Trains?

[Carn]

a train that lays its own tracks may as well be a car

[Indreams]

Well, it'd be more of a tank.

And there is a reason why we still have trains in the year 2015. They are the next best thing to waterships when it comes to transporting hundred container-full of materials.
Airships aren't quite efficient in that they can't pull a hundred cart full of materials across the air. Trains can.


And its true trains can't fight too well. In wars, their purpose was mostly to transport supplies and troops from population centers to front lines. But Trains were also a way to get those massive guns on warships deployed on land. Train artillery could be massive and mobile thanks to the nature of tracks.


And trains are like the beginning of Steampunk. I can't imagine GOIO's world being without them.

[Carn]

ineed, if trains were used offensively, they'd be more suited to siege artillery   

[Indreams]

Or a heavy defense.

If I were to set up a steampunk city defense,

I'd have a thick wall around the city. On the wall would be track. On the track would be a war train, two engines on either side, with heavy, heavy armaments. The train would be a mobile turret. City guards would be able to reposition themselves with the help from the train.

If the city was to rebel, the train would sit at top of a gate, and crush any attempts to escape the massacre coerce the populous to an agreement.

[Carn]

thats a bit over complicated, just pour boiling pitch on them from the murder holes in the gates

[Indreams]

We aren't just talking about infantry. Airships, Landships, Artillery, all that. You need a war train to fight that.

And if I was managing a mine, small war trains on mine cart tracks. If we get raided, pow-pow-pow. If miners go on a strike pow-pow-pow coerce them into a negotiation.

[Carn]

bah, you let them unionize?

[PixelatedVolume]

Trains could make pretty good AA emplacements for industrial areas which already have lots of tracks.  just need to stick an hflak on your boxcar, all set.