Overview
The main station serving Arden City
There is an air of stale decadence given off by the strong marble flooring and columns, or at least whats left of it. Enormous cracked tiles and broken architraving remain ignored and forgotten. A large wrought iron clock hangs from the ceiling inert, broken since the day of the Breach. Loose hanging wire and raw exposed machinery are commonplace due to either a job not yet done or a scene of an unaddressed accident.
From the top of the grand staircase, you are hit with a scene of ordered chaos. Almost every metre of the station is bristling with all kinds of activity.
Porters scurry across the strip laden with baggage, deftly weaving through the crowds. You see a group of workers in tired overalls clamber over a distant train with wrenches and blow torches in hand. Cries of commerce echo off the high vaulted ceilings, makeshift markets and sole traders peddling their wares.
Arden City is often described as having a carapace of enterprise, as business is performed at the very edges, right here at the station. Fleeting visitors from all over come and conduct their deals right out of their trains before heading back off into the world with either gold or a job in pocket.
Train Maintenance is also done here, as various terminals are filled with engineers and tinkerers trying out their latest inventions to varying success. It’s not too uncommon a platform will be out of service due to a half blown up train on the tracks.
At the edges under shadow of the arched ceilings, dodgy deals and shady shakedowns take place. Given the Inner City’s harsh military presence, transient visitors to the City are easy targets for these unsavoury entrepreneurs.
Here at Arden City Station, loved ones are often separated, either due to the City’s strict population policy or the duty of conscripted exploration. But they are also reunited here too, an often bittersweet reunion for the returning party has returned! But there’s always that look in their eye that some experience in the outer world has changed them somehow.
High above, pneumatically propelled messages can be seen whizzing along various tubes wrapping around the stations architecture. An intricate mesh of tubes snake their way down to ground level making the stations main message terminal where urgent missives are sent back and forth to the Inner City.
Directly next to this is the World Train map. A weathered map of all the stations along the Grand Loop, beside which are a series of Nixie tubes with details on arrivals and departures. A small child sits beside with a stack of parchments, recording the map changes with the time.