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Supposing the world had access to these technologies at the same time, how viable would creating large, flat highways for large ground effect vehicles for the fast transport of cargo or passengers over large plains with little altitude variation, like the Great Plains or the West Siberian Plain, compare to the viability, cost, and safety of laying train rail or Maglev track?

Forgive me if something like an overland Caspian Sea Monster isn't even possible; I know it was primarily an oversea transport idea and my knowledge of the ground effect is minimal, but I think an overland Ekronoplan is theoretically possible.

If you're not familiar with Ekranoplans or the Ground Effect... From this source we read:

The Lun-class ekranoplan ... is the only ground effect vehicle (GEV) to ever be operationally deployed as a warship, deploying in the Caspian Flotilla. It was designed by Rostislav Alexeyev in 1975 and used by the Soviet and later Russian navies from 1987 until sometime in the late 1990s.

It flew using lift generated by the ground effect acting on its large wings when within about four metres (13 ft) above the surface of the water. Although they might look similar to traditional aircraft, ekranoplans like the Lun are not classified as aircraft, seaplanes, hovercraft, or hydrofoils. Rather, craft like the Lun-class ekranoplan are classified as maritime ships by the International Maritime Organization due to their use of the ground effect, in which the craft glides just above the surface of the water.

The ground effect occurs when flying at an altitude of only a few metres above the ocean or ground; drag is greatly reduced by the proximity of the ground preventing the formation of wingtip vortices, thus increasing the efficiency of the wing. This effect does not occur at high altitude.

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    $\begingroup$ Please stop counting question marks as an interpretation on the one question policy, it's as if the term "rhetorical question" doesn't exist in the minds of so many stackexchange members. I can summarize this as a single question... How viable would an ekranoplan style ground effect vehicle be, economically and technologically, if we assume wide open and gently sloped areas like the Great Plains when considering competition with maglev trains and other existing means for rapid mass transit over land (and small bodies of water)? $\endgroup$ Commented Jun 25, 2025 at 23:11
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    $\begingroup$ I see an edit to the original question was made while I was typing my comment above. I'll keep it there as I find the counting of question marks as a silly way to enforce the one question policy, to see if anyone objects to my rephrase of the question, and to point out that the as part of evaluating viability there's going to be a consideration on the likely need to cross rivers and lakes. $\endgroup$ Commented Jun 25, 2025 at 23:21
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    $\begingroup$ @MacGuffin Do rhetorical questions need a question-mark. Perhaps take that up on our meta site. Readability, focus and clarity are important to S/E's remit. Remember to use the "@" function when addressing your comment to an individual. Remember comments are for suggesting improvements to a post. $\endgroup$ Commented Jun 26, 2025 at 0:20
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    $\begingroup$ @Escapeddentalpatient. A rhetorical question without a question mark is either bad punctuation or not a question. I did offer a suggestion for improving the question but apparently one minute too late as the post had been edited while I was typing, I simply didn't see the edit before hitting the submit button. Even though late I still had the added concern of crossing water, and I pointed to some of those aspects in my answer. Is there no need to cross water in this world being built? $\endgroup$ Commented Jun 26, 2025 at 0:52
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    $\begingroup$ Wikipedia about ekranoplan, a.k.a ground effect vehicle. $\endgroup$ Commented Jun 26, 2025 at 12:45

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I so desperately want to say an enthusiastic YES - as Ekranoplans are awesome

And I nearly just went with a Rule of Cool answer. In fact, I still may add it at the end - because that is how much I like them.

However - The issue is a combination of factors:

  • Weight
  • Cost
  • Terrain
  • Hazards
  • FOD
  • Logistics

So, let's go through them - Weight, the heaviest air-lifted payload is from Mriya (RIP) and she lifted 560 Tonnes. According to the US Navy, a Wing in Ground Effect (WIGE from now on) can carry an additional 50% - so for the sake of easy maths - let's call it 800 Tonnes. That is about 6 Rail cars.

In NZ - a typical freight train would have 60 rail cars. And we are not a country with a big Rail Network.

