There I no real way, or need, for The Empire to conquer the US. Blockade and bombard the main ports and the US can't do anything about it. If you haven't read my TL (and if not why not!) The Suns Never Set, on the ASB part of the board, you may want to have a look at that (start oh page 16 for the first few years). It starts of in 1886 and, so far is now up to mid 1889. War is raging between Britain, with France, and the US. It's only 6 years before. Plus in 1895 the Endicott reforms have not been put in to motion.
As for it being ASB? The only difference is Britain has flying machines, but not as weapons of war. Apart from that 99% of daily life is the same.
Also I did ask this question, well almost the same, and it turned into a slanging match. Nearly all sayng that the US can't win while a very few others were all USA USA USA types. I'm not sure how to make a link to those threads so check my stats for them, any more questions you have you can PM, I've done a hell of a lot of research for my TL.
The Brits would never bombard US ports, that would mean total war. By 1895 Great Britain can't win a total war with the US. Any thought of a short , victorious war is thrown out the window and you have a long brutal one instead. In that case TF is right because with long all out wars money and population are the big determiners. Add in the fact that the US is 3,000 miles away and it becomes even harder. In such a case the British Empire is going to lose Canada and all of its other Western Hemisphere processions. It might even lose some of its Pacific ones as the US arms native uprisings.
However that wouldn't happen as Westminster knew fully well that the US was outproducing GB. What it would do is fight a naval war around Venezuela which is a war it CAN win. The US wouldn't go into total war mode over Venezuela and so the short, victorious scenario is in play. To win a war over Venezuela it doesn't need to bombard Boston, it just has to prevent US ships from reaching it which it can easily do.