Duchy of Lancaster (1983: Doomsday)

The Duchy of Lancaster, informally and more commonly referred to as simply Lancaster, is a survivor nation comprised of mainly the former English county of Lancashire in the north-west of England, along with small parts of Cumbria to the north and Merseyside to the south. It is bordered by Rheged to the north and the Celtic Alliance to the south.

Pre-Doomsday
Lancashire was a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in the north-west of England. It took its name from the city of Lancaster, and was sometimes known as the County of Lancaster. Although Lancaster was still considered to be the county town, Lancashire County Council was based in Preston. The population of the county according to the 1981 census was about 1,076,146.

The history of Lancashire is thought to have begun with its founding in the 12th century. In the Domesday Book (1086), some of its lands had been treated as part of Yorkshire. The area in between the rivers Mersey and Ribble formed part of the returns for Cheshire. Once its initial boundaries were established, it bordered Cumberland, Westmorland, Yorkshire and Cheshire. Lancashire emerged during the Industrial Revolution as a major commercial and industrial region. The county encompassed several hundred mill towns and collieries. By the 1830s, approximately 85% of all cotton manufactured worldwide was processed in Lancashire.

The county was subject to a significant boundary reform in 1974, which removed Liverpool and Manchester with most of their surrounding conurbations to form part of the metropolitan counties of Merseyside and Greater Manchester. At this time, the detached northern part of Lancashire in the Lake District, including the Furness Peninsula and Cartmell, was made part of Cumbria.

The Pre-Doomsday Duchy of Lancaster was one of two remaining royal duchies in the United Kingdom. It had large landholdings throughout the region and elsewhere, and operated as a property company, but also exercised the right of the Crown in the County Palatine of Lancaster, which included areas that were removed from Lancashire as part of the 1974 boundary changes. There was no separate Duke of Lancaster, the title having merged in the Crown many centuries ago – but the Duchy was administered by the Queen in Right of the Duchy of Lancaster. The duchy was not the property of The Crown, but was instead the personal property of the monarch and had been since 1399, when the Dukedom of Lancaster, held by Henry of Bolingbroke, merged with the crown on his appropriation of the throne.

Doomsday
In the early hours of 26th September 1983, nuclear weapons started detonating over the UK. In the north-east of England, the major detonations were: There were also a number of small yield (5-10 KT) tactical nukes hitting various military targets in the area, most of which were in the vicinity of the town of Preston. These included: Fortunately, while the south of the county took heavy damage, apart from Barrow-in-Furness, the north of Lancashire survived relatively unscathed.
 * Manchester - second wave (200 KT), re-hit with third wave (100KT)
 * Liverpool - (200KT), hit to the north of the city, over Aintree.
 * The port at Barrow-in-Furness
 * Burtonwood Army Depot
 * ROF Blackburn (actually at Lower Darwen)
 * RAF Barton Hall
 * ROF Chorley (actually north of the village of Euxton and over four miles north of Chorley)
 * DCSA Radio Inskip
 * Samlesbury Aerodrome
 * Warton Aerodrome
 * Weeton Barracks

Aftermath
The northernmost part of the county, which included the city of Lancaster and the surrounding towns of Morecambe, Bare, and Heysham, was particularly unaffected by the blasts and the resulting fallout. In addition, they were far enough away from other major population centers to delay the influx of refugees for several days, long enough for the authorities and population to get to grips with the situation. Even when it did occur, the number of refugees was far from overwhelming and this combined with the already relatively low population allowed order to be maintained and supplies rationed relatively easily.

The towns to the south of the county were not as fortunate for several reasons. Firstly the far closer proximity of the nuclear blasts caused greater panic then further north and resulted in greater radiation exposure (in particular, the town of Blackburn was hit by fallout from two sites while the eastern side of Preston was hit by fallout from Samlesbury Aerodrome, although it was spared the worst of it), and secondly the larger population combined with an influx of refugees, who were often injured and/or suffering radiation poisoning, from the areas closest to the blasts, combined with certain opportunistic criminal elements made keeping order and rationing supplies problematic.

