Roman railroads?

Tom Kalbfus

Banned
It's crazy, yes.
1. There is no way from the Hero's toy to the steam engine capable to move locomotives.
2. One need not only metal, but precision metal-working technology too, to build the steam engine. While the ancients could make very fine things from metals (but it was most commonly silver or gold, not iron), they couldn't make each of them precisely the same as previous one. The steam engine is built using many different but compatible parts, and for repair it needs exact copies of the parts used building it.
3. Metal was very expensive at the Roman age, and it means not only the high price for the engines and locomotives (and also rails - however, you propose to make them from wood), but also necessity to fight against thieves, who would steal high-quality iron blocks whenever machine team would leave their car.
4. Machinist's job requires high level of training and demands high wages (at least in OTL), so using the slaves would be very doubtful. At the same time free poor Romans weren't very willing to work for wages at all.
Some Roman slaves were very skilled, many of them were used as tutors to teach Roman children. A Roman slave usually became that way because there were captured in battle, Greek slaves were often very skilled, this isn't the Antebellum American South where literacy among slaves was against the law.
 
Quite apart from the problem of propulsive power, there is the issue of rails. As Carlton said, wooden rails wear out incredibly quickly, and metal rails are beyond the capabilities of the Romans. Stone rails are a possibility, but they present another problem - that of friction.
Like i said before, metal strips on wooden rails.
 
Some Roman slaves were very skilled, many of them were used as tutors to teach Roman children. A Roman slave usually became that way because there were captured in battle, Greek slaves were often very skilled, this isn't the Antebellum American South where literacy among slaves was against the law.

As a matter of fact, with the Roman conquest of Greece and Asia Minor, large numbers of penniless but talented and educated Greeks willingly sold themselves into slavery in order to become tutors and domestic servants in the houses of aristocratic Romans. One should also further distinguish between the mine and latifundia slaves, who were expected to last a few months at most, and the domestic slaves, who often manumitted and had the prospects of becoming quite wealthy as freedmen.
 
One should also further distinguish between the mine and latifundia slaves, who were expected to last a few months at most, and the domestic slaves, who often manumitted and had the prospects of becoming quite wealthy as freedmen.
Are you joking? Latifundia slaves lasting a few months at most (and, probably, a few weeks at least)?
 
Some Roman slaves were very skilled, many of them were used as tutors to teach Roman children. A Roman slave usually became that way because there were captured in battle, Greek slaves were often very skilled, this isn't the Antebellum American South where literacy among slaves was against the law.
Yes, but there was no way to capture ready locomotive teams in battle. The Roman railroad owners would need to train the machinists first, and to allow them great freedom of action afterwards (it'd impossible to send an overseer with each train, when the trains became sufficiently numerous). To teach a man to write, to reckon, to operate sophisticated machinery, to decide on his own what to do in risky situations (e.g., track before the train destroyed by rain) - and then to expect obedience from such a man?
 
Sorry, but no. Wood-and-iron rails tend to warp and are more likely to cause a derailment.
Sorry, but yes. That's how some of the first railroads were built, and they built them that way because that's how many horse railways were built. May not work for more advanced trains, but we're not talking more advanced trains. The first railroad in Delaware (one of the first in the nation), the New Castle and Frenchtown Railroad, had wood and iron rails on stone pillars, no ties.

Some sites with info on strap-iron rails:
Railroad History Story: Strap Rail of the Southern Railroad
Past Tracks: A Queen City Built by Rail - Chapter Five
Railroad Infrastructure, The Backbone Of How Trains Operate

Perusal of those sites tell me two interesting things. One that you're right that such rails are dangerous. Two, that you're wrong that they're unusable because they were in service through the 1840s and in some places into the '50s.
 
Yes, but there was no way to capture ready locomotive teams in battle. The Roman railroad owners would need to train the machinists first, and to allow them great freedom of action afterwards (it'd impossible to send an overseer with each train, when the trains became sufficiently numerous). To teach a man to write, to reckon, to operate sophisticated machinery, to decide on his own what to do in risky situations (e.g., track before the train destroyed by rain) - and then to expect obedience from such a man?

