The check hand-car flew down the southern mainline with the rhythmic, clockwork clatter of oiled bronze gears.
Four trackmen pumped the walking-beam lever with disciplined strokes, their woolen sleeves rolled to the elbow despite the biting December wind. Beside them stood Giles Croft, his pocket watch in his palm, checking the mileposts that whipped past the dark rock shoulder.
Coupled behind the hand-car was a flat timber trailer carrying twenty marksmen of the Grey Crag Frontier Legion, their breech-loading rifles resting across their knees, commanded by Captain Kenneth Drake.
On the front platform, Maeve Swift-Ear crouched with her brass curved sound-cone clamped to her ear. Her vulpine tail was tucked tightly around her boots.
“Rhythm is twenty-six strokes per minute,” Giles noted to Toby Karr, who stood beside him holding a portable Wheatstone bridge testing set.
“Speed is eighteen miles per hour. We’ll reach Milepost Eighteen in eleven minutes.”
Toby adjusted the balance bridge’s brass pushback dials.
“Line pushback reading was thirty-one point two ohms before the current cut off, Lord Giles. How does that tell us where the break is?”