Yes, an WIGE could get there faster, but you would need 10 Mriya sized WIGEs to compete with one Train. And whilst Track is expensive to a degree, in NZ we spend ~\$500 Million NZD on Rail maintenance... One C5 Galaxy (couldn't find a cost for Mriya) - is \$352 million USD. TL;DR Planes are expensive

Next is Terrain, Hazards and FOD.

From our Sister site - Aviation SE - to truly get the benefits of Ground effect, you gotta be Low (cue annoying 2000s Rap song...) - the often quoted figure is 1/2 your wingspan - I have included the link to the above SE which goes into detail.

This isn't too bad on Water - with the exception of the occasional Wave, skimming along at 30 ft or similar isn't too bad. Land however is different, there are things that go on top of the Land. People, Animals, Trees, Hills, Rocks etc.

Flying that Low at even say 100 Kph would be hazardous - but we would expect a WIGE to be flying much faster - say 300-400 Kph or higher. You'd need F1 level reactions at those speeds.

Even if we presume we are going over relatively flat bits of land - say like the Bonneville salt flats - it is still a big risk because of FOD.

On the water - Water spray gets sucked up into the engines - Eh, it's fine.

On Land - rocks, stones, even dust would absolutely wreck and engine. Sure we have planes with high-mounted engines designed to operate from unprepared locations - but the thing is, that is more risk mitigation. An A10 (for example) only spends a brief period of it's life (when the engines are running) within 30 ft of the ground - e.g. Take Off, taxying and Landing. A WIGE would spend most of it's working life in close proximity, which would increase the risk.

Also - Bird strike! Once you get over a certain altitude, Birds become less of a problem - but within 30 Ft of the ground? There are a lot of Birds. And unlike Captain Sully and the Hudson Miracle - if you get multiple bird strikes at that altitude, you have zero reaction time.

Then you have Logistics:

You need Airports or similar infrastructure with looooooong runways to get enough speed to enter WIGE, especially if we are hauling lots of weight. Then you have to Load and Unload the cargo at each end.

This presents an issue - because WIGEs have to be Aerodynamic and enclosed. Firstly this limits the type of oversize cargo that can be carried (although Trains with Tunnels still have this issue) - but more importantly, it makes Cargo Loading and Unloading a much longer and costlier process.

Trains can use standardized Box Containers or even use special machines for loading/unloading in a near continual fashion, they are open topped for easy access etc.

So as per my opening line, realistically not Practical

BUT!!!

Rule of Cool is in effect, I freaking Love WIGEs and so I am going to complete contradict myself here

You said theoretically possible - and if I stretch and abuse the word 'Possible' - then I can say 'Yes'

If you had an area of Land that was very flat, with no obstacles and ground conditions that would make running tracks unfeasible (I am thinking the Arctic/Antarctic might work) and you had a slightly altered set of Timelines (whereby Rail wasn't invented before WIGEs - bit of a stretch - but hear me out) - then potentially you could have a few decades of design, refinement and mass-adoption that would mean that WIGEs were retained.

It's the Mass Adoption part that is key - once a critical mass of people start using something, then it becomes economically viable to cater to that. It also means that ideas get refined and iterated upon and the product gradually gets better and better.

For an example - if we look at say the Mini-14 Rifle and the AR-15 Rifle, both are semi-auto, Box magazine fed, 5.56 Rifles. Functionally, they are identical. Yet one has received a lot more iteration on the design (partly due to Military adoption, but partly due to other factors) which means one is now simply a better platform, with more flexibility, modability etc.

So - to contradict myself: Yes, it is possible, with a bit of tweaking to make it believable.

