Royal Plains Bullet Train

Royal Plains Bullet Line (Traditional Chinese: 皇家市子彈火車), officially Torbury - Royal Plains High Speed Rail Link (Traditional Chinese: 多比利 - 皇家市高速鐵路, abbreviated as 多皇高鐵) is a high speed rail line on monorail tracks operating between Torbury Intercity Terminal in Torbury City and Royal Plains Centre Terminal in Royal Plains. The line is operated by Human Transit Corporation (HTC), and is the first intercity rail link operating on a monorail basis.

The line is internally numbered as 90001, where 900xx is the numbering prefix reserved for high speed rail links. Opened on July 4, 1997, there has since been a few more monorail-based intercity rail links that have opened, greatly reducing travel time between cities in the Free State of Torbury. The line operates 34 trains a day, at a frequency of 15 - 20 minutes during rush hours, and 45 minutes during off-peak hours. The line utilizes Concept 1, a Japanese-made convoy that travels on average of 310 km/h, making travel between the two cities only a mere 30 minute journey. This line has allowed rapid growth in the City of Royal Plains, and Royal Plains has gradually became more of a bedroom community of Torbury City, rather than its own urban area as originally planned.

The line is indicated as  Sky Blue  on the system maps of the Human Transit Corporation, like most other high speed rail lines.

History
Torbury City is the largest city in the Free State of Torbury, and travel into and out of the city is very common and in quite a high volume. This is especially the case for Royal Plains, which is the second city in the same circuit as Torbury City, and located very close to Torbury City. In the 1950s, a Torbury - Royal Plains Rail Link existed between the two cities. As both cities grew, the rail quickly is at capacity, causing congestion on the rail corridor. Bus shuttles were also operated, but would often take an hour to travel between both cities. This was first noticed in the late 1960s to early 1970s. Government officials initially implemented more trains on the corridor and removed unnecessary stops, as well as breaking up the rail link (the broke up chunk became the current Human Transit Corporation Route 800 'Torbury North-South Rail Link') to improve efficiency.

In 1984, the Airport Bullet Train was completed and deemed successful. It was investigated by engineers whether the monorail technology can be applied into a longer length, in particular, between Torbury City and Royal Plains (which is about 100 km apart). In 1991, a monorail plan was proposed by the Ministry of Transportation (MTT) to the Parliament of Torbury, and funding was released in 1992, and the proposal also passed environmental assessment (EA) in late-1992. Constructions began in late-1993, and completed in mid-1995. Stations, signals, and all other "accessories" are implemented by early-1996. Several test rides were made out in 1996, and there were several important safety concerns found during the test rides. Fixing on the way, the line was finally completed and passed the safety test, and opened to the public on 1 July 1997 unofficially. On 4 July 1997, the government officials held an opening ceremony, marking the first official day of the rail's operation.

The line began serving Torbury Churchill Terminal beginning 1 February 2008 after strong customer demand and overcrowding of the station. Previously, it had bypassed the station, and service was provided by conventional rail transit and buses to and from Royal Plains.

In the 2000s, various other high speed services are introduced on the same railroad, such as the Appleby Bullet Train on 7 February 2004, causing some brief signalling errors and causing delays to the rail line.

Beginning 1 January 2013, Human Transit Corporation announced that services on the Royal Plains bullet train has strengthened. Service frequency will now almost double, from operating 34 trains a day to 64 trains a day, peak frequency will be adjusted to every 10 - 15 minutes, while off-peak frequency improves to every 35 minutes. This was done so to address strong customer demand and population growth along the corridor.

In addition to the service change on 1 January 2013, service has been officially discontinued at Torbury Churchill Terminal, with services fully replaced by conventional intercity rail. Walton mTrain Station has been added to service the line on 1 January 2013. Appleby Bullet Train has also been discontinued on the same day, with the 19-km westward extension of the line into Appleby.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Nicholasland, ridership has drastically decreased on the line, costing one million Nichs of operational loss to the Human Transit Corporation. The HTC has announced to temporarily suspend the route on 10 February 2020 until further notice. Passengers travelling between Royal Plains and Torbury are advised to use the conventional rail transit instead.

Route
The line operates mostly parallel to Highway 2 between Torbury and Royal Plains, and bending just at Maglev Junction speedStation, and finally ending at Royal Plains Centre Terminal.

There are plans to extend the maglev rail north of the current northern terminus of Torbury Intercity Terminal. It is planned to extend the line to Torbury Centre Terminal, the city centre of Torbury City, since this is the destination for most riders on the line. However, this poses some challenges in terms of engineering, as maglev cannot be operated underground, and must be overground. It is quite difficult to build an open-air monorail line through the already heavily built-up area of Torbury South. Thus far, in 2011, the Environmental Assessment (EA) was not passed, claiming it would affect the local residents and businesses. No construction has been made since then.