Here We Go

King Edward's royal signature could authorize surveys across Crown land, establish a national common carrier, and create a statutory framework for right-of-way acquisitions.

It could not flatten hills. It could not move rivers. It could not make a steam locomotive climb a three-percent incline simply because Parliament had approved the route.

Less than a week after the Charter received the Royal Seal, Ernest stood inside a temporary railway planning office on the northern edge of Helmarte.

Spread across the drafting table was a map far less grand than the one shown at the palace. It bore no bold, confident strokes connecting major cities. Instead, six enlarged topographical sheets covered the table, dense with contour lines, marshlands, rock outcrops, property boundaries, and handwritten elevations compiled from decades of Royal Survey Office records.