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    $\begingroup$ I suppose making large, flat roads for this, with railing on both sides, mitigates some of these issues. That'd add to the cost, but maybe still cheaper to build and maintain than train rail or Maglev track. Birds would still be a problem, as would cargo limits compared to trains, though $\endgroup$ Commented Jun 26, 2025 at 1:41
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    $\begingroup$ @Coquí - The problem is - if you go through all that effort... May as well lay some tracks down. $\endgroup$ Commented Jun 26, 2025 at 1:58
  • $\begingroup$ I looked up in Wikipedia: apparently, "KM" had thrust of 10x 13 tons and lifted more than 300 tons of cargo. The ground effect height was between 3 and 14 meters. $\endgroup$ Commented Jun 26, 2025 at 21:42
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    $\begingroup$ If you want to force GEV usage instead of rails or roads, depending on the world, there is the simple solution of bureaucracy, nepotism, and monopolies. For example, some person at some point acquired the sole rights to transport goods and people over the plains, and they really really like GEV for some reason. Given that they have a protected monopoly, cost doesn't matter at all, they can charge whatever they want, throughput doesn't matter, they are the only ones doing it. Anyone trying to compete is hit with legal actions (or worse, for example a spiked club). $\endgroup$ Commented Jun 27, 2025 at 8:10
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    $\begingroup$ "but you would need 10 Mriya sized WIGEs to compete with one Train" - well not quite, you need 10 trips with the plane to match one trip with the train, but the faster vehicle can potentially do more than one trip. If we disregard downtime due to loading, unloading and maintenance, the train goes for example 100kph and the plane goes 500, now you only need 2 planes to get the same cargo capacity as the train, not 10. $\endgroup$ Commented Jul 10, 2025 at 15:06
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Trains

The most efficient methods of transport by cost/amount moved are:

  1. Shipping by sea.
  2. Moving by cargo train.

And moving by trailer is far below this. You want to limit moving thing by trailer to the last few km from ship/train-yard to the factories.

Air transport is the very worst in cost & amount per trip efficiency. The best part of air transport is how quick it will get there, but you are paying a hefty premium to do so.

By using the ground effect vehicles you can dodge the dangers from wild animals roaming the ground, but are introduced to the dangers of wild bird strikes. You are still limited in the amount of items you can transport. At any transport more than incidental, this is going to be the (one of the) most expensive option(s). You also can’t cruise, and your pilots will hate you for that.

Maglev track is a curious option. A maglev track is far more expensive than train tracks (in build and maintenance costs). The train would only work on straight, long distances, as it needs to both speed up and slow down. Doing so too often would make the high max speed worthless. They can also transport a less than their normal variant, as they simply can't be loaded that heavy.

The question to ask yourself would be what you are transporting. Valuable perishables that can't be frozen? Flight. Large amounts of iron? Trains. For people, if there are a lot of potential underway stops? Trains. If the people are rich and need to get places fast, even at the exorbitant prices? planes.

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  • Wing-in-ground-effect aircraft cannot turn.

    Okay, they can turn but their turning radius is ginormous. Forget about any kind of obstacle avoiding maneuver, forget about being able to go around bad weather, forget about diverting to an alternate airport.

  • Wing-in-ground-effect aircraft are inherently dangerous.

    They have to fly close to the ground, and any change in wind direction or speed has the potential of bringing them to a crashing halt. It is not uncommon for an aircraft to gain or lose a few tens of feet of altitude when wind direction changes suddenly; for a normal aircraft that's not a big deal, but when the aircraft is flying very low that can be final.

    Moreover, wing-in-ground-effect aircraft cannot survive losing an engine, because the time allowed for reacting to the abruptbly changed condition is much too short.

    Good luck getting approval for the commercial use of an aircraft where any kind of mechanical mishap is fatal.

  • Remember that take-off and landing are the most dangerous phases of flight, because the ground is so close. Wing-in-ground-effect aircraft never properly take off, so that they spend the entire duration of the flight in this dangerous phase.

  • In the grand scheme of things, air freight transport is a rounding error, because of the very very limited capacity. For example, in the United States of America, 40% of the freight, measured by ton-miles, is carryied by rail, 33% by truck, 14% by pipelines (mostly petroleum), 12% by river barges and ... 0.3% by air.

