MotF 131: Race to the Other Side

[Upvoteanthology]

Race to the Other Side

The Challenge
Make a map showing an alternate long-distance road (can be a railroad or a highway), involving some sort of competition between 2 or more countries (or companies). It can involve 2 separate routes or different starting points on the same route.

The Restrictions
There are no restrictions on when your PoD or map may be set. Fantasy, sci-fi, and future maps are allowed, but blatantly implausible (ASB) maps are not.

If you're not sure whether your idea meets the criteria of this challenge, please feel free to PM me.

Please try to keep images posted in this thread a reasonable size - feel free to post a smaller version of your image and provide link to a full-size version if you want to.

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The entry period for this round shall end when the voting thread is posted on Sunday the 14th of February.

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THIS THREAD IS FOR ENTRIES ONLY.

Any discussion must take place in the main thread. If you post anything other than a map entry (or a description accompanying a map entry) in this thread then you will be asked to delete the post. If you refuse to delete the post, post something that is clearly disruptive or malicious, or post spam then you may be disqualified from entering in this round of MotF and you may be reported to the board's moderators.

Remember to vote on the previous round of MotF!​

 

[Upvoteanthology]

The PoD regards the War of 1812, in which the British crush the US even more than they did IOTL. Maine is taken over, all British claims in Oregon are kept, and expansion is far more rapid, as is competition. While the US was originally heavily against the British, a pro-alliance government came into power in the 1860's, going to war with Mexico on their behalf. After the British takeover of California, the Trans-Continental Railroad was built, a still-reluctant cooperation between the United States and the British Empire.

 

[Rubberduck3y6]

Southern African Railways

Instead of being annexed into the British Empire, the Boers republics in southern Africa manage to retain their independence through an alliance with a newly unified and ambitious German Empire. Wanting to ensure their access to the mineral riches of the upper Limpopo region, German interest in the southern areas of Portuguese East Africa intensifies to the extent that with some expert negotiation round the conference tables of Europe, Germany is able to gain official control of the area as the German colony of Sofala. Naturally, the Portuguese aren't too happy at losing an area that had been under their control for over 350 years, leading to the development of a Germano-Portuguese rivalry in southern Africa. Thus, when the Germans start construction of their "Southern African Railway" to connect the gold, copper and diamond fields of the South African Republic and Matabeleland to the Indian, and later Atlantic Oceans, the Portuguese respond by planning their own African transcontinental railway, known as the Zambezi-Angola Railway.

The map shows southern Africa at the close of the nineteenth century, with the routes of the German Southern African Railway and the Portuguese Zambezi-Angola Railway, plus other railways built by the British, Boers and Germans.

Full size version here