K
KidCracker
Member
Hello everyone,
Excuse me utilising your excellent forum but I'm after some expert opinions and I'm hoping some of you could help.
I'm writing a sci-fi novel about a scenario where (without boring you with the preamble) nearly everyone in the UK has, essentially, disappeared all at once. The main characters need to get from Edinburgh to the south coast as quickly as possible, and for various reasons, they can't fly or take a boat; they have to cross the mainland to get there. This wouldn't be such a big deal but, seeing as the roads were all as busy as ever before this cataclysm occurred, they are now full of cars that were in motion before their drivers vanished. This means the survivors are faced with are roads that would be filled with wrecked cars, rendering them largely impassible by regular vehicle, or at least roads difficult enough to traverse that the benefits of using a car for speedy travel would be mostly eliminated. Motorbikes are also out (the characters are transporting something too large for a bike (but not very heavy) so thinking about it the heavy machinery would also need some sort of trailer attachment. This could be jerry rigged if such a thing is uncommon).
In typical sci-fi fashion, time is of the essence for our characters. Making this journey on foot would take way too many days. I have various solutions in my head already but another occurred to me today (maybe you can see where I'm going with this) that I would really like to use (again, for various reasons that I don't need to go into here to risk boring you) but I need to carry out a feasibility/plausibility check. Where better than PlantTalk to find out!
So it occurred to me that, if our intrepid survivors were to get their hands on some kind of heavy machinery (in my novice imagination I'm thinking some kind of bulldozer?) would they be able to drive that sucker from Scotland to the south coast via motorway? Obviously it could wind in and around empty/crashed cars where possible, but I imagine it would require a lot of smashing cars out of the way. I don't know whether doing this over such a long distance would strain the vehicle to breaking point or not. They can refuel on the way if that's an issue, and the journey could be allowed to take 2-3 days if it meant going relatively slowly (but still faster than on foot). So my questions are as follows:
1. Is what I've described at least mostly plausible?
2. If so, what would be the best kind of heavy machinery for it, and why?
3. For bonus points: could you recommend a particular make and model?
That's about everything I think; any help would be sincerely appreciated. If there's anything that needs clarifying, please don't hesitate to ask.
And if this is all just a really stupid question... I hope you enjoyed reading, at least.
Sincere thanks in advance to anyone that can help!
Excuse me utilising your excellent forum but I'm after some expert opinions and I'm hoping some of you could help.
I'm writing a sci-fi novel about a scenario where (without boring you with the preamble) nearly everyone in the UK has, essentially, disappeared all at once. The main characters need to get from Edinburgh to the south coast as quickly as possible, and for various reasons, they can't fly or take a boat; they have to cross the mainland to get there. This wouldn't be such a big deal but, seeing as the roads were all as busy as ever before this cataclysm occurred, they are now full of cars that were in motion before their drivers vanished. This means the survivors are faced with are roads that would be filled with wrecked cars, rendering them largely impassible by regular vehicle, or at least roads difficult enough to traverse that the benefits of using a car for speedy travel would be mostly eliminated. Motorbikes are also out (the characters are transporting something too large for a bike (but not very heavy) so thinking about it the heavy machinery would also need some sort of trailer attachment. This could be jerry rigged if such a thing is uncommon).
In typical sci-fi fashion, time is of the essence for our characters. Making this journey on foot would take way too many days. I have various solutions in my head already but another occurred to me today (maybe you can see where I'm going with this) that I would really like to use (again, for various reasons that I don't need to go into here to risk boring you) but I need to carry out a feasibility/plausibility check. Where better than PlantTalk to find out!
So it occurred to me that, if our intrepid survivors were to get their hands on some kind of heavy machinery (in my novice imagination I'm thinking some kind of bulldozer?) would they be able to drive that sucker from Scotland to the south coast via motorway? Obviously it could wind in and around empty/crashed cars where possible, but I imagine it would require a lot of smashing cars out of the way. I don't know whether doing this over such a long distance would strain the vehicle to breaking point or not. They can refuel on the way if that's an issue, and the journey could be allowed to take 2-3 days if it meant going relatively slowly (but still faster than on foot). So my questions are as follows:
1. Is what I've described at least mostly plausible?
2. If so, what would be the best kind of heavy machinery for it, and why?
3. For bonus points: could you recommend a particular make and model?
That's about everything I think; any help would be sincerely appreciated. If there's anything that needs clarifying, please don't hesitate to ask.
And if this is all just a really stupid question... I hope you enjoyed reading, at least.
Sincere thanks in advance to anyone that can help!
job done
