McGoverning

[Expat]

Someone's been hacking my Scrivener notes

I stand by my earlier mention of that formative gag line in The Muppet Movie I first heard aged seven, from Gonzo (not our @Gonzo, Jim Henson's version): "I'm headed for the movie capital of the world... Bombay, India!" Just like Ladas hip-checking Volvos and Volkswagen Rabbits in the foreign-car showrooms (with that cool Volga Viking longship badge, too, certainly the best-engineered of the classic Crappy Soviet Four-Doors, made with robots and everything), Indian cinema may get a real opening here in the States, and also a possible acceleration of Subcontinental Brain Drain visas for talented electronics engineers, doctors, early software designers, etc., once again McGoverning is sometimes OTL with the gas pedal down, accelerated into different cultural and historical contexts.

And thanks very kindly re: the writing. I recommend to all the readership the book The Blood Telegram, it's really very good and does a good job of getting down in the weeds of multiple POVs: Blood's and the gang at the Dhaka consulate, Indira Ghandi's cabinet, the Dick and Henry Show, Sydney Schanberg who was one of the first correspondents to blow the whistle on just how horrendous the slaughter was, etc. Great and important read.

And yes I'd love to see a martial-arts musical with cheesy Seventies special effects and a cast of actual thousands storm American theaters. I can just see the Raimi brothers, for starters, going ape over that kind of style and then recapitulating it with a big budget decades later...

Two such temperamentally different film industries...that's a hard gap to bridge for anyone trying to make the crossover, professionally. The actors might have it easiest. For all that it is awesome, Bollywood *does* have a lot of fairly strict conventions. Any creative voices looking to at least take a little break from those (or leave them behind for good) might find happiness in Hollywood.

It's also hard for me to imagine what a greater Indian brain-drain might look like, since it was already so pronounced IOTL. I remember my pediatrician in the eighties was Indian, though of course that was in that famously bustling hub of economic activity, that immigration destination known the world over, [checks notes] Morgantown, West Virginia. My hope here would be that McGovern the Mitigator strikes again and comes up with some sort of clever, regulatory offset to keep the Indian economy from suffering too much from loss of brains. Then again, everyone deserves quality care from the likes of Dr. Mujumdar.

Love the Lada, and if nothing else, we have something accurate for the baddies to drive in our spy movies now.

Aw, that's a shame. They really should've let Mssr Sauvaugnargues finish shaving before rolling him out for the press conference.

 

[Yes]

I am indeed looking forward to @Yes Maimonides on CART, agriculture in India and Bangladesh, and industrial policies (for Xerox, GM, Lockheed, etc).

Also, Jovy Salonga is President of the Philippines? When did that happen?

And the new Governor of California - do we take it that clip is from 1975, then?

(1) Thanks! I should start getting to some of that shortly. I should say up front that Commerce and Industry Secretary Gavin's keep-it-simple approach to industrial strategy runs on the lines of (A) come up with a well-designed product and (B) sell the crap out of it, with some more complex targeted government support for both (A) and (B). Obviously it's more complex in cases where you're trying to reform the structure of an industry (US Steel says hi! Hi, US Steel!) but that's the gist for big corporations that still have functional R&D in McGoverning's day and age. General Motors is... still finding its way at this point

(2) Yes, and this is the first mention of it. Much as I would love to (and trust me, faithful readers, you don't want that, we would never actually get anywhere along the time line - this author's brain is Tangents All The Way Down) we can't get to every facet of the broad TLverse landscape, at least not in the main thread, so sometimes events like that will crop up. But, yes, a premature-people-power coalition has ganged together around the Liberals with the super-discreet blessing of the McGovern Administration and pantsed ol' Ferdinand who is probably now cooling his heels in a villa outside Bangkok where the student movement has had a considerably nastier and more tragic outcome.