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    $\begingroup$ How is flying low over gently sloped plains any more dangerous than water with some small waves? Wing-in-ground-effect aircraft haven't really gone away, the obstacles for more widespread use are mostly economic and legal than technical or a safety matter. One legal barrier is that people don't know if such craft are to be considered a boat or a plane. Economically it is that the saved fuel on flying in ground effect doesn't save enough on fuel to bother with jet fuel still relatively cheap. In a world with higher fuel costs the legal barriers should fall so fast transit is not lost. $\endgroup$ Commented Jun 26, 2025 at 13:36
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    $\begingroup$ @MacGuffin: Gently gently sloped plains are fine. The problem is that there are very very few gently gently sloped plains without trees, houses, and overhead power lines in sufficiently densely populated areas; certainly there is no such thing in Europe. Maybe America has such gently gently sloped plains without trees, houses, and overhead power lines? (And I don't know what you mean by "fuel economy". Flying low consumes vastly more fuel than flying high. Remember that an airplane's engines are not there to keep it aloft, they are only for overcoming air resistance.) $\endgroup$ Commented Jun 26, 2025 at 13:51
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    $\begingroup$ Wing-in-ground aircraft have positive vertical stability, which counteracts your second concern. If the aircraft gets closer to the ground, lift increases, pushing it back up; if it gets further from the ground, lift decreases, bringing it back down. (You don't see these effects in normal aircraft, because they spend less than a second in ground effect on takeoff, and ideally only a few seconds in ground effect while landing.) $\endgroup$ Commented Jun 26, 2025 at 23:13
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One way to get an idea on the viability of an overland ekranoplan style ground effect vehicle is to find some subject matter experts that made a serious proposal to build such a vehicle that can take off and land on an land based airstrip. I believe I found an example of such, the Boeing Pelican.

I don't know if this is a great source on this planned aircraft but it's at least a place to start to show it wasn't something I made up. https://aviationexplorer.com/boeing_pelican_facts.htm

There's nothing really special about flying in the ground effect over land than over water. In some ways it is simpler as the ground isn't moving in waves like the sea. In other ways it is more difficult because instead of needing only a boat-like hull to land on water there must be many wheels to distribute the weight or face busting up a concrete runway.

When it comes to cost and safety I'm not seeing anything really different from a seaplane style ekranoplan that lands on water other than the cost, and maybe added weight, of the landing gear. The design and operationof the aircraft is going to be very much the same except, again, use of wheels on a runway than a boat like hull on water. Once in the air it's no more or less safe as in either way if the craft goes down suddenly there's not likely to be a landing that the craft can pick itself up from.

With a boat-like hull over water there might be an option for a safe emergency landing at sea but an ekranoplan needs very calm waters that might only be found in a harbor. A similar craft with wheels isn't likely to land safely on anything but a prepared runway as it is unlikely to find anything else as flat and durable. Aircraft have landed on water with everyone aboard surviving, though perhaps a bit bruised. So if seeking a means to travel over land by ground effect aircraft then it might be best to fly over rivers and lakes when possible for improved safety.

How might this compare with other means of travel? I suspect quite favorably. The fuel economy should be double that of travel by traditional aircraft, though apparently at half to one quarter the speed. This would be a significant speed improvement though over conventional trains or any transport by road. The extra cost of fuel, if any, could be justified by this speed.

I don't know how this would compare to a maglev train option, I suspect quite well as there's no complicated tracks to build and maintain. There may be some need to smooth out a path to aid in crossing rivers, mountains, and other terrain features, but then there is the assumption that the area is already quite smooth with gentle slopes. The reason people in the USA tend to travel domestically by aircraft than train or such is because there are such long distances to travel and we are impatient, and because to add another stop there need only be a prepared runway and airport, there's no tracks or roads needed in between.

I don't know how well a ground effect vehicle might impact land use for things like crops or crossing over roads. Maybe they need only have traffic lights at planned crossings. By flying so close to the ground the traffic control becomes two dimensional like out on the water. Maybe a third dimension can be made for roads, trains, and such with tunnels along planned routes. Could a bridge of sorts be made over a wide river to support crossing by ekranoplan without disturbing boats below? Maybe, and maybe it is not necessary if the ground effect is high enough.

I hope that's not too much speculation from a non-expert. The important part is that Boeing had plans for something similar, and that should be enough to prove some measure of viability.

