Andrew Boyd's Create a Company Challenge

saltburn861

TheMann said:
South Africa would be a rather small car market for a completely new lineup unless the country is far more prosperous at the end of TTL's apartheid.
Click to expand...

True, but that was soft alternate history that was done more for "what if?" purposes and never got used on an automotive-related blog unrelated to this site (not one I owned/run) (as it were... the original context wasn't even South Africa, but a car fansite blog suggesting "What if?" although, to be fair, it was more about Photoshop.

Time for me to get back to hard alternate history here in Alternate History: Post-1900.
 
TheMann

TheMann

Fair enough, that. :) I have always believed that post-BL Rover may have been able to prosper one day, but it never came to pass for a variety of reasons, which is sad for a few reasons. Anyways, back to the regularly-scheduled programming. :p
 
Tresckow

Tresckow

Tri-State Commuter Rail

Established: June 1, 1980

Tri-State Commuter Rail (often abbreviated as TSCR) is a privately-owned, publicly-funded passenger railroad based in the states of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut, along with service to the city of Philadelphia.

Four years after Conrail's acquisition of the failed Penn Central Railroad, Erie Lackawanna Railway, and other fledgling northeastern railroad companies, Governors Hugh Carey (D-New York), Ella Grasso (D-Connecticut), and Bradley Byrne (D-New Jersey) agreed to the formation of a joint-funded railroad serving the tri-state area. The states of Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York would use their tax money to help fund and maintain the railroad. Conrail, a federally owned railroad, agreed to the proposal and on June 1, 1980, passenger operations based out of New York-Penn Station, New York-Grand Central Terminal, Hoboken Terminal, and Newark-Penn Station, would be handed over to the Tri-State Commuter Rail Corporation.

As of 2019, Tri-State Commuter Rail is one of the nation's busiest passenger railroads, carrying nearly 1,000,000 each day.
 
TheMann

TheMann

Lionsgate Entertainment

Established: July 11, 1993
Headquarters:
- Lions Gate Studios, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
- Studio Powerstation, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Employees: 66,800 (worldwide)
Industries: Movie and television production, video game production, music production, media distribution, movie theatre operations

Divisions:
- Lionsgate Films (movie production in Canada and the United States)
-- Summit Entertainment (subsidiary)
-- Relativity Media (subsidiary)
-- Challenger Entertainment (subsidiary)
-- Bad Hat Harry Productions (subsidiary)
- Globalgate Entertainment (Global distribution of Lionsgate movies and television shows to partners)
- Lionsgate Commonwealth (movie production in United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa)
- Lionsgate Asia (movie production in Japan, Korea, the Phillippines, Taiwan and Hong Kong)
-- Celestial Tiger Entertainment (50%)
- Lionsgate India (movie production in India)
- Lionsgate Interactive Media (video game production)
-- Lost Ones Studios
-- Black Box Entertainment
-- Camerica
- Lionsgate Television (TV production)
- Starz Network
- Empire Theatres (movie theatres and restaurants)
-- Playdium Destinations
- Lionsgate Music Studios (music production and distribution)
-- OVO Sound (25%)
- Studio Powerstation (movie production studio) (50%)

One of the largest up-and-coming movie producers in the world and one of Canada's powerful "Big Three" film studios (with MGM Studios and Northern Lights Entertainment), Lionsgate is an example of a media company that took every opportunity that came their way, managing to build an empire through investment and re-investment of a vast number of properties and assets who value swelled rapidly over time, with the company posting out very few dividends to shareholders, preferring to grow the value of the assets through the continued investment into the firm's incoming projects. This was once upon a time a risky tactic, but the Canadian movie production boom of the 2000s made it rather less so, particularly through the company's half-ownership of Toronto's giant Studio Powerstation complex, which gave them access to both palatial complexes for filming and access to the vast community of those who make movies and television shows in Toronto.