(3) There is, we'll even learn who two chapters from here (that is to say, the coming chapter plus the one after that, at whose end There Are Midterms.) The chapters bob and weave back and forth on the chronological line though the farthest we'll get along there is about the middle of 1975, until for very clear reasons we move past that towards the Bicentennial and, among other things, an electoral reckoning for Our George and his Plucky Band of Scoobies. The Mideast stuff moved into '75 for a few key things (like the Pershings-for-Peace deal with the Israelis) and likewise with the Xerox-Meets-Woz bit and the Lockheed stuff here. The next chapter will do likewise and the one after it (in which, again, the US 1974 midterms will be dissected in what, as an author, I think is a rather nice piece of "as you know, Bob" postmortem the way I've set it up.)

 

[Yes]

CART takes precisely the correct approach. It does absolutely nothing to restrict launchers when you can get more warheads loaded on a launcher than ever before. The SS-18, quite simply, was the deadliest ICBM in history. Its MIRV bus or its single-size 25MT warhead were both able to wipe millions off a map if properly placed. McGovern here unties the Gordian Knot enough to where a future effort might finally undo it entirely.

I know I owe you a piece of info for the back end of this, @Yes, and I think I've figured out where it is.

That's certainly the hope. When you specify in treaty language "X-many warheads of This Type, to be deployed on SS-18 MLBMs [R-36U in Soviet nomenclature IIRC]" you can either put a whole frickin' bunch on very, very few launch platforms, which just might be in danger from counterforce targeting, or you have to spread them over more missile bodies and dilute the localized effect a bit. (Of course they'll be absolutely lousy with decoys since you could get, what, about thirty believably-scaled decoy devices on an SS-18 bus alongside a good ten to twelve live warheads, which thoroughly foxes any ABM defense. But the McGoverners don't really even trust the technical arguments in favor of ABMs anyway so that doesn't really effect their calculations one way or the other.) Corral the death-spiral of arsenal development, cut deep into the so-grotesque-it'd-be-funny-if-it-wasn't-the-apocalypse "nuclear hand grenades" kind of tacnuke stocks, then later see if you can come at it again and start walking back the strategic arsenals gently. Oh, and have some actual inspection criteria on the global bioweapons treaty from '72 because that would be nice. It really is good stuff, ranks up there with the Medicare Expansion and Consolidation Act and McGovern's farm policies as truly big achievements for his administration, what the blathering "presidential experts" call consequential.

 

[Wayside]

the jodhpured junta in Islamabad

How are you this good at words? You just never fail.

Edwin Lutyen’s wedding-cake tribute to Saracen architecture, Hyderabad House

*googles* Hm. I don't know what the architectural equivalent of the Uncanny Valley is, but I feel like Hyderabad House inhabits it.

After his second visit to India and before a stop off to praise and be praised by President Jovy Salonga, the slight and shrapnel-marked Filipino president lifted up by a nation-as-crowed that shouted down, and then out, the martial-law thuggery of another once-convenient Cold War strongman.

Wait, did I miss Marcos getting thrown of Malacañang? I suppose this section is a wee bit out of order, but I don't recall that coming up in previous updates.

But when McGovern said directly that American diplomacy needed more “Blood telegrams” — more of the men and women in the field telling the political hires what they’d got wrong — McGovern seemed to mean it.

And we need more foreign policy thinkers that encourage such telegrams.

He never lived a day safe from the memory of the mis-racked bomb, jammed so that it might have blown his own steel-and-canvas flying contraption apart, that he jimmied free only for the cold steel hand of fate to take it right down the chimney of an Austrian farmhouse where it blew the quiet family there to kingdom come.

Jesus Christ. I honestly didn't know that.

In times to come, up from the sea of ink and tweed where international-relations experts migrated from theory to theory, these became known as “Rambouillet sides” and as the “Rambouillet model” for arms talks, as though its smiths and masons were trying to do anything more than solve the problem right in front of them and then the next.

Welp, that's IR theory for ya. It's no wonder that I changed my major.

It was, as Vice President Hart said, eyes bright, a hell of a thing.

I have, indeed, seen what you did there.

