 20,000 (change later) Km of track in Edury, most of which was operated by National Rail, with city, provincial, and heritage railways operating local services. 10,000 Km of lines outside of city metro systems have been electrified.

In 2017, there were 1.9 billion rail journeys on the network, placing it in the top 5 most used networks in the world. Rail traffic has been either the first or second most popular form of transit in Edury since the early 20th or late 19th century. Lines between major urban centers are a given, and smaller commuter lines stretch out from the urban centers, so that on average, Eduran residents are a 5 minute drive or a 20 minute walk from the nearest train station. Part of this is due to the rise of suburbs as the result of train stations being built on new lines in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Because of this, most passenger transport from city-to-city, or suburb-to-city is done on railways, with automobile, regional plane, and river transport following, in descending order. Most journeys inside cities or urban environments use either public heavy or light rail traffic, bikes, buses, river taxi/bus, and automobile, in that order.

Due to laws being passed in the 1920's, trucks over a certain axle-weight were banned from operation on Eduran roads and highways. As such, most long-distance freight traffic in Edury is done by train, with lorries and smaller trucks delivering freight locally from depots and stations. Freight rolling-stock, logistics, and operation is handled by National Freight Transport, a subsidiary of the publicly owned National Rail.

Edury is a member of the Train and Railway Alliance for Management of Passengers, which exists.

After the invention of the steam locomotive in 1802, and the first public rail line opening in 1824, there was a period of explosive railway development in Edury, slowing down into the 1880's, followed by nationalization after the first Great War.

Historic Overview
Railways have existed in Alutra since medieval times, then being tracks along which carts were drawn. The earliest had wooden tracks, with either people or horses pulling mine-carts to and from mines. Some would be upgraded into so-called "plateways", where L-shapped iron plates were places along the ground, and along which carts would be held captive.

In the midst of the Revolution of 1799, which began in 1801, Hubert Fanrsworth began experimentation on using a steam engine to haul carts from the Heubeartston Mine to the canal, one and a half kilometers away. Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in Ordrey, merchants in Edury had been jealous and vied for a steam engine of their own. In 1796, a low-pressure steam pump was installed at the Stanshur Coal Mine; however, with the collapse of that mine in 1798 being a cause for the Revolution, many were unsuccessful. Following the development of high-pressure steam boilers small enough to be mobile, Farnsworth built a locomotive for the Heubeartston mine, although it is not known if it ever ran. In 1804, he was commissioned to build another such locomotive, for the Treshire Mine Co. in Tredlingfast. However, with the closure of that mine halfway through the construction of the rail-line, he instead sold tickets to locals to ride in mine-carts up and down the line for a small fee, simply to demonstrate the concept of a steam-powered railway. In the ensuing decade, a handful of mine-locomotives would be designed and built.

In 1824, the first public railway would open with the Lechtonshire Railway, which was at first designed to haul spoil to a riverdock to be used as ballast for ships. However, it soon started hauling passengers along its path from the docks, through the city and countryside, to the mine. Later, in 1827, the first inter-city public passenger railway would be built from Eduvesting to Harlthorp, by the Eduvesting-Harlthorp Trackwagonging. Soon after, a Railway mania would begin in Edury, with companies springing up connecting cities and towns all across Edury. Most of these would either fail or be amalgamated into a larger company, culminating with the so-called "Big Five" railway companies dividing the country up.

The period of dominance of the Big Five would last from 1867 to 1921. From this time period, the railway companies expanded their network by buying out smaller competition. Railway companies typically developed early on by being a single line connecting two towns. The Big Five started primarily as rail lines connecting big cities or industrial centers with other, less prominent, cities in the vicinity which had populations that were looking for labor, or had some raw material needed in the main town, or both. Godenhaven had two of the Big Five railways; the Godenhaven-Themberchard Ironway (GRI) connecting the important port city to the town of Themberchard, a steel city.

Nationalization
Following the Great War, the new Lord-Magistrate and his Cabinet decided that it would make more sense for the government to keep control of the railways, so they did

In 1920-ish, the National Railways Board was formed from the wartime Trains Department. The NRB took control of the infrastructure, and then bought the rolling stock of the five railway companies. By 1929, the five companies were dissolved, and the government took full control of all passenger and freight traffic in the country, save for city-operated metro lines. This control continues today, despite several frantic and futile calls for cuts and privatization, most famously by National Neoconseritive leader Maigret Thatchedroof, and the Prof. Beaches.

Passenger services
In Edury, the body responsible for the management of passenger service is the National Rail Passenger Committee.

High-speed
There are two high-speed lines, linking the biggest cities in Edury, each on one side of the Edu river. The two lines originate from the very south of the country, in City, and diverge from there. A third line, linking the two most populous northern cities, is in development.

Stations
There are 406 passenger stations on the main National Rail network, with more on smaller commuter and provincial networks. Soup. Stations developed in the mid-1800s to what would become a typical design, having a platform for combined passenger and freight, a building housing the ticket-booth, an interior waiting room, and sometimes a small cafe or restaurant. Many stations built in the countryside between 1840-1880 often have a small apartment upstairs for the station master. Very small stations in very rural areas are often just a single platform, with no buildings; aside from union stations in very large cities, no new station-buildings have been built since 1978. A campaign to restore some old station buildings, and re-build where ones used to be, has existed since that time. Since 1978, ticket sales has moved onto the trains themselves, and since 2009, almost entirely online. Since 2010, tickets have been for a set amount of time, rather than from station-to-station, and due to subsidies and public ownership, very cheap. A campaign to abolish ticket sales altogether has been a part of the Labor-Progressive and Blue-Green-Gold party manifestos for some time.

Freight
Freight in Edury is handled by the Whatever It Was I Typed Up There, a subsidiary of the National Rail system jointly operated by the public, the railway workers union, and some private investors. Since the rise of automobiles and road traffic, trucks over 3 tonnes of axle weight have been forbidden from the road, as they are a nuisance and dangerous. As such, most long-distance freight traffic happens on the railways.

Signaling
The first railway to use signals was the Eeby Deeby Railway, which had a pole surmounted by a red wooden board. If the board was tuned to show to the engineer, then it was a "danger" signal, and if turned to be parallel with the railway, was considered "all clear". Signals were the first aspect of the railways to be regulated by the central federal government, making mandatory the, in 1842. Before this, crashes due to bad signaling were common. In order to alleviate the confusion and delay common to the fractured and growing network, in 1870 the government created the Signaling and Schedualing board, which managed the signaling of the country and coordinated timetables between the major companies.