Commission for @pikablob of Volk Elevated Railroad No.1, a cross between a British LSWR O2 suburban tank engine and an American Mason Bogie/Single Fairlie.
Mass-transit first showed up in the Below in the Empire of Light, where busy tramlines have been upgraded to what we would call urban light rail. The Freehold States was slow to follow suit; ultimately the concept would be brought to the western half of the Below by immigrants from Fortuna, who implemented elevated railways inspired by the suspended-monorail tranvías of the city on a star.
The Volk Elevated Railroad (VER), or “the Vera” to locals, is one such line. It runs north-south across the city via two branches; the eastern line is double-track and runs above Greenshold Street on a pair of parallel girder bridges, while the western is four-tracked and mostly runs on brick viaduct. Two of the lines are reserved for VER trains, while the other two are connected to the mainline through the city via graded ramps, and are used by mainline freight and passenger trains as well as services bringing supplies to the city’s famous islands. These outer tracks, known as the Widened Lines, form a balloon loop for trains entering and leaving the city from the west, and are constantly congested.
The VER operates using a fleet of Spooner-type articulated locomotives, built in New Starrick by the Kirk Locomotive Company. Similar locomotives are at work on most of the Freehold urban lines.
This loco combines a British 0-4-4 O2, which the client has actually ridden behind, with a 2-6-6 Mason Bogie, an articulated single-engine loco.
Of particular note is the way the reverser mechanism is set up. A bell crank above the boiler transmits the reverser reach rod 90 degrees down to a drop link, which then grabs onto the radius rod to set the cutoff timing.
The sketch was fairlie straightforward. I'm very familiar with tank engines which made this a little easier. And because I don't typically add valve gear into a sketch when i know i'm going to be doing clean line work, I didn't waste any time on that.
My process has lately solidified into drawing a sketch with approximately correct perspective, and then using the perspective snap tool in Firealpaca to get the lines consistent when the actual clean-line drawing begins.
The wheels are mostly clones of two patterns, since it's side-on enough that I can get away with just shrinking the wheels towards the back rather than changing their perspective altogether.
The brake rigging was roughly taken from the O2, rather than the Mason, though we have to imagine the brake cylinder is mounted to the engine bogie rather than the main frames as on the O2.
The Walschearts valve gear was pretty straightforward. Well actually i drew it in neutral gear. I'm getting really good at drawing it. But there were some interesting differences here with the Mason Bogie. The only main difference was in how the radius rod and reach rod were set up. There's another little expansion link kinda thing between the radius rod and the vertical reach rod, though i'm not exactly sure how it works. But also, the combination lever, the vertical one attached to the crosshead, is curved.
I did the basic block coloring before going to bed last night, and this morning I finished the livery:
and then finished up the final drawing with rendering and steam fx (see top of post).
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Dreadnought was already not-quite-like any other engine Kit had ever seen, but the one they'd come to a stop beside was even more so. From smokebox to cab it was mostly familiar; 'conventional', Nellie would probably say, in that way Kit had learned she did when she wanted to seem smart; but below, there were no wheels below the boiler, leaving the thing suspended high above the rail with clear air beneath it.
Instead, the engine had two sets. One sat below and afore of the smokebox, crowned by what looked like a water tank; the other stretched back from the base of the firebox, beneath a tender squished right up against the back of the cab. Both were painted in a neat red, wreathed in steam from their cylinders, while the rest of the engine was turned out in a matte black, lined and decorated in gold.
And in that gold, along her tender, the name Cerritos shone proudly.
"She's a Brannon-type," Nellie said, in the exact voice that Kit had just been thinking of; the realisation made her cheeks warm, fondly, just a little, "and paid for a Class A an' all; she'll be headed out the same way we are."
One of the more operationally interesting aspects of railroading on the Underrail is the so-called clipper trade; the trade in perishable goods (particularly tea) between the Empire and the Freehold States. It's generally agreed that these trains are the fastest way to get between the two (to the embarassment of the heavyweight expresses), and working them can be found all manner of eclectic locomotives. When steel passenger coaches and 4-6-2 Dignity-types arrived in the Freehold, many older express engines found themselves displaced to this service, while others are custom-built by a variety of foundries.
No. 24 Cerritos is one such example. Built in Summertime Junction in Drow-inspired style, she's what we we would call a Garratt Atlantic and what the Below calls a Brannon Double - the 4-4-2 layout having evolved from the 4-2-2 Singles in this universe. Interestingly, she has redundant safety valves; the lead Ramsbottom type are fitted in a decorative bonnet inspired by Hamilton School steam and sand domes, while her steam dome carries Salter type valves in addition.
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In actuality, this is a Below-version of @whirligig-girl's Gymnomi Garratt - the moment I saw the sketch I had to have a version of the design on the Underrail and she was nice enough to let me commission it. I'm planning to have her show up in Kit's next story, along with a couple of other fun designs :))
When a cat dies, depending on their actions in their life, with either ascend to the Glory Star or descend to the Below. Cats who ascend are called Fallen Ones, while cats who descend are called Banished Ones.
The Glory Star is described as a starlit landscape in greenleaf that somewhat resembles the clan’s territories. In the centre of the territories, there is a large waterfall that spills into a deep basin filled with star-filled water, which looks exactly like the night sky. The waterfall is named the Starfall.