The PCF to tankies, circa 1977

 

[Workable Goblin]

The thing that bugs me about CART is just how they're going to prevent the Soviets or the United States from cheating and declaring only some of their warheads. It's a hell of a lot easier to hide a bunch of RVs or bombs than it is to hide a bunch of actual missiles or bombers, after all. I tend to think that's a big reason behind why the OTL treaties targeted missiles, not warheads...

 

[Expat]

*googles* Hm. I don't know what the architectural equivalent of the Uncanny Valley is, but I feel like Hyderabad House inhabits it.

I have found no real, satisfying evidence on the internet that it's not just a pair of walls facing the street braced by 2x4s at the back.

 

[Yes]

How are you this good at words? You just never fail.

You're really too kind. But I particularly like writing about this kind of stuff, so I tend to get what I'd call "florid and voluble." I am however quite gratified that you dig it.

*googles* Hm. I don't know what the architectural equivalent of the Uncanny Valley is, but I feel like Hyderabad House inhabits it.

Orientalism says hi! Hi, Orientalism! Usually Lutyens was less, y'know, obvious about it. More of his stuff, especially the really grand, huge bits, has a more lived-in feel. Hyderabad House just doesn't and you and @Expat have that one called right.

Wait, did I miss Marcos getting thrown of Malacañang? I suppose this section is a wee bit out of order, but I don't recall that coming up in previous updates.

No, you didn't miss it, this is one of those "peek behind the curtain at the teeming mass of other TL details" bits. With so much ground to cover and so much of it covered densely (*raises arm, hand open* my foul, coach...) sometimes the rest of what's going on in the McGoverningverse just kinda breaks in that way, like the flowers up through the pavement.

And we need more foreign policy thinkers that encourage such telegrams.

Indeed. Quite possibly George's biggest feature, in computer terms, when it comes to diplomacy.

Jesus Christ. I honestly didn't know that.

Other than perhaps some old political comrades, and the fellow survivors of the Dakota Queen crew (his wartime B-24), McGovern's biographer Thomas Knock, at the end of McGovern's life, may have been the first person to whom George told that story. When you know who he was, as a human person, and you know that story, it explains a very great deal about his political career thereafter.

Welp, that's IR theory for ya. It's no wonder that I changed my major.

Mhmm.

I have, indeed, seen what you did there.

Delaware says hi! Hi, Delaware!

The PCF to tankies, circa 1977

E U R O C O M M U N I S M (which, at least as often as not, the McGoverners can see for what it actually is and tend to let get on with wooing Soviet reformers away from commissar-itis)

 

[skaven]

In times to come, up from the sea of ink and tweed where international-relations experts migrated from theory to theory, these became known as “Rambouillet sides” and as the “Rambouillet model” for arms talks, as though its smiths and masons were trying to do anything more than solve the problem right in front of them and then the next.

Look I just came out for a good time and I'm honestly feeling so attacked right now.

Joking aside, really fun update, nice to see hints that things are still a-brewing with Thorpe.

 

[Yes]

Look I just came out for a good time and I'm honestly feeling so attacked right now.

Joking aside, really fun update, nice to see hints that things are still a-brewing with Thorpe.

I should note that in his youth, before he became a really quite talented and effective university bureaucrat, my dear old dad taught Intro to IR. Somewhere a psychologist is scribbling away on that one at $145 for a 45-minute session...

Re: Slick Jezza, oh goodness yes. The real wonder is that that ever-ticking time bomb of a career did not explode a dozen or more times before it, y'know, did. And his ability to ramp up what we might describe as his Icarus arc ITTL has been, shall we say, enhanced.

 

[Yes]

Two such temperamentally different film industries...that's a hard gap to bridge for anyone trying to make the crossover, professionally. The actors might have it easiest. For all that it is awesome, Bollywood *does* have a lot of fairly strict conventions. Any creative voices looking to at least take a little break from those (or leave them behind for good) might find happiness in Hollywood.