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    $\begingroup$ Thanks for the input! I hadn't considered bridges for ekronoplans, but I suppose many rivers wouldn't be wide enough for a dedicated ekronoplan lane. The Boeing Pelican looks really interesting! $\endgroup$ Commented Jun 26, 2025 at 1:50
  • $\begingroup$ You miss at least the trees growing at the sides of a runway, if there is one. If a tree would become tall enough to hit a wing, there will be a crash, or at least a sudden engine damage. Then there are birds, there is a LOT more birds over land than over sea. Generally, land usage under an ekranoplan highway would be severely impacted, as a low flying aircraft creates a whole lot of noise together with a pressure front high enough to potentially pop ears or windows. $\endgroup$ Commented Jun 26, 2025 at 6:46
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Maybe, if you're willing to twist the geology of your worldbuilding.

Over a regular plain, no. Flat plains are great for roads and rails, they're super cheap to build on.

Over something like deep swamp, melting permafrost, a glacier where ravines regularly open up and swallow road vehicles, etc... basically, on any unstable but flat plane where no ground track could maintain a footing, it could become the only economical way.

Shifting sands and other dusty/gritty areas, though, maybe not so great.

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    $\begingroup$ I also agree that it comes to the terrain, not whether if it's flat but what it's made of. Sure trains are more economical, but if you can't lay tracks, Ekranoplan makes more sense. $\endgroup$ Commented Jul 1, 2025 at 10:54
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If I remember articles about Ekranoplans from 90s correctly, slight change of the relief is not a problem for them. Case in point in the article was hovering above a small island.

Hence, I would rather say, it is not a dedicated track/runway, as is the case with Maglev, but a prepared / planned terrain route. Similar to the planning of a railway (not too steep, fitting curve radius), the route should include no too large obstacles / altitude change that might impede on ground effect.

Speaking of survivability of Ekranoplans: there was an anecdotic evidence from the same article when a smaller one got into a storm and frisking broke in halves. The front part (with engines for the ground effect) successfully arrived at homeport.

So, gravel and damage to the ground effect engines may warrant a landing, damage to the march engine may be not the biggest problem.

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Combined transport network

So, around where I am in europe, we have massive canals - they're still used extensively for bulk shipping.

Your world could be similar - you have huge canals, rivers etc, and some limitation on flying higher. So the technology that develops is:

River barges for bulk - they move everything heavy that has little urgency.

Ekranoplanes for speed - there's limits on higher flight (hail? frequent thunderstorms? A massive dead civ defense grid that keeps a no fly zone going?), so this technology develops as the only sensible alternative to flight.

The advantages here are that Ekranoplanes are definitely safest over water. They don't turn well, which is fine, because the canals run in nice straight lines. They're much faster than barges, which can take days, and the massive network of canals make bridge building for rail kind of impractical.

I'm not sure how else this works, but there's definitely a combination of geography and world conditions that forces flying tech into this direction.

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  • $\begingroup$ " there's limits on higher flight (hail? frequent thunderstorms? " Modern aircraft can fly above some weather. What they can't fly above they will divert their path to fly around. Flying low through weather sounds more dangerous as there's less room to recover from a sudden downdraft. " A massive dead civ defense grid that keeps a no fly zone going?) " That could be considered feasible if there's some reasonable reason constructed to explain why an IFF system would be insufficient to protect civil aviation. $\endgroup$ Commented Jun 26, 2025 at 13:08
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    $\begingroup$ " I think it's hard to come up with a reason that pushes Ekranoplanes " I can see it as something desirable in the right situation. Consider a large island nation kind of like Australia but not exactly. On the perimeter is coastline where rainfall off the sea allows for crops and fresh drinking water sufficient to support human settlement, in the middle is a flat desert. Transit around the nation would be by a slow boat by sea, or some kind of land transport along the coast. Crossing the desert by train is difficult for a number of plausible reasons. Continued... $\endgroup$ Commented Jun 26, 2025 at 16:44
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    $\begingroup$ The desert is sand can't support a railroad as it would just sink. Building a road bed is possible but then parts get buried in sand as sand dunes move about the desert with the winds. When aircraft are first developed they discover the ease in which an aircraft can fly in ground effect as it takes less power. Since the sand dunes are gently sloped hills between the sandstorms they find they can traverse the desert by ground effect with considerable speed even with the inefficient piston engines of the time. Flying higher and faster becomes possible later but deemed unnecessary by most. $\endgroup$ Commented Jun 26, 2025 at 16:56
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    $\begingroup$ @MacGuffin by area, most deserts are rock deserts, mountain deserts, sandstone plateaus, salt flats, ice deserts, or otherwise not sand deserts - and those can carry construction. $\endgroup$ Commented Jun 29, 2025 at 8:44
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    $\begingroup$ @lupe A quick search of the web revealed several mentions of using ground effect vehicles to cross deserts so there must be ways to manage sand being sucked into turbine engines. The M1 Abrams tank has a turbine engine and has seen extensive use in sandy deserts. Also, there's no requirement that turbines be used, the aircraft can use piston engines, rockets, or whatever. In short, there's ways to solve the problem in ways that are logical and believable. $\endgroup$ Commented Jun 30, 2025 at 16:55
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High speed zero-emission transport