Contact was lost between the various parts of the county immediately after Doomsday due to a combination of EMP and the electricity supply going dead. Contact was not re-established for well over a week, as people followed the advice of the government to stay indoors for a minimum of three days after a nuclear attack, followed by a period of staying close to their own towns while those in charge worked out what to do next. Eventually contact was gradually re-established by scouts from the various major towns, with contact with Preston being further delayed by the necessity of avoiding the radiation coming from the bombed RAF Barton Hall site to the north of the town.

After Doomsday
Shortly after communications were re-established in the county, it became clear that the same was not going to occur with the rest of the UK any time soon. To the south and south-east was a radioactive wasteland, while to the north and east the distance to another major population centre was deemed too great to be attempted given the limited supply of fuel and the uncertainty of even finding anyone. Additionally, traveling any distance to the east would require crossing the Pennines and by this time winter was starting to draw in. The inhabitants of Lancashire realized that for the foreseeable future they would have to go it alone.

Late 1983

 * Marshall law is declared
 * Food stocks are assessed and judged to be capable of lasting for nine to ten months with rationing. Ration cards are printed and issued.
 * Quarantine and exclusion zones are established around all heavily irradiated areas. Anyone still living in, or within two miles of an exclusion zone is evacuated to a less irradiated location. Of particular note is the evacuation of Blackburn which was in the unfortunate position of being between two bomb sites, namely Samlesbury Aerodrome and ROF Blackburn. Although both sites had been hit with tactical warheads of 10KT or less, Blackburn was still on the recieving end of a lot of fallout. By mid-1984 the only people still living there were a few stubborn hold-outs in the north-east of the city. Other major evacuations were from the northern-most parts of Chorley and the east of Preston.

1984
An emergency government is formed in March, one of it's first actions is to issue an order that all open spaces and gardens in towns and cities are to be used for food production. Additionally members of the population who are not employed in an ‘essential occupation’ (i.e. health-care, emergency services or maintaining the remaining infrastructure) are urged to volunteer for farm work, as the lack of fuel has rendered a lot of agricultural machinery useless, thereby creating a greatly increased need for manpower. Making it mandatory is discussed but proves to be unnecessary due to an unexpectedly large number of volunteers, over a third of which are students from the area’s universities and polytechnics.

In early June, there is another influx of refugees from outlying towns and villages. While some are simply in search of food due to their stores running out before their crops are ready, or seeking medical treatment, others come with alarming reports of their homes being attacked by armed raiders. On July 2nd, the village of Whittington is attacked by an unidentified group of armed men. Another attack, this time on the village of Burton-in-Kendal, follows just over a week later. In both cases the attackers stole food and other supplies at gun point. Although a number of people were wounded, seven at Whittington and three at Burton-in-Kendal, there were no fatalities.

In late August an outbreak of typhoid occurs in Lancaster and the surrounding towns, killing a total of a hundred and twenty-eight people. The source of the outbreak is found to be a contaminated water supply. Lacking the resources to resume large scale water treatment, the government tries to prevent a second outbreak by issuing posters and leaflets instructing the population to boil or otherwise sterilized all water before use, be it for drinking, cooking, bathing or cleaning. Despite this typhoid and other water bourne diseases would prove to be an on going problem for a number of years.

The first year’s harvest is considered to have been successful, although it was a close thing, the yield having been reduced by the changes in the climate and the lack of mechanized farming equipment and fertilizers. Rationing continues, although like in the Second World War, the produce of urban allotments and private gardens is ‘off-ration’, mainly as a way to encourage people to put more effort into them. It is judged that between the harvest and the home-grown produce there should be just enough food to last until the next harvest.

