The Rails....

Between shires are a lattes of rails.  The rails are triangle shaped tubes tied together on all three sides to hold the heavy rails in place.  These are for shire to shire shuttles.  The rail is loosely tethered with chain to the shire, the shuttle extends out the end of the tube to make the physical connection with the shire airlock, but never leave the rail tube.  These shuttles are the main form of transport between shires for people and physical cargo.