High-flying planes are superior to GEVs in most regards, but they are notorious for emitting a lot of CO2. This cannot really be avoided, because only hydrocarbons have enough energy density to fuel more than short-distance flights. (Using the ground effect does per se not help much here - although a GEV is more efficient than a low-flying plane, it's not much better than a plane that flies high in thin air.)

Vehicles on the ground can be electrically powered, but even high-speed trains are not as fast as aircraft/GEVs and they require precise, well-maintained tracks and continuous overhead lines (even worse for maglevs).

The key to making GEVs an attractive alternative is thus to find a way to power them electrically that requires less expensive infrastructure than train lines. I'm thinking of something like automatic catapults that shoot fresh battery packs into a robotic catching arm of the GEV, or microwave power transmission. Both are quite speculative and have severe risks, but the physics is sound. The electrical energy can be used to charge batteries that don't need to be very big, and power ordinary propellers (which work fine for GEVs because they don't get to transsonic speeds like passenger jets do).

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  • $\begingroup$ Synthesized energy dense fuels can get net zero CO2 emissions without the complications of battery power or microwave power transmission. Another alternative is using nuclear fission for power, which has been experimented with in the past on aircraft but deemed impractical. That could change if used on a large ekranoplan where the issues of weight is overcome with proper application of phenomenon like the cube-square law. $\endgroup$ Commented Jun 28, 2025 at 5:11
  • $\begingroup$ @MacGuffin the last attempt of a nuclear ramjet Cruise Missile was deemed "too provocative" during the height of the cold war. Project Pluto was also not 0 emission - it was designed to irradiate as much land as possible as it flew by. $\endgroup$ Commented Jun 28, 2025 at 8:23
  • $\begingroup$ @MacGuffin synthetic fuels still require raw materials which make "net zero" claims problematic, and they are at any rate very inefficient, around 20% (sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1364032120304755) for hydrocarbons in a car setting. Other types of fuels (ammonia, Al-air-batteries, hydrogen) are more promising but have their own problems and can't match the density of kerosene. That's not to say a microwave-powered GEV is necessarily better - I have my doubts about that too - but if you're making a case for it then emissions are your best bet. $\endgroup$ Commented Jun 28, 2025 at 8:52
  • $\begingroup$ @Trish There's more than one way to make a nuclear powered aircraft. One way is with no radiation shielding like Project Pluto, and another is with enough shielding to protect human life like I was thinking when I made mention of the idea. $\endgroup$ Commented Jun 28, 2025 at 12:02
  • $\begingroup$ @leftaroundabout Synthetic fuels do indeed require raw materials and to get the carbon and hydrogen require to synthesize jet fuel can come from all kinds of materials to maintain a net carbon neutral. It can be sawdust, shredded paper, grass clippings, kitchen and butcher waste, sewage, and so much else. As inefficient the process may be there's considerable value to be gained in turning a low value energy source into a high value fuel, such as using geothermal heat for powering the synthesis. The process may be inefficient but its turning cheap abundant heat to valued and rare fuel. $\endgroup$ Commented Jun 28, 2025 at 12:17
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how viable would creating large, flat highways for large ground effect vehicles [be]

Not in any way ever.

But I want my Ekranoplans!

Sure, you can have them. They have a niche that they fill very well. It's just that this niche doesn't exist IRL because of other constraining factors. However, this niche is that they combine the benefit of not needing point-to-point infrastructure with an okay fuel efficiency while offering the speed of regular planes. So you can have ekranoplans comprising a huge part of your continental transport sector but you can never have custom-built "highways" for them. Maybe a minor canyon bridged, maybe a small forest cleared or brush flattened. But nothing that anyone would call highways. Think of power transmission lines, that's roughly the level of effort I'd say is still worth it before you're beaten by trains.

