As Victor DuNice began to set up his railworks, the Order of Maesters assigned a number of their members to observe the processes and to assist and advice in whatever capacities they could. This was allowed due to the prompting of King Robert but while Victor was not particularly happy about it, he was willing to concede the issue with good grace confident in the advantages that his equipment provided. As he suspected the Maesters assigned to the project took a lot of notes and sketches, which were sent back to the citadel. There they were reviewed and compiled and with the covert backing of Mace Tyrell were copied. Around Old Town a workshop was established run by the citadel in conjunction with the Old Town guild of blacksmiths in which experiments were made along with a new furnace. They started out small affairs and gradually got larger. As this happened they also got more volatile. There were numerous explosions in which a fair number of workers and maesters were maimed or killed by runaway pressure. Where Victor DuNice would use steel, the maesters were often forced to make do with iron. Soon a pit was dug with crude bunkers were made for testing and crude copies of the lathes and milling machines needed to be made. Never the less they persevered in their aims and by 297 After Conquest, they had assembled a vehicle called The Kettle. A basic locomotive with a wooden barrel style boiler which could chug along at 30km/h and did so continuously without exploding.





Never the less, once it had been done notice was sent to the Citadel by the Iron Throne explaining that while they had managed to make a functional locomotive it was not to be used for commercial purposes given the official monopoly. As such, the citadel relented, leaving their prototype to a short loop of cast iron track. They shifted their attention to steam powered boats until the death of Robert Baratheon, at which point lines began to snake out from Oldtown.





A Song of Ice and Fire belongs to George RR Martin

