Wrecking a railroad

[Dalillama]

Assuming that the local wildlife were given enough intelligence to know what a railroad is & what it's for, and wish to make it unusable, what is their best bet? Stipulations: TL 5 (1870s), the animals have an effective IQ 8-10 for purposes of wrecking the works of man, and the wildlife in question is that found on the western prairies of North America.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by Dalillama

Assuming that the local wildlife were given enough intelligence to know what a railroad is & what it's for, and wish to make it unusable, what is their best bet? Stipulations: TL 5 (1870s), the animals have an effective IQ 8-10 for purposes of wrecking the works 8-10 of man, and the wildlife in question is that found on the western prairies of North America.

Pile crap on top of it. Preferably gravel and the like. Alternatively, dig under it and remove the support beams under the tracks...you can cause real damage doing that including a full on derailment instead of maybe skipping a wheel or three.

[starslayer]

To do the most damage they would want to do a minor thing, irregularly, around the route.

A moose and a beaver working together could go to one of the joints and:
1. Chew apart a few of the ties.
2. Push the rail inward or outward.

Probably inside of two hours.

If done right this means train derailment when it gets to that location unless the engineer sees it and slows down, if not outright stops and resets the tie, and if done SUBTLY it will mean that the engineer won't be able to see it coming, the resulting train derailment will do a tremendous amount of damage to the rest of the track.

Take a trip up and down the line and repeat the process a few dozen times and the whole rail is useless- probably to the point where laying a new track is preferable to fixing the existing one.

Depending on the animals involved if you could convince termites or carpenter ants that 'no the train will not kill you going overhead' they could digest a significant portion of the ties in short order. (normally this does not happen because trains are loud and scary and ants/termites won't set up shop near vibrations that loud).

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Ghostdancer

Alternatively, dig under it and remove the support beams under the tracks...you can cause real damage doing that including a full on derailment instead of maybe skipping a wheel or three.

Undermining the track is a good tactic. If you have suitable rivers and beavers, flooding the track long enough to wash away the ground that supports the track will work well.

If there are bridges, undermining them will cause major crashes. Getting a whole lot of bird guano into the water supply the locomotives use won't do them any good.

[brianfb]

Drink all the water in the boiler.

[Buzzardo]

The most expensive and time consuming thing that an 1870s (or modern, for that matter) railroad had to do was dig a tunnel. Collapsing one would be a huge blow to a railroad. It'd be hard for animals to collapse a tunnel, though. After that, bridges were next on the expensive and time-consuming items that railroads had to build. If the animals (hello, beavers and woodpeckers and even rats) can drop a large wooden trestle, that'll set back the railroad for quite a while (minimum of several weeks for a major trestle). For maximum effect, it's best to drop the trestle with a train on it. Not only does it increase the losses in both life and money for the humans, but the falling train will probably do more damage to the trestle on the way down, and the wreckage will complicate the rebuilding.

For low-level terrorism, get all the birds to poo in the water tank that feeds the engines. The resulting smell when the engine releases steam ought to be lovely for the humans. :)

Buzzards make good scouts and water tank foulers, and a buzzard or ten circling the work crews whenever they can might cause some anxiety. :)

[lwcamp]

But could a beaver be convinced to gnaw on a tressel or tie that had been soaked in creosote?

The badgers, on the other hand, are nature's natural earth movers. They'd be your stars for undermining the tracks. Moles and marmots could help (it they were not too intimidated by the badgers).

A big bear might be able to lift ties out of place, or claw through ties and tressels. Claws don't care about creosote.

Luke

[Dalillama]

Originally Posted by starslayer

To do the most damage they would want to do a minor thing, irregularly, around the route.

A moose and a beaver working together could go to one of the joints and:
1. Chew apart a few of the ties.
2. Push the rail inward or outward.

Probably inside of two hours.

It's too southerly for moose, but I suppose bison can do the job as well. I imagine that peccaries and feral swine could be of help too. Ants and termites are probably dormant, it's winter in game.

[QUOTE=Buzzardo;1964643]The most expensive and time consuming thing that an 1870s (or modern, for that matter) railroad had to do was dig a tunnel. Collapsing one would be a huge blow to a railroad. It'd be hard for animals to collapse a tunnel, though.[/quote ]
Yup. Also there aren't any nearby. Bridges are another matter, though.

Originally Posted by Buzzardo

After that, bridges were next on the expensive and time-consuming items that railroads had to build. If the animals (hello, beavers and woodpeckers and even rats) can drop a large wooden trestle, that'll set back the railroad for quite a while (minimum of several weeks for a major trestle). For maximum effect, it's best to drop the trestle with a train on it. Not only does it increase the losses in both life and money for the humans, but the falling train will probably do more damage to the trestle on the way down, and the wreckage will complicate the rebuilding.

I like it. Undermining would probably help there too; there's a good supply of rodents around & prairie digs dig like hell.

Originally Posted by lwcamp

But could a beaver be convinced to gnaw on a tressel or tie that had been soaked in creosote?

The badgers, on the other hand, are nature's natural earth movers. They'd be your stars for undermining the tracks. Moles and marmots could help (it they were not too intimidated by the badgers).

A big bear might be able to lift ties out of place, or claw through ties and tressels. Claws don't care about creosote.

Luke

These beavers can, yes.

On a related note, assumong raccoons got their paws on some dynamite, hiw hard would it be for them to booby trap the wreckage so attemptsto clear/ fix it would make a big boom?

[Gedrin]

Bridges are vulnerable. Most are wood.

Given the effective IQ, a plan like, "On the night of the full moon, sneak in and wreck the water stations," is doable.

Similarly, they can drag large stones and trees onto the tracks along bends.

Then...there are the people. Kill enough engineers, perfectly doable, and it gets difficult to run trains.

"Suicide Buffalo" requires no additional explanation.

It's been indicated that they can overcome natural instincts. This means they can use any fire they find. The humans have been kind enough to make lots of fire portable and easy to handle in lamps.

Do these animals have the ability to work together across species? Do they have any ability to coordinate across distances (besides, if the first is yes, then they do via birds)? If so, they can weaken bridges simultaneously across the country, sending trains into careening deaths Michael Bay would admire. If they need stop traffic, they can do that overnight by attacking coal and water facilities.

I'm assuming a TL0 for the animals, and that's a pretty big deal. They get rocks, fire, and the like, but not gunpowder. They can't make effective use of gunpowder, disease warfare, poisons beyond their natural attacks... If they grok this stuff...they just burn the factories, detonate the machines and assassinate people who say the word "train". I don't think TL5 USA can prevent roaches from poisoning food, stop rats from smuggling in powder, or prevent a rat+rattlesnake assassin squad from going where it wants.

Worst case scenario involves rats smuggling powder into train furnaces, beavers and the like mining bridges, buffalo herds trampling trains off the tracks and eagles dropping rattlesnakes onto Union Pacific execs while a string of surprise epidemics smuggled into food supplies by roaches ravage the land. Which is a shame because of all the fires the dogs started. Not that word is spreading, the telegraphs are down. Day 1.

[Dalillama]

The problem is currently geographically limited, and exists only in a small part of eastern colorado. If the PCs don't solve it, things could get very bad indeed. They have a limited capacity for cross-species coordination/communication; dispite the talent for wrecking things they don't have a common language (or in most cases any language), for instance.