Wild west luxury travel?

Pagan priest · Mar 1, 2003

It was common for the wealthy to travel in a private rail car. I would like to find some information on such rail cars. How much do they cost? How wide are they? How high are they? How long can they be?

mistergone · Mar 1, 2003

Come up to Sacramento and visit the Train Museum! Or, uh, hmm.. ever see Wild Wild West? I'm sure an online search, or someone more knowledgeable will answer your questions.

Pagan priest · Mar 3, 2003

In fact, it was memories of the old Wild, Wild West TV show that inspired the desire for just such a mode of transportation. At the moment, my group is playing an old west campaign using d20 Modern rules and I have a fast hero on his way to gunslinger. His occupation is Dilletante, son of a rich Texas rancher. He wants to travel in style.

Someone mentioned the thought that Paladin from "Have Gun, Will Travel" also used a private rail car for transportation. I never saw that show.

Is there a difference in rail gages between the U. S. and Europe?

Max · Mar 4, 2003

There is an excellent web site detailing the history of the Central Pacific Railroad, which can be found here: http://cprr.org/

It has lots of great info regarding railroads. I didn't see anything on private rail cars, though. However, its a big site and there could be some information there.

If you are running a western game, you might want to take a look at Sidewinder: Wild West Adventures from Citizen Games.

http://www.citizengames.com/wildwest.htm

Since you already have a d20 game going using Modern, I'm sure you don't want to switch completely. However, they do have all kinds of useful wild west feats, skills, prices, etc. you could use in your game. They also just bought Knuckleduster, and are in the process of making a d20 conversion of the Knuckleduster Firearms shop, which details many guns used in the old west.

Max

Pagan priest · Mar 4, 2003

On my most recent trip to my FLGS, I spent some time gazing longingly at Sidewinder. Did my budget but allow...

I have also been mining other, older (and non d20) games for resources. Games like Castle Falkenstein, from R. Talsorian Games, Space 1889, from Game Design Workshop, and Masque of the Red Death, from TSR.

I'll be looking into that train site. I've just started, but it looks like I may have to sift through a lot of info to find what I want. Maybe time for a trip to the Downtown Central Library.