On the morning of September 26, outside Iowa Town's eastern gate, a large crowd of townspeople gathered outside Night-Kirin City's first rail station, eagerly awaiting the departure of its first train.
From the town to the river dock several kilometers away, there had originally been only a stone-paved road nearly ten meters wide. This road had once been Iowa's sole eastern passage and the greatest bottleneck restricting the flow of goods in and out.
But now, alongside the stone road, two one-meter-wide Rails ran parallel to one another, linking Iowa with the dock's warehouse district.
For this rail line, stations had been specially built at both ends, gantry cranes and Steam Boiler houses installed, and a whole series of signaling devices established.
Under the gaze of countless residents, a train made up of ten Carriage Bodies and pulled by eight Draft Horses entered the station. That was right—the territory's first train ran on draft-horse power.
The first Carriage Body was the driver's cab, where the groom stayed. The second and third were passenger carriages, followed by three bulk cargo carriages and four container carriages.
Since every Carriage Body had been inscribed with weight-reduction magic patterns, the eight Draft Horses were brimming with strength and could travel five to ten kilometers per hour.
After the train pulled into the station, Landen, Lannia, Petreus Lanyuan, and the others stepped down from the passenger carriage. Amid the crowd's applause, they announced the official opening of Gallop Plains' first passenger-and-freight railway, then invited the passengers aboard.
Before the official departure, Landen even moonlighted as the platform signalman, waving a small green flag to have the groom in the driver's cab urge the vehicle forward.
Watching the train gradually recede into the distance, Petreus could not help asking, "My lord, I don't think this train