How to make ekranoplan

  1. Sparse, equal-importance urban centres
  2. Comparatively low trade volumes
  3. Pretty flat area between them (not as flat as one might think but no forests or mountains) [ideally marshes because those make train tracks expensive]
  4. High fuel costs
  5. Ideally something that makes staying in the wastes dangerous (bandits/scavengers etc.)
  6. [Bonus] Requiring overseas shipping while also not having significant port infrastructure (maybe pirates or some other sea-based [former] threat) will also tip the scales towards ekranoplans

Given all these, Ekranoplans will win out over the competition. Why? 1 and 2 combined make laying train tracks not economically viable. Implied here are that there are a lot of cities with equal importance everywhere, but no really major centers that'd warrant a train connection. Of course you need to explain how your world got to the Plane tech level without widespread train networks, maybe a semi-apocalyptic war or similar. 3 is self explanatory. If you need to put in a lot of effort to make routes for the ekranoplans, trains win out almost immediately. 4 is essential to take out regular jet airplanes. They are faster and safer but burn a LOT more fuel, especially when hauling significant weight. 5 is to disadvantage trucks, which would have to stop overnight in the wastes, likely getting robbed or similar. Of course your land-pirates can't have heavy weaponry (or need to actively fear repercussions) so ekranoplans remain safe enough.

Maybe your nation is just a few colonies eeking out a living in between few remaining oasis across a huge desert. The tech level is still pretty high but the ever shifting sands make railroads or roads infeasible. Regular planes are too fuel consuming and truck-caravans across the vast emptyness take too long, are vulnerable to night-time robberies (and with the sand also gobble up too much fuel)

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  • $\begingroup$ If train tracks are too expensive, how are these ekranoplan "highways" feasible? $\endgroup$ Commented Jul 1, 2025 at 14:07
  • $\begingroup$ @Cadence"3. Pretty flat area between them"... That is literally the entire point of the answer. You do not build anything. If you have to build much, it's not feasible. Maybe a bridge over a canyon somewhere, but that's about it. $\endgroup$ Commented Jul 2, 2025 at 7:30
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Im going to be the downer on this one.

Birdstrikes. Ekrano-planes were considered a cost-effective troop transport - over the open ocean. Which is largely a empty, lifeless dessert on the surface. But on the beaches starting and landing, this thing would do a Hudson-scully impression almost every time.

Now going over land, thats even more birdy. And the reason why its going to be like that is the speed. There are slower vehicles, that have less problems with birds (helicopters), but after reaching a certain speed- there is nothing a animal can do to evade the danger- and what they do is often getting them into the danger. Jets hugging the ground are running a similar risk.

Notice how all the real fast trains, have elevated, separated tracks, keeping them away from wildlife and suicidal humans? So i would abandon the idea, even if the ground effect vehicle might work going over flat terrain like swamps. Because at the end of the day, you do not want those chicken mc nuggets served flame-grilled inside the planes engine.

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    $\begingroup$ or at least fenced tracks. $\endgroup$ Commented Jul 1, 2025 at 10:41
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    $\begingroup$ Life, life finds a way. They fence airports- but the whole area around airports is specifically designed to scare off birds- Short grass, no hedges. Loud sounds (shotgun like), glittering lights, birds of prey. Its a full time job, to keep that little cone bird free. $\endgroup$ Commented Jul 1, 2025 at 12:29
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    $\begingroup$ Fences work perfectly fine in combination with trains and the rough rock ground to keep most animals from being in the tracks (at least in Europe). Airports have more problems for they need to prevent underdigging by moles and can't use gravel beds around (for danger ouf sucking them into the engines) and concreting the whole airport also is a problem for it leads to pooling water. So they use hawks to keep small birds and bunnies in check around airports, have hunters on the surrounding land, and sometimes even route the motorway in such way that noise pollution mixes. $\endgroup$ Commented Jul 1, 2025 at 12:40

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