Rail Stations

Rail stations are the public face of the Grand Rail Line: the places where the network touches daily life. Every station on the line is built to a common pattern, so that a traveler stepping onto any platform in The Forgelands knows immediately where the freight siding is, where the waiting hall is, and where the map board stands.

The Standard Pattern

The pattern has four fixed elements. A brick station house with a copper roof, supplied by the Brickworks Empire and blessed — formally, in writing, on copper sheet — by the Copperlings. A covered passenger platform on the mainline. A freight siding with direct chest-cart access, kept physically separate from the passenger side. And a map board showing the full network with the current station marked, because infrastructure that does not tell you where you are is only half built.

Stations scale by class. Halts are the minimum pattern at its smallest. District stations add a second platform and a stationmaster's office. The terminus class — currently planned only for Savanna Villa — adds the full freight yard and the network's master clock.

Planned Stations

Confirmed for phase one: Savanna Villa (terminus class, footprint laid on the eastern terrace) and MacGruder Homestead (halt, surveyed). Confirmed for later phases: Spruce Logging Camp (freight-priority district station at the collection pond), Tortuga Foundry (freight-priority), and a destination station reserved for the Museum of Biomes.

Field Notes

Roric MacGruder has asked twice whether the homestead halt will need someone to run it. The Archives have begun drafting the stationmaster's log book in quiet anticipation.