WCRB Report on Transportation (1983: Doomsday)

This is the WCRB report commisioned to combine the reports from several countries governments to provide a detailed analisis on the state of the worlds transport infastructure and non automobile related vehicle production.

Introduction
Doomsday uterly changed the face of the worlds transport infastructure. The worlds road travel was uterly deverstated by the event as most of the coutries with large road infastructure were destroyed by Doomsday. Railways have become the largest way of transporting pasangers and goods and many countries have had to radicaly rebuild there transport infastructure. The most radical reformation has been in air travel where jet based aircraft have been replaced by airships and piston engined aircraft.

This report was commisioned by WCRB officals when it was discovered that the nearly every government had commisioned some form of report on transport infastructure and there was a desire by the WCRB to produce a comprehensive report detailing transport across the whole world not just within certain regions. As well as incorperating aspects of local reports WCRB officals traveled around the world to get a first hand view of the situation.

Jet & Turboprop Aircraft
Prior to Doomsday air travel by jet craft had been one of the worlds fastest growing industrys. People were traveling far and wide and cheaper ticket prices ment that people were traveling even more. During Doomsday all planes in the air above the US and most of the USSR were crippled by EMP damage and crashed killing all onboard. Aircraft above Europe and Asia were forced to try and land in non nuked contries with some making it to Norway, Northern Africa, South America and Australia. Now jet travel is a rarity in most of the world as very few countries have the capacity to refine the Kerosene that jet engines need, most jets are operated by military organisations with the exceptions being in the ,,The USSR and CANZ. Turboprop aircraft work on the same principal as jet engines but have a propeller attached to the turbine, they are simpler to make than jet aircraft and are more fuel efficiant. They had seem limited use prior to Doomsday but are now popular amongst nations with small oil reserves and unreliable refinment procedures looking to preserve fuel. They have seen use as the primary new built fast aircraft in air forces and some are in use as airliners in the richer parts of the world.

Piston Engined Aircraft
Prior to doomsday most piston engined aircraft were privately owned with very few being owned by corperations for light air transport. Piston driven aircraft have made a massive comeback since Doomsday and now make up the majority of heavier than air flights, most stable nations operate piston engined aircraft in there air force and as airliners. Piston engined aircraft are cheaper to make than jet and turboprop aircraft but are still to expensive for some small nations.

Rigid Airships
Rigid airships are rapidly becoming the fastest growing form of air transport. Being cheap to manafacture and being able to carry equivilant loads of cargo to a small ship. Rigid airships are one of the most useful aircraft available to developing nations: they're quicker than ships both in terms of speed and route of travel (they can move over land) and are far less fuel-hungry than conventional aeroplanes. The only major difficulty in them comes in their construction; large hangars are required to house airships under construction, and the hydrogen stocks required for construction are costly to produce. A further difficulty comes in the creation of gasbags, which are made from cow intestine, which in some countries are hard to procure. Once these problems are overcome, though, they are normally the only way of transporting goods by air for the smaller nations due to their cheapness and easiness to build.

Several companies make rigid airships, but the most famous are: Some oppose the usage of hydrogen in airships, fearing Hindenburg-style disasters. The common retort is the Hindenburg was an isolated incident and that dangerous air travel is often better than no air travel whatsoever.
 * The New Zeppelin Company based in the which builds Hydrogen airships based on the original Graf Zeppelin for export. It also runs a school for the training of ground and air crews of zeppelins given their complexity in landing operations.
 * The African Airship Association which was formed by several African companies so that cheap air travel could be provided for Africans. It produces smaller airships than the New Zeppelin Company but its products are cheaper and faster to build.

Semi-Rigid Airships/Blimps
In the weeks and months following Doomsday semi-rigid airships and blimps using hot air became the normal form of air travel in much of the northern hemisphere. Because of thier flexibility, cheapness and speed in construction these aircraft were the norm in most survivor states as a way to untertake reconisance over there countries. However, for anything more than this they soon quickly proved impractical; not only were they most functional only at dawn, they were practically incapable of lifting cargo in significant quantities and at a cheap cost: (for example, to carry a single, fully-loaded shipping container would need around forty normal hot air balloons or a single balloon 900 feet tall and a massive investiture of fuel, a task beyond the engineering capabilities of most nations in the immediate aftermath of Doomsday).

Road Vehicles
With oil much rarer than it once was and most of the worlds large road infastructure destroyed in Doomsday road vehicles are far rarer in most parts of the world. In some countries with a large supply of oil and the remaining first world countries (Australia, The SAC, USSR and the West African Union) road vehicles are still common but in the majority of the less economicly developed countries road vehicles are a rarity.

Railways
Like airships and sea transport railways have made a massive comeback since Doomsday. The rail industry had started to die out before Doomsday but most countries now have some form of railway. Most survival states in Africa, South America, Asia and some of the sucsessor states to the UK have a fairly comprehensive rail network and outside the first world countries railways make up the primary form of local transport.

Passanger Vessels
Cruise liners and ferries were falling out of popularity prior to Doomsday but the loss of air transport and the damage to the road industry has ment that liners and ferries have made a massive comeback since doomsday and are now the largest and easiest way of shiping passangers around the world. Most countries with a coastline have at least one shipping company that takes passangers. Passanger vessels can vary enormously in size, propulsion and method of construction. In the first world countries the ships are mostly purpose built steel hulled disel powered liners, In the second world countries (Africa & parts of Asia) the ships are also purpose built but are generaly steam powered and smaller, In the rest of the world the ships are normaly converted from older vessels and are powered in a variety of ways.

Cargo Vessels
Unlike passanger vessels cargo vessels were still in large use before Doomsday as they were (and still are) the cheapest way of moving bulk goods around the world. Piracy is still a large problem to shipping companies and most nations asigned patrol boats to protect their containers. The majority of cargo ships in the world are the originals from before Doomsday but recently some nations have started to build thier own container ships.