

In FMA, cars and trains are shown, but they seem to be regular early 1900s
cars and trains, similar to those that existed in the real world at that time.
I was wondering if there are any forms of transportation that are shown to
take alchemy, either in the construction or in the actually running of them?


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fullmetal-alchemist-series
Is there any alchemy-based transportation in FMA?


There is no official word one way or another on this, as far as I can tell.

That said, there is significant evidence that the alchemists outside of the
military are not as talented as the ones we've seen. In general, the military
tends to pick up extraordinarily talented alchemists for their own purposes.
(You can see scenes such as Al fixing the radio, Ed's little parade around
town fixing everything, and even Ed fixing up the town after alchemy stopped
working for a while; in each of these scenarios, the townspeople are astounded
at their skill level.) Alchemists who do not join the military (Izumi,
Hawkeye's father) tend to live more secluded lives and devote their time to
research or other science.

From this, we can conclude that there are probably few alchemists who are
willing to take their time and contribute to an industry (transportation
manufacturing) that does not take advantage of their scientific understanding
or level of skill the same way being in the military would. Not only that, but
the military grants _lots_ of time for personal research as well as _huge_
grants to State Alchemists.

Given all that, it's tough to say that any alchemists would find themselves in
the manufacturing industry; this doesn't mean there aren't any able to,
though. We've seen Ed able to completely transform the exterior of a car.

![Ed's clown car!](https://i.stack.imgur.com/fIqbn.png)

However, as I said, since there is no official word on this, we can only
assume that the alchemists outside of the military likely do not have the
skill nor motivation to participate in the manufacturing of transport
vehicles.

In terms of alchemy actually being _used_ for transportation, this is
essentially unheard of. The only time this actually happens is when people
move between reality and non-reality. (This happens when they are
deconstructed and taken into the Gate, or when Ed and Ling escape from
Gluttony.)


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