Created by movie industry veterans Frank Giustra, Kendrick Blackhorse and Avi Federgreen in 1993, Lionsgate's history began through smaller productions and shows primarily aimed at television networks in Canada, the United States and Britain, but the company's constant pushes for growth and aggressive asset chasing, while getting the company into a sizable quantity of debt issues early on, ended up being hugely beneficial later on. By 2000, though, the company had gained enthusiastic new investors in Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and Canadian investors Samantha Westland, David Neikan and Johnathan Welland, providing the company with access to hundreds of millions of dollars in additional capital, and enabling the half-share in the newly-completed Studio Powerstation in 2001 and a share in the under-construction MetroNome music center in 2003.

By the time Lionsgate was the producer of the Academy Award-winning Crash in 2004, the company was well-established in the movie business, but was hardly considered a major player. After Crash, that changed, with a stack of releases in the 2000s that were successes that established the firm's name in the public's consciousness. After the 2008 acquisition of Summit Entertainment, the company's entry into several lucrative fields, starting with teen novel-based series Twilight in 2008, superhero movies Kick-Ass in 2009 and Captain America: The First Avenger in 2011 (both in partnership with Marvel Studios) made the firm well-known, before The Hunger Games's debut in 2012 made them massive players.

The Twilight series, often panned by critics, did make massive profits for the company, but the The Hunger Games series blew that out of the water by an order of magnitude and made the firm better than two and a half billion dollars in profits, which was promptly shoveled back into many different other projects, particularly in new movies - Now You See Me, Sicario, Brooklyn, Ender's Game, John Wick, Interstellar, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Gone Girl, Machinima, Point Break, La La Land - and expanding into the television business, and then the music business, the latter being a once-unusual move where the company became a shareholder in Toronto rapper Drake's OVO Sound through simply giving him access to the firm's massive distribution networks. (Drake would later be part of Lionsgate's board of directors.) The company's growth shifted them into the music and television world in a big way, and the merger with Starz Inc. (which made Starz boss John Malone a Lionsgate director) expanded their television holdings dramatically.

All the while, Lionsgate kept up both its heady expansions, chasing of new projects and advancement of social causes championed by many of its founders and board members. Perhaps the highest profile of these was the proud backing of female video game developers Brianna Wu, Amanda Warner, Kylie Reiland and Anita Sarkeesian after the mess that became known as GamerGate, and Lionsgate director Samantha Westland provided her funding for the launch of her game studio, Lost Ones Studios, which became a part of the Lionsgate empire in 2018. The company was a proud supporter of LGBT rights around the world and got involved in a number of films and television shows on the project, usually bringing far more attention to them than would otherwise have been the case, and the company was only too happy to provide for support for projects others had passed up on.

But easily the biggest score of all was in the aftermath of the Harvey Weinstein cases, where the famed movie producer and founder of the Miramax and The Weinstein Company studios was innundated by sexual assault cases. A frequent partner of Weinstein, Lionsgate found themselves under immense fire for aiding and abetting his behaviour (though this was never proven, it stuck in a sizable way). The company accepted the criticism and figured out a way of doing better - after the Weinstein company collapsed in 2016, Lionsgate bought the firm's assets at court, merging them into a new subsidiary, Challenger Entertainment, and offered 66% ownership of the company to the victims of Weinstein's actions, a headline-making move that made many of those who accepted millions and, for two of the most high-profile women involved (Cate Blanchett and Sarah Polley), directors at Lionsgate. The move, which estimates said could cost Lionsgate as much as $250 million of its investment in the company, ended up being one of the biggest long-term PR coups of the decade, as the company in the later stages of the 2010s was able to secure numerous lucrative deals in large part due to its handling of the situation and its massive moves. The company also publicly stated that it would avoid gender gaps in pay for its employees, a promise that more than a few in the industry were only too happy to make sure the big company stuck to. (It did.)

