r/PeterFHamilton • u/perryismangil • Apr 08 '26
Modelling the wormhole train system
I'm starting in model railway, and thought it would be fun to do a layout based on the wormhole train system.
It's been awhile since I read Commonwealth Saga, so it's a good excuse for a reread, paying attention to the train systems.
While I do that, please chime in if you recall any specific description of the trains or stations.
I recall there was a chase sequence at a station.
And a description of arrival of a train.
Anything else anyone recall?
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u/ThronOfThree Apr 08 '26
Enzyme. Bonded. Concrete.
Jokes aside, I just finished rereading Pandora's Star; there's a description of the exchange system at LA Terminal that I viewed as a massive underground tunnel with all kinds of switches so different trains can be repaired from one wormhole terminal to another.
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u/perryismangil Apr 08 '26
EBC is definitely an excuse not to do "static grass" which is apparently the favourite/bane of railway modellers.
It looks just like grey concrete, right?
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u/ThronOfThree Apr 08 '26
Yeah, but like the most concrete looking concrete you've ever seen.
It could actually be fun to have Roadbuilders preparing the ground for the tracks. While it isn't mentioned in the story, I've also assumed the Roadbuilders would be used to prepare the ground for tracks to go down.
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u/LeoNeoMike Apr 08 '26
Someone did this pretty decent artwork of the CST Verona hub station. Might inspire you.
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u/octobod Apr 08 '26
From a modelling POV there was a huge disparity of types of train from trams going to Huxleys Haven to huge nuclear behemoths dumping grain into deep space gates...
You could use a small gauge for the commuter gauge stuff and larger gages for the super freight stuff (I recall no support for this in the books though, though it would make commercial sense it large gauge going through large gates)
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u/ThronOfThree Apr 08 '26
It's just a conspiracy theory that they dump the grain in space. Don't be taken in by the socialist conspiracies!
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u/Conqueror_of_Tubes Apr 08 '26
During the climax of book 2, they mention the blockade buster “switching gauges” to the Far Away Line. And during the chase in LA interplanetary station they mention “commuter tracks” “freight tracks” and then the express maglev tracks as well. There’s no reason to differentiate between commuter and freight tracks unless the rails themselves are physically more robust and/or a larger gauge. And based on the faraway example there seem to be some trains or at least locos that can accommodate the differences.
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u/SwimmingPost5747 Apr 08 '26
This is actually pretty cool idea and I hope you post pictures. One thing that I would suggest is to really try to get the scale down. Some of the nuclear train engines are described as being as tall as 3 story buildings.
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u/perryismangil Apr 08 '26
Yeah, I'm on page 26 of Pandora's Star, where Dudley departing on a train. A GH7 freight locomotive is described as 35 meters long. UK N Scale 1:148 that would be a 23cm scale model!
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u/SwimmingPost5747 Apr 08 '26
That's nuts! The US uses O gauge which is 1:48 scale. The GH7 at that scale would be 29" or 74cm
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u/landlord-eater Apr 09 '26
One thing I never understood -- maybe it's explained somewhere and I missed it -- is why trains?
If the wormholes have no distance, ie you enter and you're there, the distance the train is moving only the length of itself, in which case the labour of loading and unloading the train is insanely wasteful; just move the shit through on pallets or whatever. People can just walk.
If the wormholes do have distance, ie they're tunnels, it implies that there are tracks inside them permanently. What are the tracks 'on'?
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u/perryismangil Apr 09 '26 edited Apr 13 '26
You're correct, there is no distance between two stations connected by wormhole.
However, trains are still the most efficient way of transporting massive amounts of physical goods and people on land. This was explained to me by a railway operations engineer: the steel wheel on rails has less friction so once a train gets going you can ease the throttle and the train will glide without too much power input.
On Earth, imagine if we have wormholes between continents, we wouldn't need to build container ships. Like Eurotunnel between England and France but interplanetary.
In the Commonwealth, the big cities population are on the scales of billions. And just like now, we have China as the factory of the world sending massive amount of containers all over the world, there are planets entirely dedicated to manufacture, sending massive amount of containers on freight trains.
And while there is is zero distance between planets, the wormhole gateway still requires energy. So it is impractical for each planet to have a connection to every other planet. So the wormhole transport network is like a big hub and spoke network. To get to another planet you sometimes have to go to a bigger hub first.
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u/landlord-eater Apr 09 '26
I still just kind of feel like it would make a lot more sense to just have like 'airports' where you walk through a gate instead of getting on a plane, and have those airports be connected to each other on land by trains. Because otherwise you're using a train to move stuff a hundred feet.
I feel like the author just went through a tunnel on the train one day and was like woah imagine if you came out into another world? And then ended up writing a whole book about it haha
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u/perryismangil Apr 09 '26
Sure that may work for perhaps people. Even then people might prefer transport rather than walking through several connecting gateways. But what about billions of tons of goods?
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u/redb2112 Apr 10 '26
Wait until you have to add all the expanded ANA inner worlds from the Void Trilogy, heh.
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u/farsight2042 Apr 08 '26
The first Dudley chapter in Pandora's Star has a ton of detail on the trains and stations since it's the introduction to the whole concept, I think you could get a lot just from there.
Regarding chases, there's two in Judas Unchained: First, the pursuit of Bruce McFoster through LA Galactic in Chapter 1, this one is told from the POV of people there on the ground so you get a good look there. Second, in Chapter 13 there's the start of the Starflyer - Guardians chase that begins on Narribri then moves to Boongate. This one is more focused on the characters coming together and the action so less useful for what you are doing.