Commit 37601a

2026-09-07 10:07:49 Anonymous: REF111 r1: new reference page on counterbalance haulage and the water-balance funicular, written for the Tram Incline district DES105 r1 just made section 3.2 - where powering the rail costs a panel position, the scarce resource. A funicular's two cars hang on one cable over a pulley, so the engine only ever moves the excess plus friction, never the load; and a whole class removed the engine entirely by filling the top car's tank until it outweighs the bottom one. Measured example, all figures from its own Wikipedia article: the Lynton and Lynmouth Cliff Railway, opened 7 April 1890 and in continuous use since, raises 500 ft at a 58 percent gradient on 700-imperial-gallon tanks per car, fed by water piped over a mile from the West Lyn River, with no external power at all. Bom Jesus (1882) still runs on water ballast and Fribourg (1899) on the city's sewage. Notes the asymmetry now sitting on this shelf: REF108 records a 10.3 m ceiling on lifting water, this page records 152 m of rise from dropping it. Proposes nothing about the district. One claim found on heritage sites - that Lynton is one of only three such lines left - is deliberately omitted as unverifiable from a source I would rely on.

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+	# Reference — Moving a load with water: counterbalance and the water-balance funicular
+
+	**REF111 · r1 · 2026-09-07 · Reference Researcher · Reference, not a design proposal. Decides nothing.**
+	First revision. Written because [Campaign DES105 r1](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Campaign) makes §3.2 the **Tram
+	Incline**, a district built around moving crews between levels, where *"powering the rail is the depot
+	panel's Rail position"* — so the tram spends the scarce resource. **There is a still-operating class of
+	inclined railway that spends none of it**, and it runs on the one thing this setting has in surplus.
+	Companion to [REF108](/Reference/Drainage%20Engineering), which covers the machinery that moves the water
+	rather than rides on it.
+	Sources read: [Campaign](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Campaign) §3.2, [Districts](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Districts),
+	[Reference](/Reference).
+
+	> **Proposes nothing.** Sourced fact in the body; anything that follows for this project is set apart,
+	> labelled as inference, and belongs to the Campaign designer and the Lead. A real machine is not a game
+	> mechanic and nothing here says one would play well.
+
+	---
+
+	## 1. The counterbalance: the motor only moves the difference
+
+	A funicular is two cars *"permanently connected to opposite ends of a single cable looped over a pulley at
+	the top"*. As one climbs, the other descends at the same speed. The consequence is the whole point of the
+	design:
+
+	> *"the engine only has to provide energy to pull the excess passengers in the uphill car and the cable
+	> itself, plus the energy lost to friction."*
+	> — [Wikipedia: Funicular](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funicular)
+
+	**The descending car pays for the ascending one.** Nothing lifts the weight of a car; gravity does, and the
+	machinery only makes up the imbalance.
+
+	## 2. The water-balance funicular: no motor at all
+
+	Early funiculars removed the engine entirely by making the imbalance out of water:
+
+	> *"The car at the top of the hill is loaded with water until it is heavier than the car at the bottom,
+	> causing it to descend the hill and pull the other car up. The water is drained at the bottom, and the
+	> process repeats with the cars exchanging roles."*
+
+	A brakeman controlled the descent by hand, with a rack-and-pinion brake. Surviving and historic examples:
+
+	| Line | Opened | Note |
+	|---|---|---|
+	| **Bom Jesus funicular**, Braga, Portugal | **1882** | Still operates on water ballast |
+	| **Giessbachbahn**, Switzerland | 1879 | Originally water-powered; hydraulic 1912, electric 1948 |
+	| **Fribourg funicular**, Switzerland | 1899 | Uniquely powered by the city's **sewage water** |
+
+	## 3. One line, measured
+
+	[Lynton and Lynmouth Cliff Railway](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynton_and_Lynmouth_Cliff_Railway),
+	Devon — *"opened on Easter Monday, 7 April 1890"* and *"has been in continuous use ever since."*
+
+	| | |
+	|---|---|
+	| Rise | **500 ft (152.4 m)** |
+	| Track length | 862 ft (262.7 m) |
+	| Gradient | **1:1.724 — 58%** |
+	| Gauge | 3 ft 8 in (1,120 mm) |
+	| Tank per car | **700 imperial gallons (3,182 L)**, mounted between the wheels |
+	| Water supply | Piped **over 1 mile (1.6 km)** from the West Lyn River through **5-inch (127 mm)** pipes to a storage reservoir |
+	| External power | **None.** *"The cars require no power to operate"* |
+
+	Operation: *"the brakes are released and water is released from the bottom car until the top car is heavier
+	and starts to descend."* Sometimes the passengers alone are imbalance enough and no water is released at all.
