Engineer: this would be so much easier if we could somehow push the car on a parallel track. Maybe if we got a stick or a pole or something we could-- Conductor: No poling! last time I tried to do poling I spent weeks pulling splinters out of my body. Engineer: Ok ok. No poling.
(please excuse the crudity of this model i didn't have time to build it to scale or to paint it.)
Poling is the practice of shunting cars on parallel tracks using a wooden pole to push the car. The practice was eventually banned because when too much force is applied the pole can EXPLODE!
Gymnomi Slimes would survive being impaled by broken poles or the shrapnel thereof, so the practice isn't banned on Gymnome, but it can still be a pain in the slutt (slime butt) if it goes wrong.
All this to say, while Century of Steam is going to have poling, Train Misconductor will not.