Of exactly such a man could you expect ovbedience. That was a feature of Roman slavery. A Roman artisan without a son to pass his business on to would rather train a slae to assist him than a free man, because the slave could be trusted to stay with him, be freed later and then support him in his old age whereas a free citizen might just walk away and become a competitor. In many lines of business, the best way to receive training was to be a slave. Roman law makes provision fore the legal implications of slaves acting as opverseers, estate managers, ship captains, supercargos, architects and authorised signatories in banking, and we have records of slave engineers, prison wardens, mine managers and high-level government secretaries and messnegers as well as physicians, teachers and accountants. This is not like early modern chattel slavery. A Roman slave had a career path (if he was lucky), and one who did thought himself world above the chattel slave in the mine or vineyard.

Here, the system would be fairly clear: 'The railroad' owns the slaves (either as an extension of the government, the imperial private property, a municipal property, or as a private estate jointly held through a collegium). Promising ones are born in-house or purchased young and put to work. Those who are able get training to become accountants, artificers and engineers, with the established ones doing the picking. Once you are inducted into one of these groups, you join their collegium and can start saving (yes, you get pay). Or maybe you have an automatic manumission either with a certain promotion or after a certain number of years. Then you get to continue working as a freedman, for better pay, or hire out to others as a railroad consultant. Any children born while a slave will, of course, remain slaves unless you buzy their freedom, but they're working on the railroad, so it's all good.

A lot of the big public works complexes and aristocratic househiolds of the Roman world ticked like that. It was a real advancement for a slave to be purchased into a system like that. Running a railroad will not be a problem for the romans. Building one will be.
 

Tom Kalbfus

Banned
Yes, but there was no way to capture ready locomotive teams in battle. The Roman railroad owners would need to train the machinists first, and to allow them great freedom of action afterwards (it'd impossible to send an overseer with each train, when the trains became sufficiently numerous). To teach a man to write, to reckon, to operate sophisticated machinery, to decide on his own what to do in risky situations (e.g., track before the train destroyed by rain) - and then to expect obedience from such a man?
They did it in the Army, ever hear of the Draft?
 
Perhaps we could draw up a model timeline where there is a minor POD relating to Hero's steam engine which results in the last remaining Roman formations scalding the invading barbarians so badly that the West is saved and we all get to live in blessed utopia.

Then, with the magic of technology transfer, the Eastern Romans later defeat the Arab Invasion by a cunning combination of Greek Fire and hand-held scalding weapons.

This would of course butterfly away the start of WW2 till the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbour in 1943
 
How about elephants? Would it have made any sense to use Indian (domesticated) elephants to haul trains of cargo or people on railways? Could elephants haul more that way than on their backs? Would the investment in infrastructure be worth it?
 
Did Romans use Asian elephants? I think the problem with elephants is it took too long for one to grow up. Asian elephants used for drafting are all captured from the wild. Also the advantage of the railroad is the low friction involved. A horse drawn wagoncart doesn't take much energy to keep going once it gets up to speed. The horse only has to pull it now and then to keep it going. So there's a probably a minimal efficient speed. Don't know if elephants are fast enough.

SHOP-O-RAMA%20ELEPHANT%20TRAIN%20BIG.jpg
 
Perusal of those sites tell me two interesting things. One that you're right that such rails are dangerous. Two, that you're wrong that they're unusable because they were in service through the 1840s and in some places into the '50s.

I am well aware that they were used in the early days of railroading, but the reason they were used was because metallurgy couldn't produce iron rails of sufficient tensile strenght to support the weight of the train without snapping. The Romans may very well try to go this route because its within their techonological capacity. The Romans were known for producing skilled engineers, however, and it won't take too long for the Romans to realize the drawbacks and start looking for an alternate trackage solution.
 
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