#puffing tom

One Piece — "Existing is not a crime!!!"

Main: Tom

Tom-san, from OP

1.) Thank you so very much, Anon. 

2.) As a Sea Train, Puffing Tom is. Weird. Okay? Its weird. I too, stared at it for ages wondering how in the hell it worked.

I think I have an answer?

I’m gonna start with the rails first cause that’s the easiest part of this question.

I’m pretty sure that the rails the Puffing Tom travels on are semi-anchored to the seabed. I don’t know how deep the water is around Water-7. What I’m thinking is that the rails are anchored via heavy weights and possibly steel cording holding it in place. They’re gonna shift, and chances are good, since Water-7 is just so full of engineers, they’re going to know how to adjust for sea levels and how the ocean moves.

Also, Tom was a Fishman, its entirely possible he anchored Puffing Tom’s rails himself. 

I know Puffing Tom is based heavily in looks on the steam locomotive, which is cool as hell and explains how it moves. 

What I think would have to happen irl for Puffing Tom to work is that there would have to be some sort of way to maintain the connection between the train and the rails, kind of like a modern monorail.

Modern monorails have the train balancing on a single rail while kind of wrapping the train itself over and around the rail.

 So for Puffing Tom to maintain the ability to stay on the tracks, even in the Aqua Laguna, you’d want some sort of way to hold the train in place.

IRL train wheels only have one side where the wheel dips below the side of the rails, so possibly Puffing Tom has ridges on both sides to hold the wheels in place on the rails.