By 2019, Lionsgate was being considered to be among the 'Major' studios with vast assets and global footprint, and an estimated workforce of nearly 67,000 worldwide. The company's operations in modern times are primarily run from the fourteen-story Lionsgate Block at Studio Powerstation.
 
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Duke Andrew of Dank

Duke Andrew of Dank

Elkhart & Western Railroad Museum

The Elkhart & Western was born in the closing days of steam on the New York Central. When a preservation group proposed that they operate the branch line which ran parallel to the St. Joseph River in Elkhart, IN to Mishawaka. This in turn gave the NYC the chance to decide on what to do with the three roundhouses they were abandoning at the time. They gave them all to this new group. Along with a variety steamers they were retiring to make way for their electrification plans. In addition, plans were also made to possibly take up the old Notre Dame & Western as another tourist line.

The end result was the largest collection of rolling stock to be dedicated to an individual railroad. Locomotives range in size and variety from a working replica of the DeWitt Clinton, to J3a Hudson #5405, L3a 4-8-2 Mohawk #3001, to NYC's first examples of the first Chrysler-ALCO Millennium diesels [1]. Excursion trains over a short line to Mishawaka are also present and run by 2-8-0 #2976. But the real stars by far are Hudson 4-6-4 #5405 and Niagara 4-8-4 #6012, which have been operating mainline excursions mainly to Chicago since they were first restored in 1975 and 1978 respectively. Shortly after, Mohawk #3001 was restored in 1988, and all three have seen common runs on both the NYC as well as the Baltimore & Ohio. The latter thanks to being partially owned by the NYC. [2]

Today, the NYC's busy electric freight mainline usually does not cause issues the operations. In addition to the excursions to Chicago, #6012 regularly operates excursions out of Elkhart, and often meets up with the other major NYC big steam survivors. But the event everyone involved always looks forward to is the one when fellow Niagara #6025 or Hudson #5445 arrives at Elkhart from their home bases of Cleveland or Buffalo, and joins 6012 to double-head all the way to Chicago. With the occasional photo-op as they are waiting for the new version of the Lake Shore Limited passes.

In recent times, the museum has talked of expanding the tourist train's line from Mishawaka to Granger, a suburb of South Bend. The latter of which is slated for a 2021 completion date.

upload_2019-4-25_23-0-43.png

The Museum's Star, Niagara 6012, in her days on revenue service.

[1] Special thanks to @TheMann for allowing me to use his idea.
[2] The most famous example being for the 1996 NRHS Convention in Cumberland, MD. Where the 3001 and C&O 614 doubleheading.
 
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Duke Andrew of Dank

Duke Andrew of Dank

Hoosier State Railroad

This line is one with a rather interesting history. It was originally born in the 1930s out of the Indiana Railroad interurban's network. Most of which had been taken up by the Wabash Railroad. Except for a part of line from Logansport to Indianapolis via Kokomo and Noblesville. That part was taken up by the state government of Indiana with the possibility of using at least the portion from Indianapolis to Noblesville for an interurban service.

Eventually however, these plans were abandoned by 1947, but the tracks eventually found new life in 1958. That year, a group of railroad preservationists wanted to operate excursion trains on a former Nickel Plate Road line between Indianapolis and Tipton, a distance of about 38-miles. However, the Chesapeake & Ohio, which owned the Nickel Plate and eventually took it over in 1961, refused. And so the volunteers made an agreement with the Indiana Department of Transportation to use the line instead.

Today, the HSR is one of the most profitable tourist lines in the entire nation. Operating numerous excursions behind various steam and diesel engines. The pride of the fleet however, is Nickel Plate 587, a 1918 Baldwin Mikado. Most excursions are based out of the museum's headquarters in Logansport to Kokomo. But there are plenty of occasions where trains go all the way down to Indianapolis for the Indiana State Fair.

nkp_587a.jpg
 
Duke Andrew of Dank

Duke Andrew of Dank

Railyard Studios

Railyard Studios was first founded in Chicago in 1993 by several former employees of Midway Studios. The company was so-called for its location being a major railroad hub. One that at this point in time was visited by almost every major US railroad. In the studio's early years, they mostly focuses on experimental third party games. Many of which involved simple, but very fun gameplay. Of particular note was the 1998 series Bouncer, which was a platformer based on the then popular Super Mario Ultra formula that focused on a character who used his nose like a yo-yo to travel through terrain or hit switches.

