Two Years Later

Two years changed Belfast more than the previous twenty.

The muddy construction corridor that had once stretched north from Helmarte was gone. The survey stakes were gone. The temporary camps were disappearing, and the endless lines of horse-drawn wagons carrying timber, stone, tools, food, and steel had thinned to a trickle.

In their place ran two parallel ribbons of steel.

They began at the newly constructed Helmarte Central Station, crossed the northern districts of the capital, passed through agricultural plains, climbed through carefully graded valleys, spanned rivers on massive stone-and-steel bridges, and continued into the industrial heartland of northern Belfast.

Two hundred forty-seven point eight kilometers. The Northern Line was complete. Not open for revenue traffic—not yet—but physically finished.