Breaking Ground Part 1

The Belfast National Railway did not begin with a locomotive. It did not begin with steel rails, polished passenger coaches, or a grand station filled with cheering crowds.

It began with mud.

At five-thirty in the morning, the northern edge of Helmarte looked less like the birthplace of a national railway and more like the staging ground for an invading army. Hundreds of supply wagons occupied the open fields beyond the city limits. Horses stamped impatiently against the cold earth while teamsters tightened harnesses and checked wheel hubs. Portable steam engines sat beneath canvas covers, their boilers already being warmed by crews carrying coal baskets. Stone crushers, pile drivers, pumps, timber carts, mobile forges, and mechanical excavators waited in organized rows.