Another popular series for theirs was Prince Arnold. A fantasy-and-pirate-themed RPG series chronicling various explorers and their explots. Many of which were based on Carl Barks' Uncle Scrooge comics and Indiana Jones. This series is often credited with having helped saved the swashbuckler fiction genere after the faliure of Cutthroat Island. In addition to already being a great game, this game was considered one of the best video games ever made in America. The third series at the time would be Space Wolves. An idea created by former Warner Bros. animator Matthew Grisham, in which several characters from a planet of wolves struggled their way through Earth to return home. These characters were based on those of hit Warner Bros. shows like Animaniacs, but still stood out as fun and memorable. The series was a success, and Grisham still received royalties even after going to Disney animation in 2003.

The company's big break came in 2011. After the success of the 2007 Nintendo title Mario+Rabbids Kingdom Battle, Nintendo and Ubisoft made plans to make a direct sequel. However, a series of creative differences emerged when many different Ubisoft studios were put on the game. Eventually leading to one cook too many spoiling the soup and the entire game being aborted. Nintendo instead flew across the Atlantic from Montreuil to Chicago where they turned to Railyard. In that time, the company had made several minor hits, but still wanted a chance to show off their creative muscle. So they put their all into the game, and the rest is history.

Mario Inc. has been considered one of the best Mario RPGs, or best Mario games period. IT also spawned a series of Western RPGs that goes on to this day.
 

CountDVB

SEGA

After the deal between Microsoft and RARE fell through due to complications, Microsoft would end up purchasing SEGA a few years later. As such, their entire library would become XBox exclusives (though this transistional period due to prior commitments led to a few Sonic games on Nintendo consoles, such Sonic Advance and its sequel on the Gameboy Advance, Sonic Adventure 1 and 2 being ported to the Gamecube along with the Sonic Mega Collection (consisting of Sonic 1, 2, 3 & Knuckles, Sonic CD, Knuckles Chaotix and the two Tails games.) The SEGA purchase allowed the XBox to become much more popular in Japan, especially with the Xbox 360 hosting several powerful games within franchises such as Sonic Heroes, Sonic Revolution, Phantasy Star, Shenmue, Yakuza, Sakura Wars, Panzer Dragoon, Crazy Taxi and so much more.

The XBox 360 outperforming (however narrowly) to the Nintendo Wii and both beating out the PS3 would lead to large rammifications. The Nintendo Wii was a fine console with new IPs, such as the Krystal series (with Dinosaur Planet having become quite popular and thus warranting a series) along with amazing games such as Super Smash Bros Brawl (which introduced Sonic the Hedgehog along with bringing some new characters from Melee such as Krystal, Joanna Dark and King K. Rool.) However, the success of the Xbox 360 forced them to put more effort into their various IPs while also deciding to reach out to the "indie community" along with other developers (such as ATLUS, resulting in the Persona games being ported to Nintendo consoles.) This led to the delay to the successor of the Wii, but was worth it as it would match its rival consoles in capabilities along with creativity.

SEGA under Microsoft remains fairly autonomous, but they do make influences for the West. This has resulted in a new anime-esque Sonic the Hedgehog animated series, a new Sonic the Hedgehog comic series as the Penders debacle (taking inspiration from the various Sonic animated adaptations and loosely the games) while a manga was released that's an adaptation of the video games' stories (while also pointed to as a catalyst for the changes in the manga industry due to it being a monthly full-color manga.)
 
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