Over the winter there are several more attacks on towns and villages to the far north of the county. This time there are several fatalities, along with over two dozen wounded. In response troops (former TA and regular army personnel, plus new recruits) are sent to those towns deemed most at risk to defend them, with all towns and villages on the edges of the area under Lancashire's authority being fortified.

1985
The year gets off to a bad start with further attacks on towns on the edge of the county. This time towns to the west were targeted, in addition to the ones to the north, with a total of six people being killed. However this time it wasn’t all one sided, with two raiders being killed in separate attacks, one by a former TA soldier, the other by a farmer who’d decided to put his shotgun to good use. Attempts to apprehend the rest of the raiders prove futile, with fuel supplies running critically low, the mobility of the Lancashire troops is severely impaired and the supply of ammunition is also running low. Over the following months more refugees from small towns and villages outside of Lancashire continue to arrive in search of food, safety and medical treatment.

In order to provided a steady supply of troops to deal with the ongoing threat of the raiders, it is announced in April that every able bodied person between the ages of seventeen and thirty who isn’t currently employed in food production or other essential occupations has to serve a minimum of one year in the military. Other exempted groups include women with children, all single parents be they male or female, and carers. Conscientious objectors are allowed to serve in the emergency services or in food production instead. Additionally there is a recruiting drive for longer term volunteers. It is later noted that among the voluntary recruits, over half are refugees from raided towns. As one such recruit put it, “we’ve got a score to settle with those b****ds.”

Expansion and Consolidation
Initially the area under the authority of the emergency government was for the most part comprised of only the western and southern portions of the county of Lancashire, the north-eastern part of the county being dominated by the relatively unpopulated Forest of Bowland, with the majority of towns in that area being small and somewhat scattered. This, combined with the limited resources immediately after Doomsday, led to it being decided that the most effective course of action would be to focus on the areas with the highest population. However, from 1987 onwards, contact was gradually re-established with the rest of the county. This was slowed down by the still very limited resources and further hampered by frequent raids and skirmishes between Lancashire troops and the raiders, now known as reavers in reference to the infamous Border Reavers of centuries past. Additionally a large number of the towns and villages were found to have been abandoned for one reason or another. Never the less, by 1996 most of the county had been regained. Additionally contact was made with a number of towns to the south of Lancashire’s borders in 1991, most significantly the town of Southport. These towns had been much harder hit by radiation and food shortages and although they were getting by, it was by the narrowest of margins and without any real organized leadership. Consequently the authority and stability, not to mention the increased food supply, that was offered by Lancashire was welcomed with open arms.

However, in 1996, things had ground to a halt. The further out they went, the more frequent the raids became and the thinner their resources were spread. Additionally, the Forest of Bowland proved to be an ongoing problem area, with an unknown number of reavers hiding out there and attacking the surrounding settlements. Although the military in Lancashire had a decent number of troops, they lacked equipment. Guns and ammunition had been scarce since the beginning and with the ROF sites blown to atoms the area lacked the ability to make more (worryingly, when they searched the underground storage facility at Heapey, it was found that someone had got there before them and made off with every bit of small arms ammuntion). Alternatives had had to be found and they had looked to the past to do so. Lancashire had had a number of archery clubs prior to Doomsday and following their conscription into the military many of the members put their skills to good use. Given the ‘hit and run’ tactics of the raiders, projectile weaponry were more use then the melee variety and bows and crossbows quickly became the weapons of choice, although demand for the latter outstripped supply and the troops level of skill with either was highly variable. Working motor vehicles were almost non-existent, apart from the slow starting wood-gas variety which were of limited use to the military. Consequently it was decided that rather then stretch themselves even further, a policy of secure and protect was adopted. Settlements at the edges of the county and in and around the Forest of Bowland were fortified and troops stationed in them. Improvised blockhouses were constructed where there was a particularly large gap between settlements. The towns and blockhouses were then used as bases for patrols of the surrounding area. All expansion ceased and all resources were devoted to securing the territory already gained, which at this point stretched from Burton-in Kendal in the north to Southport in the south and as far east as Burnley in the south and High Bentham in the north. Expansion and long range explorations would not be resumed until 1999.

