Operation Manifest Destiny Ruminations

[Targan]

Originally Posted by Abbott Shaull

As for the need to secure land routes, this is easier said than done. It takes nothing to sever a rail line or to set up road block. Let's face it, there are too few rivers that can support commercial traffic too. You could use ultralights/airships with the rail lines too, where they ultralights scout to make sure their nothing going on with the rail line ahead of the train. Airships could be used to transport any force or engineers/labors to handle problems...

I like this part. It would be very easy to make an unpowered light rail cart (like a trolley) from which an ultralight could take off, rolling along the track until the ultralight lifts away. You wouldn't even need to modify the landing gear. All you'd need to do would be to make sure that you had a suitable site to land the ultralight near the stopped train after it had completed a recon flight.