You've hit on an important element of that potential earlier opening for Indian films in the States, cultural transference between the world's two most massive movie industries, which both are awash with moneyed interests who have some pretty firm convictions about what conventions you follow could be interesting, especially since the Seventies is the "golden age of the auteur" in the US, at least IOTL...

It's also hard for me to imagine what a greater Indian brain-drain might look like, since it was already so pronounced IOTL. I remember my pediatrician in the eighties was Indian, though of course that was in that famously bustling hub of economic activity, that immigration destination known the world over, [checks notes] Morgantown, West Virginia. My hope here would be that McGovern the Mitigator strikes again and comes up with some sort of clever, regulatory offset to keep the Indian economy from suffering too much from loss of brains. Then again, everyone deserves quality care from the likes of Dr. Mujumdar.

EERS REPRESENT. I liked Morgantown the couple of times I've been and that people-mover is likely to have company thanks to the Wright-Bentsen omnibus transportation bill. McGovern the Mitigator is indeed very interested in more Indian jobs in India, you've put your finger on his approach to immigration in general in "economic migrants would have less incentive if their own economies were healthy and their political systems democratic" terms. More tech-sector flow back and forth between the two nations seems on the cards at least while the Most Indophile American Administration Ever No Really I Mean It is in town.

Love the Lada, and if nothing else, we have something accurate for the baddies to drive in our spy movies now.

Prexactly. Also it's hipster enough to get some of the paleo-hipsters to stop buying Japanese, and Commie enough to get Hard-Hat Voters to buy American with even more vigor, to which Secretary Gavin for one would not say no. Who's playing nine-dimensional chess now, huh?

Aw, that's a shame. They really should've let Mssr Sauvaugnargues finish shaving before rolling him out for the press conference.

DON'T MENTION THE WAR

 

[Expat]

EERS REPRESENT. I liked Morgantown the couple of times I've been and that people-mover is likely to have company thanks to the Wright-Bentsen omnibus transportation bill.

LOL, the PRT-wank I never knew I wanted!

Just remember: each station added to the Morgantown system is good for one free committee vote from Senator Byrd.

It's a nice town, though not where I grew up. That's just where they kept the doctors and such.

Now I have to go off and think of other likely candidate towns for PRT...

 

[Gonzo]

And yes, thisguy is going to want to have a lot more to say about the Union Gauche platform ITTL:

View attachment 455501

Presuming that its Mitterrand in 1975, Marchais throwing a wrench in the works in 1982 and potentially giving the PCF a bit longer in the spotlight is certain an interesting route to go down!

 

[Yes]

LOL, the PRT-wank I never knew I wanted!

Yup...

Just remember: each station added to the Morgantown system is good for one free committee vote from Senator Byrd.

Oh I do, I do, especially if they can figure out how to run them with self-feeding coal fired engines.

It's a nice town, though not where I grew up. That's just where they kept the doctors and such.

I'm familiar. Grew up in a Morgantown-equivalent in NC (though we were as they say with just the right amount of condescension a "regional university" not the flagship campus, though now thanks to growth and having one of the two public med schools in North Carolina it's the third-biggest campus in the system after Chapel Hill - my alma mater - and NC State. Every couple of years WVU would come down to said school, the one I grew up with, and slaughter us, though in the glorious '91 season our guys actually won. Also a long history of playing Marshall: The Crash happened after a game against my home-town team.)

Now I have to go off and think of other likely candidate towns for PRT...

Quote:

"In 1976 [IOTL] after receiving and reviewing 68 letters of interest and 35 full proposals and making on-site inspections of the top 15 cities, UMTA [Urban Mass Transportation Administration, guess who's going to eat their Wheaties during a McGovern administration...] selected proposals from Los Angeles, St. Paul Minnesota, Cleveland, and Houston. It also concluded that Miami, Detroit, and Baltimore would be permitted to develop DPMs if they could do so with existing grant commitments."

https://staff.washington.edu/jbs/itrans/dpmhist.htm

OTL UMTA: OK, you four, and, eh, I guess you three can do it if you can take it out of hide...
McGoverning UMTA: 68 letters of interest? Fifteen on-site inspections? NOT METAL ENOUGH!! YOU get a people mover! And YOU get a people mover! And ALL OF YOU get a people mover!! ...