A New Identity
By the early nineties, it had long since sunk into the national psyche that England most likely no longer existed as a nation, with many people believing that Lancashire could well be the only 'civilised' place left. Although this was regarded as somewhat pessimistic by many others, such a belief was understandable as, apart from a couple of unidentified aircraft spotted near Preston a couple of years after Doomsday (said aircraft are now known to be aerial reconnaissance from the Celtic Alliance), the only contact with the outside world that they'd had since Doomsday had been with scattered settlements, refugees, and the occasional group of nomads, not to mention that it was common knowledge that the countryside was crawling with raiders and bandits. Either way, the name 'Lancashire' had started to seem inappropriate as a shire is part of a larger country and they had effectively been a nation in their own right for just under a decade. The issue was bounced back and forth without anything being decided for a number of years until a half-joking (and somewhat tasteless) comment to the Lord Lieutenant, Simon Towneley (who had been working with the emergency government since the beginning), that the title of Duke of Lancaster was probably up for grabs led to him claiming the title in question after discussing it with the government. Since Lancashire had been the County Palatine of the Duchy of Lancaster before Doomsday, what to call the new nation was now glaringly obvious. On the 12th May 1992, it was annouced that the former county of Lancashire was now the Duchy of Lancaster, a sovereign nation. Although it was suggested that Towneley go the whole way and become king, he declined on the grounds that it "didn't seem appropriate."

The nation's change of identity has an impact on other areas. Prior to Doomsday, Lancashire Council had been based in Preston, however due to the situation in the south of the county becoming unstable and often downright chaotic, the emergency government was moved to the old county town of Lancaster, due to the area being both more stable and more central to the original area under the government's authority. The original intention was to move it back to Preston as soon as things had sufficiently calmed down but due to there being more pressing matters they never got round to it. After the name change was announced, it was decided that the seat of government would remain in Lancaster permenantly, firstly because it had been working fine for the last nine years and there was no real reason to change location and secondly because since it was the Duchy of Lancaster it seemed only fitting.

Contact
In January 1996, a shortwave radio signal from outside the Duchy was picked up by an operator in Fleetwood. Excited and curious, the operator responded. A few minutes later the other end had identified themselves as a Celtic Alliance cargo ship that was en route to Liverpool. Both the Fleetwood operator and the ship's crew reported the incident to their respective authorities. Three months later contact between Lancaster and the Celtic Alliance was officially established when a ship with Alliance dipolmats aboard arrived in the port of Heysham to an enthusiastic welcome. It transpired that the Alliance had known of survivours in the former county of Lancashire for some time but with their own resources stretched to breaking point the decision had been made to leave them to their own devices. They had however underestimated both the number of survivours and the degree of organization present in the area. Likewise the fact that it now identifed itself as a sovereign nation and a Duchy at that came as a suprise. The possibility of Lancaster joining the Alliance was raised early on but was respectfully declined for the time being. Having got used to their independence, the Lancastrian government was understandably reluctant to give it up. It seems that the general population shared their opinion, as when a referendum on whether or not to join the Alliance was held in 2002 74% of the voters voted against doing so. Although opting to remain independent, trade routes between the two nations were established soon after contact was made.