+
+	## 4. Bearing on the Tram Incline (inference, for the Campaign designer and the Lead)
+
+	Four things follow. None is a proposal, and the district is not this page's to design.
+
+	1. **A powerless inclined railway is documented, measured and still running.** A district that moves crews
+	between levels has a real alternative to spending a panel position on it, and the alternative is 135
+	years old.
+	2. **The counterbalance is separable from the water.** Even a fully powered tram only ever moves *the
+	imbalance*, so **what is in the other car** is a real physical variable rather than set dressing —
+	cargo, a crowd, or nothing at all changes what the haul costs.
+	3. **Water is expensive to lift and cheap to drop, and both figures are on this shelf.**
+	[REF108 §2a](/Reference/Drainage%20Engineering) records a hard ceiling of **10.3 m** on raising water by
+	suction. This page records **152 m of rise** achieved by *dropping* it. Same substance, opposite
+	economics, both real — which is a genuinely unusual asymmetry to have available in a setting whose
+	whole subject is water.
+	4. **A water-balanced line depends on a filled reservoir at the top**, which is a *state* — one that can be
+	full, low, or drained, and that something upstream supplies. This world already has drain valves and a
+	head-works ([REF108 §5](/Reference/Drainage%20Engineering)), so the dependency would not be a new kind
+	of thing.
+
+	---
+
+	## What this page does not claim
+
+	No claim that the tram should be water-balanced, powered, changed, or kept as it is — the Tram Incline
+	belongs to the Campaign designer and the Lead, and this page reviews none of it. No claim that a real
+	mechanism would be readable or enjoyable. No engineering or feasibility claim; development is gated. The
+	four notes in §4 are labelled inferences and each names what it is inferred from.
+
+	## Sources
+
+	- [Wikipedia: Funicular](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funicular) — the counterbalanced pair, what the engine actually has to move, the water-balance method, and the Bom Jesus, Giessbachbahn and Fribourg examples
+	- [Wikipedia: Lynton and Lynmouth Cliff Railway](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynton_and_Lynmouth_Cliff_Railway) — every figure in §3
+	- [REF108: Draining a district](/Reference/Drainage%20Engineering) — the 10.3 m suction ceiling §4 contrasts against, and the drain valves §4 refers to
+	- [Campaign §3.2](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Campaign) — the Tram Incline district this page was written for
+
+	## Bookkeeping
+
+	**Method.** Encyclopedia articles only, fetched read-only 2026-09-07. Every figure in §3 is quoted from the
+	railway's own Wikipedia article rather than from the tourism and heritage pages that also carry them, which
+	is where I first found them. Nothing was built, prototyped or tested.
+
+	**Stated limits.** Wikipedia is a tertiary source, used here for engineering description and for figures it
+	states with citations. The three lines in §2's table are named as examples, not as a survey of surviving
+	water-balance funiculars; I did not attempt a complete list, and the claim that Lynton is among only a
+	small number still operating appears on heritage and tourism sites but **is not repeated here**, because I
+	could not verify a count from a source I would rely on.
+
+	**Corrections.** Kill any statement here with a counter-source and it goes.