ETA: L I G H T R A I L M Y H O M I E S

Guess what term was coined, in the American context (there's a different, 19th century usage related to track gauge and engine weight in the UK), in 1972 around McGoverning's very own POD? That would be "light rail." So there's potential for a two-front war on tracked metropolitan transit. Don't even get me started on routes and rolling stock...

 

[Wash]

I like this timeline a lot. It's really great. It's compulsively well-researched and extremely well written. My favorite one on the site right now.

Time for some US electric railroading questions because why not.

1: I remember reading vaugely somewhere that during the oil crisis the Santa Fe was seriously considering electrifying its ENTIRE MAINLINE (Chicago-Los Angeles through the desert Southwest), but decided it wasn't worth it. Might a McGovernite, eager for public infrastructure spending, a new market for general electric heavy electric freight engines, and perhaps eager to see more coal dug out of Navajo coal mines to fuel the generating stations, be persuaded to lend them a few million dollars?

2: Speaking of GE, way back in the day they had electrified most of another Western main line, the Milwaukee Road's, at 300 volts DC. This system was badly in need of updating (read: ripping out the whole thing and redoing it at 50 Kv AC), and GE offered the railroad a package deal. They rejected it, ripped out their wires, then the oil crisis hit, maintenance and diesel fuel expenses skyrocketed, and the road was out of business soon afterward. Might a certain Midwestern institution take pitty on another Midwestern institution?

3: At this point, the tracks between New Haven, Connecticut and Boston, Massachusetts were still un-electrified. Might this get fixed before 2000?

4: Ooh, speaking of Boston, Big Dig butterflies await. Ooh, we might get the North-South rail link built at the same time as the Big Dig as it was always meant to be. Oh, I might swoon.

5: Oh just remembered: Conrail, technically a state-operated enterprise at this time, would very soon cease electric fright operations (wile running some basically brand new locomotives no less). GE famously produced two demonstrator electric freight locomotives for them in hopes they'd take the bait. With a few extra dollars (and the government telling off Amtrak), they might.

Thanks again for all the amazing work,

-Wash

Edit: Liked by Yes! My life is complete!

 

[Usili]

I lot this timeline a lot. It's really great.

Time for some US electric railroading questions because why not.

1: I remember reading vaugely somewhere that during the oil crisis the Santa Fe was considering electrifying its entire mainline (Chicago-Los Angeles through the desert Southwest), but decided it wasn't worth it. Might a McGovernite, eager for public infrastructure spending, a new market for general electric heavy electric freight engines, and perhaps eager to see more coal dug out of Navajo coal mines to fuel the generating stations, be persuaded to lend them a few million dollars?

2: Speaking of GE, way back in the day they had electrified most of another Western main line, the Milwaukee Road's, at 300 volts DC. This system was badly in need of updating (read: ripping out the whole thing and redoing it at 50 Kv AC), and GE offered the railroad a package deal. They rejected it, ripped out their wires, then the oil crisis hit, maintenance and diesel fuel expenses skyrocketed, and the road was out of business soon afterward. Might a certain Midwesterner take potty on another Midwestern institution?

3: At this point, the tracks between New Haven, Connecticut and Boston, Massachusetts were still un-electrified. Might this get fixed before 2000?

3: Ooh, speaking of Boston, big dog butterflies await. Ooh, we might get the North-South rail link built at the same time as the big dog as it was always meant to be. Oh, I might swoon.

Thanks again for all the amazing work,

-Wash

While I'm not Yes, I could talk a bit on some of the background stuff on those (dealing with OTL history and a couple of my own thoughts on stuff)

There were a lot of studies on electrification during the Oil Crisis's, but I think what you might see in terms of any kind of major railroad electrification (at least from my understanding of how it was all going in the mid-late 70s) would likely be the extension of the segment of Conrail (the ex-PRR segment from Harrisburg to Philadelphia) west to the Conway Yard just west of Pittsburgh and east to Kearny, NJ.