In 1999, a long range patrol of the area beyond the Duchy's northern border by soldiers from the Duke's Own Border Regiment found a large number of abandoned villages and several fortified towns. While some were already known to the authorities in Lancaster, others were new discoveries, the largest and most northerly of which was the town of Kendal. Upon approaching Kendal, a number of people were seen working in the fields outside the town but fled when they saw the soldiers. Realising that they had probably been mistaken for raiders, the Lancastrian troops followed standard protocol for such situations, improvising a white flag before approaching the town gates, however it still took almost an hour for them to convince those manning the wall and gates that their intentions were non-hostile and be allowed to enter. Although the town itself was unremarkable, a largely self-contained settlement relying on agriculture, they heard about a collection of similar towns to the west which were calling themselves the Cumbria Co-operative. Upon returning to their base in Carnforth the soldiers reported what they'd found out but due to limted resources it wasn't followed up until the following year, by which time Kendal had joined the Co-operative. In May 2000 a second expedition managed to make contact with the towns of Keswick, Cockermouth, Workington and Whitehaven before having to return to Lancaster. Although the possibility of the Co-operative becoming part of Lancaster was raised, the distances involved made it less then feasible to begin with and when it was rejected outright no more was said on the matter. Trade routes between Lancaster and the Co-operative, now known as Rheged, were established by 2001. In 2003, a reduction in the frequency of the raids and an improvement in Lancaster's military equipment thanks to imports from the Celtic Alliance made it possible for the Duchy to expand it's borders, with a number of towns between Kendal and Carnforth, namely Silverdale, Arnside, Storth and Milnthorpe opting to become part of Lancaster. The acquisition of Milnthope, which was now the most northerly town under Lancaster's control, meant that the distance between the Duchy's territory and Rheged's was now less then seven miles, with the old A590 road quickly becoming the de facto border.

Although second hand reports of a nation in the north-east of England had been recieved via the Celtic Alliance since 1997, due to the continuing problems in the borderlands and lack of fuel Lancaster did not establish contact with them until 2003, when farmworkers near Milnthorpe spotted an group of soldiers in unfamiliar uniforms crossing the Lancaster-Rheged border. Although the soldiers were not behaving like reavers and were in fact carrying a white flag, the workers erred on the side of caution and beat a hasty retreat and informed the nearest group of Lancastrian soldiers of what they'd seen. The soldiers went to investigate and soon met up with the unidentified group who'd taken care to appear as non-hostile as possible. After a few inital tense moments the unknown soldiers identifed themselves as a reconnisance team from the Kingdom of Cleveland and accompanied the Lancastrian troops back to Milnthorpe. After a brief round of questioning the Lancastrians were finally convinced that they were who they said they were. After spending the night in Milnthorpe the Cleveish team were allowed to continue on to the capital. Upon arriving in Lancaster, they found that word had travelled much faster then they had and found themselves on the recieving end of a hero's welcome, the confirmation that at least some of their old rivals had made it through okay being the best news that the Lancastrians had had in in while, particuarly for those who had family members in Cleveish territory.

Politics
The political set up of the Duchy of Lancaster has a number of hold-overs from it's pre-Doomsday incarnation, the most obvious of which is the post of Chancellor. Originally the chief officer in the daily management of the pre-Doomsday duchy, by 1983 it had become a relatively minor position with the associated duties being said to take up just one day a week. Post-Doomsday however it became the title of the head of government, largely because of tradition. The current Chancellor is Helen Southworth.

There are currently three political parties in Lancaster, Labour, Conservatives and Liberal Democrats. The Conservatives, who were the ruling party of the UK on Doomsday, have consistantly failed to overcome the associated stigma and haven't won an election once since they resumed in 1996, with power alternating between the Lib Dems and Labour fairly reguarly. The current ruling party of Lancaster is Labour. Parliment was held in Lancaster Town Hall for twenty years until the national government outgrew the premises, necessitating a move to new premises constructed near the river on the appropriately named Parliment Street.

Law and Order
Although the legal system in the Duchy is much the same as the pre-Doomsday English system, it soon became necessary for changes to be made in order to fit with the new situation after Doomsday.

Capital Punishment
The death penalty was reintroduced in Lancaster in 1992 for murder, paedophilia, rape, high treason, armed theft, raiding with violence, and arson, on the grounds that with food and other resources in short supply they shouldn't be wasted on those who are a menace to society. The method of execution is long drop hanging. Although still on the books for all of the aforementioned offences the law was relaxed slightly in 2003 so that while murder and high treason still carry automatic death sentences, as does paedophilia when the victim is under fourteen, when it comes to the others (arson, armed theft, raiding with violence and paedophilia when the victim is over fourteen) the decision of whether or not to impose the death penalty depends on the specifics of the case. The alternative to the death penalty in these cases is life with hard labour.