In the living realm, the Glory Star can be seen as the largest star in the night sky.
Fallen Ones thrive in the Glory Star and live in comfort with their ancestors until they complete their Circle. If needed, Fallen Ones can cross into the Below by jumping off the edge of the Glory Star to retrieve any Banished Ones to perform the ceremony of Twilight.
When they ascend, all their wounds are healed and they are in their prime.
The Below, the other paw, is a thick forest shrouded in darkness. There is a chocking mist that also makes it hard to see past a few tail-lengths past your nose.
Banished Ones haunt the forest, just barely existing and walk in their dark home alone. They cannot speak to living cats and cannot cross over to the Glory Star without going through the ceremony of Twilight. If they attempt to, they will be blown back and injured.
When they descend, their wounds do not heal and they continue to feel all the pain they experienced in death.
The Below is upside down, so any cats crossing between the Glory Star and the Below is extremely disorientating, especially for those not prepared. Sadly, some younger cats have let their curiosity get the better of them and have crossed into the Below- only to be so disorientated that they are unable to go back to the Glory Star and lose their way in the Below, never to be seen again.
All cats have an eternal star that represents their spirit. Fallen Ones’ stars shine brightly in their chest and do not fade. Banished Ones’ stars are dull and remain so even after going through the ceremony of Twilight.
Commission for @pikablob of Porterbrook No.4 Teapot Anne.
T’was half-past five on a ‘Rensday morn’ when driver, crew, and all, came hurtling out o’ the loco shed in a damn great Number 4…
The inside-cylinder 0-6-0 is one of the most common layouts in the Below, being preferred by the conservative locomotive builders of the Margate school of design. The largest of these, Goulder, Bilston, & Co., offers the No. 4 Goods class as one of their standard types, and many operators in the Freehold rely on them for both shunting and local freight duties.
Porterbrook, a freight-handling company based out of Volk Freehold, operate two such locomotives. Known to their crews as Kettle Jae (No. 3) and Teapot Anne (No. 4), these two have been overhauled several times by the giant Cortopassi Locomotive Works, which belongs to the Hamilton school of locomotive design, and now carry a mismatch of fittings as a result.
The brief was "Americanized Fowler 4F," combining it with details from a USRA 0-6-0.
A Fowler 4F, a fairly prolific 0-6-0 goods engine on British Railways.
0-6-0s were used in Britain as branchline and mainline goods engines, but in the US the poorer track quality needed to span an order of magnitude greater distances led to engines using pilot trucks and becoming 2-6-0s instead. The extra unpowered wheels in front would guide the loco through curves and keep the train stable. Thus, 0-6-0s in the US were confined to switching/shunting service. Everything's bigger in the States, so whereas British shunting 0-6-0s were usually tank engines, American switching 0-6-0s were usually tender engines.
This hybrid UK/US design is therefore a road switcher--suitable for trips on the mainline but also designed for switching in the yard due to the high-visibility slope-back tender.
This time the client, who commissions me to draw trains so often that perhaps "patron" is a better word, was extremely helpful in that she included in the references this schematic showing all the changes made to the loco. This did take away some of the freedom I might have had otherwise but it did make it much easier to know what I was going for.
it took a long time to get the sketch just right. It kept looking wrong.
After playing around with the proportions for a bit I decided to try something strange:
I attempted to fit the orthographic view onto the central plane of the drawing of the locomotive in 3D space, so try and troubleshoot what was wrong. That let me get a little closer in proportions.
And I ended up with this. This was one of these sketches were I feel like I'm absolutely torturing the poor thing with all the cutting up and moving around of various details I ended up doing.
One of the last details was to lower the roof, which helps balance the loco out a little more.
Then the line art was done, using a vanishing point snap tool to ensure decent perspective.
Then work on the livery began. The brief was essentially "USRA 0-6-0 in Baldwin Works Green but with a Darker Green"
This livery would become unrecognizable when the drawing is finished.
Shading was somewhat irrelevant since most of the highlights would, by design, be hidden by the weathering.
I took a sick twisted pleasure in absolutely ruining this engine. The description was that the locomotive should appear basically black, with her crew being completely uninterested in aesthetic maintenance, but i did leave some regions where the underlying livery could be seen. A friend of mine described her as "the lovely grimy color of once-green."
That brings us to the final image. Headlights and smoke, then steam were added. Here's a few variants of the final image:
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Before being placed into the Below, cats who were wronged by the spirit (or previous Banished Ones), appear and judge them for their crimes against the Code and the clans.
Depending on how severe their crimes were, they could be sentenced to spend moons, seasons or eternity in the Below.
When their time is served, the same cats who judged them (if they haven’t faded prior) will return to perform the ceremony of Twilight, but only if the Banished One truly feels guilt for their actions.
The ceremony consists of the Banished One asking for forgiveness, being forgiven by all those present, and being stripped of their name. This causes the Banished One’s star to be released.
Afterward, they are led into the Glory Star to spend the rest of their afterlife there until they fade and complete their Circle.
If a cat attempts to re-offend in the Glory Star, they are sent back to the Below- possibly for eternity.
Clan cats who turn against the Code or have notably bad luck are believed to have been a Banished One-turned-Fallen One in their previous Circle.