With regards to the Milwaukee Road... you're probably going to need to change who the hell you have as in charge (because oh god the problems that was there with who was in charge). Getting rid of whats his face would likely help a lot with trying to get the Milwaukee Road back on track, and assuming you have GE agreeing to still maintain funding of it, and say something being done by the McGovern Admin with the railroads (and most especially with the Granger Railroads) could probably be able to help stabilize it. Like, you had all kinds of issues with the Milwaukee Road such as double booking expenses, the fact of the matter is that the Lines West (i.e. the transcon segment) being profitable while all the branch lines weren't and so on.

Also, originally the Northeast Corridor Improvement Project was to see the electrification completed between New Haven and Boston, but the arrival of the Reagan Administration saw those funds zeroed out (as the initial priority for the NECIP funds was first in dealing with deferred maintenance, and then improvements from New Haven on south, before moving for New Haven to Boston if I recall from reading some stuff on it?)

 

[Expat]

Yup...



Oh I do, I do, especially if they can figure out how to run them with self-feeding coal fired engines.



I'm familiar. Grew up in a Morgantown-equivalent in NC (though we were as they say with just the right amount of condescension a "regional university" not the flagship campus, though now thanks to growth and having one of the two public med schools in North Carolina it's the third-biggest campus in the system after Chapel Hill - my alma mater - and NC State. Every couple of years WVU would come down to said school, the one I grew up with, and slaughter us, though in the glorious '91 season our guys actually won. Also a long history of playing Marshall: The Crash happened after a game against my home-town team.)


Quote:

"In 1976 [IOTL] after receiving and reviewing 68 letters of interest and 35 full proposals and making on-site inspections of the top 15 cities, UMTA [Urban Mass Transportation Administration, guess who's going to eat their Wheaties during a McGovern administration...] selected proposals from Los Angeles, St. Paul Minnesota, Cleveland, and Houston. It also concluded that Miami, Detroit, and Baltimore would be permitted to develop DPMs if they could do so with existing grant commitments."

https://staff.washington.edu/jbs/itrans/dpmhist.htm

OTL UMTA: OK, you four, and, eh, I guess you three can do it if you can take it out of hide...
McGoverning UMTA: 68 letters of interest? Fifteen on-site inspections? NOT METAL ENOUGH!! YOU get a people mover! And YOU get a people mover! And ALL OF YOU get a people mover!! ...

ETA: L I G H T R A I L M Y H O M I E S

Guess what term was coined, in the American context (there's a different, 19th century usage related to track gauge and engine weight in the UK), in 1972 around McGoverning's very own POD? That would be "light rail." So there's potential for a two-front war on tracked metropolitan transit. Don't even get me started on routes and rolling stock...

Hm, I could be barking up the wrong tree, but that sure sounds like East Carolina. My dad coached at a small regional in WV that swam in the same conference, at least back in the 70s and 80s (their destinies have largely diverged since then). My favorite shirt growing up was a vintage 1970-something "East Carolina: Swimming In A Purple Haze" beauty that was worn until disintegration.

As for the light rail I'm just gonna keep calm and not press you for detailed system maps tomorrow.

I was thinking though that if there really is pressure to keep smaller "factory towns" in honest sweat, there might be some pretty good candidates there. Older, centralized housing patterns but employment centers that are now maybe a little bit more distant, though a significant percentage of locals are all going there during the day. And then commercial downtowns that are often dying, or even newer commercial areas purpose-built on the fringes. In either case, you've got a model for a pretty good small-scale linear transportation system similar in scale to Morgantown. Obviously the lesson of OTL would see such small systems look completely ridiculous as the factories close and the systems become kinda pointless as sprawl pushes everything even further away, and there might still be a few of those even with the best McGoverntentions. But it could be another key in keeping assets in place for other towns. Semi-ironically I'm thinking of lots of auto-towns in Michigan, but then of course one of the OGs is down the block in Detroit, so it could make sense.