Corporal Punishment
In 2004, after seeing its effectiveness in the Kingdom of Cleveland, the stocks were introduced for petty theft, affray, vandalism, drunk and disorderly and general public disorder. Like in Cleveland, the sentences are between twelve and forty-eight hours in six hour shifts and the stocks are of the same design as the Cleveish variety. Cushions have to be hired, with the money going to charity, and coats are only allowed when the temperature is judged to be low enough to endanger the health of anyone not wearing appropriate clothing.

Prison Sentences
Unlike the pre-Doomsaday definition of fifteen to twenty years, life sentences are exactly what they sound like; barring a sucessful appeal those sentenced to life imprisonment will never see freedom again. Life sentences automatically come with hard-labour unless the convict is judged to be physically incapable, with hard labour consisting of road building, track laying, any unskilled work that needs to be undertaken in quarentine or exclusion zones, mining (especially in the more dangerous mines) and any other strenuous, unpleasant work that the Duchy needs doing. For example, the canal detour near the Barton Hall site was constructed using convict labour, as was the track detour north of Chorley.

Shorter prison setences are handed out for a variety of other crimes and may or may not include hard labour.

Minor Crimes
Minor offences are dealt with in a variety of ways, depending on the crime, the specifics thereof and the history of the offender. Standard sentences are fines, short prison terms, community service (litter picking, collecting manure off the streets, cleaning up graffiti ect) or a stint in the stocks. In some circumtances the offender may also be given a choice between one of the standard sentences or a stint in the army (typically three to five years), although this is usually reserved for young (in this case sixteen to twenty-one year olds) and/or first time offenders, especially those whose backgrounds are believed to have contributed to their behaviour.

Courts
Magistrates courts in each of the major towns handle the majority of cases, with the High Court being at Lancaster Castle. The castle court is also used in cases where there is believed to be a risk of the accused attempting to escape while travelling from prison to court as the castle also houses a prison.

Economy and Trade
The main industries in Lancaster are agriculture (mainly crops and dairying), coal mining and textiles. The last had gone into serious decline in the years before Doomsday and by 1983 most of the area's cotton mills had been closed and the machinery scrapped. Following Doomsday the few surviving mills had lain idle for a number of years as the population focused on food production, but in the late 1990s the food situation had stablized enough to allow the workforce to diversify and with an increasing demand for textiles both within the Duchy and abroad (which at that stage meant the Celtic Alliance) the surviving wool and cotton mills were brought back on line, with the latter being adapted to process locally produced wool and bast fibres (hemp, linen, nettle ect) as cotton was now unobtainable. Contact with other British survivour states opened up new markets for Lancastrian textiles and in 2006 two new mills (or, more accurately, old mills with new machinery) were opened, with three more due in 2011. The majority of mills are steam powered.

Due to a number of pits falling into disrepair after Doomsday, the mining industry isn't on the same scale as in other countries such as Cleveland. However it still manges to provided enough fuel for domestic use, electricity generation and assorted steam engines with enough left over for export.

In addition to the main industries there is also a small but growing leisure industry starting to emerge, mainly in the resort town of Blackpool, which mainly caters to the Lancastrian population and tourists from the Kingdom of Cleveland, the latter coming in on specially chartered trains which have been dubbed 'Smoggy trains' since an unknown Middlesbrough resident (or group thereof) tapped a sign saying 'Smoggies on tour' to the inside of a carriage window.

