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Hrm. Quibble: Doesn't the Lighting Rail travel 30mph, and most airships 20mph?
I don't really know. I'd have to look it up. I know that I didn't just pull the numbers out of my butt, but I couldn't say by what means I came to these values. This was over a year ago by this point. If you know where I could get better numbers I'd be happy to see a reference; I probably extrapolated these values from move speed entries, which the rules expressly state are not the same as overland travel speeds.
I think they changed the speeds to the lightning rail between 3E and 4E which could explain why people have different ideas on their speed...
Mmmmm, page 44 in the 4e ECG, Lightning Rail, 30mph, Airship, 20mph. 3e ECS, page 124-125, airship 20 MPH, page 125-126, Lighting Rail, 30mph. Only place I remember there being different speeds is one of the other books that details how fast the LR goes uphill, downhill, and on turns.
Maybe we had the discussion when comparing speeds outside of the mph line... the discussion was some time ago when discussing whether lightning rail was faster than elemental galleon while traveling from Sharn to Korenberg. I had no stake in the argument and did not pay much attention to it. If my character's boss tells him to go by lightning rail, he does so ;)
Ahh, the Power of Plot!
Khorvaire is approximately 3,000 miles x 2,000 miles with some-where in the 4,500,000 square miles of land area about 25% more land area than the United States, including Alaska, and about 33% more if you exclude Alaska.
Available Transportation is comparable to the early 1900s in europe with horse & carriage and trains being the main forms of transportation available. there's no real early 1900s Airship analogy.
The typical person would rarely, if ever, travel past the nearest "town" unless involved in business or politics and only the very wealthy would travel across kingdoms.
Heres some more food for thought on the distance between places - Most towns are 150 - 200 miles appart in Khorvire. On horse back, that's 3-4 full days ride. That's like driving from Boston, MA to Las Vagas, NV and having to sleep outside your car on the ground each night between them. At least in Europe, towns and villages were rarely spaced more than 4-5 hours ride on horse-back apart. Major trade routes would spring up towns with that kind of spacing as collection points for the local farmers as this allowed the delivery of goods and return home in 1 day.
It would be reasonable to assume that small hovals and hamlets, even if little more than a tavern and a few out buildings, would be common place along traveled / trade roads each half-day to day's ride. - That's one of the advantages of following the road, you can get a warm meal and a dry bed each night, though such luxeries it can quickly drain the purse of a novice adventurer