Another thought was coastal tourist areas, which build up in a linear fashion to take best advantage of, well, the coasts. Maybe some of the more lived-in parts of the Jersey Shore, maybe some places in Florida (seems like the Space Coast should have a Wedway Peoplemover). Virginia Beach, perhaps. Probably has to be more than just a summer destination. Anyway, just thinking out loud.

 

[Wash]

With regards to the Milwaukee Road... you're probably going to need to change who the hell you have as in charge (because oh god the problems that was there with who was in charge). Getting rid of whats his face would likely help a lot with trying to get the Milwaukee Road back on track, and assuming you have GE agreeing to still maintain funding of it, and say something being done by the McGovern Admin with the railroads (and most especially with the Granger Railroads) could probably be able to help stabilize it. Like, you had all kinds of issues with the Milwaukee Road such as double booking expenses, the fact of the matter is that the Lines West (i.e. the transcon segment) being profitable while all the branch lines weren't and so on.

Oh God I had an idea. McGovernites get Conrail to buy out the Milwaukee Road. Conrail now has a Western division. Conrail hooks it up to the lines from Chicago east. GE electrifies the whole thing at 25kv AC. GE E60's dragging mile-long freight trains Coast to Coast. Oh God I'm having a railroading orgasm.

Update: Ooh man, whatever the McGovernverse's equivalent of Reganites are would totally sue Conrail/GE/The Government for violating the Sherman Anti-Trust Act if that ever happened. Oh the politics.

 

[Usili]

Oh God I had an idea. McGovernites get Conrail to buy out the Milwaukee Road. Conrail now has a Western division. Conrail hooks it up to the lines from Chicago east. They electrify the whole thing at 25kv AC. Oh God I'm having a railroading orgasm.

Update: Ooh man, whatever the McGovernverse's equivalent of Reganites are would totally sue Conrail/the government for violating the Sherman anti-trust act if that ever happened. Oh the politics.

... I actually did that once as part of an incomplete TL (in terms of the Milwaukee Road getting added to Conrail with some significant restrictions and such) once (and I was planning on eventually having full transcons running east-west in the US, like as an example besides Conrail from Seattle to NYC, would've been the Erie Lackawanna with the Santa Fe).

It would've been more likely I think to have had the Milwaukee Road as an entirely separate management, since it was just one railroad (although now I'm just picturing it being morphed into 'Conrail East' and 'Conrail West', with Conrail West being like the Milwaukee Road, the Rock Island, and probably some other major Granger Road that went bankrupt in the late 70s that I'm forgetting about)


OH! And in relation to this discussion, I just found something @Yes would love about McGovern and the Milwaukee Railroad! Here: https://milwaukeeroadarchives.com/Bankruptcy/GeorgeMcGovernInterview09012000.pdf

And as uh, another thing on this topic dealing with national railroad policy which looks interesting (with the entire opening statement of it, being by George McGovern to boot): https://www.jec.senate.gov/reports/95th Congress/National Railroad Policy - Which Way is Up Part II (923).pdf

 

[Wash]

Aww. In the second source McGovern straight-up says "I do not believe that the other extreme that's sometimes mentioned - a Midwestern Conrail requiring the infusion of billions of taxpayer's dollars - actually poses a very practical or realistic answer". Rip Conrail West.

 

[Usili]

Aww. In the second source McGovern straight-up says "I do not believe that the other extreme that's sometimes mentioned - a Midwestern Conrail requiring the infusion of billions of taxpayer's dollars - actually poses a very practical or realistic answer". Rip Conrail West.

Conrail in the late 70s was sort of a disaster since it was trying to bring all the separate systems together, handle all the deferred maintenance present, and so on. It wasn't until the Staggers Act if I recall that you basically saw Conrail finally in the 'black'?

So what he is saying kind of makes sense from the time period it was in with Conrail constantly needing federal funds in order to stay afloat and running.