The main exports of the Duchy of Lancaster are:


 * Foodstuffs, including milk (UHT, dried, or tinned) and other dairy (mainly to Liverpool)


 * Textiles


 * Coal
 * Wool (in various stages of processing)

Road
With cars and other motor vehicles rendered useless by the lack of petrol and diesel after Doomsday alternatives had to be found. Today the majority of the general public who have their own transport use either improvised carts made out of stripped down motor vehicles and drawn by horses, ponies or oxen, or new purpose built wooden carts and wagons. Another more unusual form of animal powered transportation are dog carts, which are exactly what they sound like, i.e. carts pulled by dogs. Although banned in England at the start of the twentieth century they made a comeback after Doomsday due to necessity. Said necessity was two-fold; people needed a draught animal that was easier to provide for then horses and with there being little food to spare for 'useless' animals (much to the sorrow of pet owners), carting provided a way for many pets to earn their keep. Today the use of dog carts is generally restricted to things like milk deliveries, children's toys and assorted lightweight haulage, with regulations in place to protect the dogs' welfare. At the larger end of the scale, there are also a number of vehicles which were converted to run on wood gas, including several buses. Bicycles are also becoming increasingly popular as a means of personal transportation.

Rail
In 1999 several working steam engines which had spent Doomsday and the intervening years in sheds belonging to railway museums at Carnforth, Fleetwood, Bury and Southport were brought out of retirement and after the necessary repairs to both trains and tracks were completed, services started in late 2003. Said services were hampered by the necessity of re-routing the track in places to avoid contaminated areas, the largest diversion being north of Chorley and going around the bombed ROF Chorley site near Euxton. Most of the track used in the construction of the detour was cannibalized from other sections of the railway, leaving a single track line in number of places. Initally rail services were restricted to the Duchy itself but by 2008 they had been extended to most towns in the eastern half of Rheged and rail links had been established with the Kingdom of Cleveland. Rather appropriately the rail link with Cleveland is now being used to import tracks to repair the cannibalized sections of line.

Due to the advanced age of the museum engines, not to mention that a number of them hadn't been designed for mainline services, it was clear from before they were returned to service that some of them would have to be either retired or transferred to better suited work sooner rather then later. In order to replace them when the time came and provide more trains for an increasingly rail dependent transport system, the train works at Horwich, which had been mothballed since Doomsday, resumed operation in late 2005. The trains produced at the works were based on the design of the LMS Stanier Class 5 mixed-traffic engine, better known as the Black Five. As of 2010, there are five Black Fives in service, they are: The livery of the Lancaster Railway is black with red lining and trim.
 * 5606 - Duke of Lancaster (Certified November 2007)
 * 5607 - Lune (Certified August 2008)
 * 5608 - Ribble (Certifed January 2009)
 * 5609 - Wyre (Certified October 2009)
 * 5700 - Keer (Certified July 2010)



On a more local scale, the Blackpool tramway which runs from Blackpool to Fleetwood resumed operation as soon as electricity was restored to the area and has been providing a mostly reliable service ever since. Although there has been talk of establishing tramways in other major towns and cities, none of the plans have yet come to fruition.

Water
Due to most of the Greater Manchester and Merseyside areas being radioactive, all travel between the Duchy of Lancaster and Liverpool is by ship, as is all travel to the rest of the Celtic Alliance. The Duchy's rivers are also important parts of it's transportation network, particuarly the River Ribble, although due to radiation from the bombed Warton Aerodrome site its use was limited for a number of years. In addition to the natural waterways, the former county of Lancashire was home to two canals. While the Leeds-Liverpool was found to have worryingly high levels of radioactive contamination in the mid-eighties and was concequently drained and filled in, the Lancaster canal remains in heavy use, both for goods and several waterbus services run along its length, although a section near the bombed Barton Hall site had to be blocked off, with a detour being constructed in the early ninties. The waterbuses, barges and narrowboats are typically either wood gas powered or pulled by horses on the tow path, although there are a few with steam engines.

International Relations
Lancaster has a cordial relationship with the Celtic Alliance and the other English sucessor states, although its unoffical relationship with the Kingdom of Cleveland could probably be more accuately described as an affectionate rivalry.