Um, I guess this is the right place for this topic: Well-known fantasy author Terry Pratchett is "modeling" the steam railroad in his latest book.
A conversation with Terry Pratchett
A conversation with Terry Pratchett
I’m finishing up Raising Steam, in which the railroad comes to Ankh-Morpork [the central city of his world], and an awful lot of things have to be made and discovered until you get to the top of that pyramid. You can’t have Vaseline until someone’s invented something else.