Alaskan gold and the Crimean War

katchen

Banned
That's the great thing about a list like this. Always someone on it who knows a little more about a given area and situation from having been there or have had relatives who were there.

OK. Nome's gold was inland but Juneau's gold, though small, was close to the ocean and close to Sitka. Did the Russians ever get wind of it?

And what about Valdez? Wasn't there a gold deposit near there as well? Wasn't that the reason Valdez was founded?

It wouldn't take much of a gold rush to spark interest in Alaska in the 1850s during the Crimean War. Especially since the Russians were anxious to sell to the US at the time or shortly thereafter and made President Buchanan an offer that went nowhere.

And the Russians DID know about gold deposits in the Kolyma Basin, at least by the 1900s and probably sooner that they were keeping secret. For one thing, the Boyar or Boyars who had been granted the land in the area were very conservative and unwilling to sell or even try to develop the area. But during the Crimean War the British were besieging Petropavlovsk Kamchatsky, the largest settlement east of the Lena River. So the Russians had to worry about losing the area anyway. Might as well tell the Americans what they knew, sweeten the deal (which would also give the Americans a land border in Northeast Asia very close to China and a sea border very close to Japan--attractive to shipping interests--and keep it out of the clutches of the British while cementing closer economic relations with the US.

Who knows? It might be possible to get a trans-Siberian railroad or two or three out of the deal.

And that, by the way, a Trans-Siberian Railroad built 30 years earlier than IOTL privately, probably by Southern Pacific is a much more feasible scenario than an Alaskan gold rush during the Crimean War. If Tsar Alexander had been thinking along those lines by say, 1865, the railroad could have easily been up and running by 1873. It did not have to take 12 years to build the way it did IOTL. By bringing in rail and supplies to construction locations from Tyumen to Omsk, Tomsk, and Yenseisk via the Ob-Yensei system and by various locations up and down the Amur and Ussuri Rivers by water, it is likely that the Trans-Siberian could have been completed in 5 years--which would have made Russia's Great Game in Central Asia in the 1860s-1870s that much easier. :)
 
Speaking as a railroad history nut, I find the idea that the Trans-Siberian could be constructing in five years to strain disbelief - however you bring supplies in.

That's just too large a project.

Take a look at the amount of effort it took to build the American transcontinental lines, or the Canadian Pacific.

And the Southern Pacific hasn't even been founded in the early 1860s.

Frankly, do some research.
 

katchen

Banned
Pardon me, Oops. Central Pacific. Same people. Different company. Would eventually merge.
In 1865 and 1866, the Central Pacific was definitely feeling a financial crunch. The Sierras were proving to be more difficult to build over than they had anticipated. And since the railroads got paid by the mile completed, Central Pacific was not making very much money finishing maybe 50-100 miles a year.

So the chance to build a lot of miles in Russia and get paid the same way (per mile or I should say per verst or per kilometer) might well have looked attractive to the Big Four. And if there were areas in the Amur Valley where there were plenty of large bridges to build and timber to clear, there was also hundreds of miles of steppe in Western Siberia that is flat as a pancake that would pay off immediately and where 5-10 miles of track a day could be laid.. As would right of way in settled areas of Russia west of the Urals once the railroad was built and started carrying freight. And except for the cutting along the shore of Lake Baikal and the crossing of the Urals themselves, no areas of mountains to slow railroads down. Though the building season would only be about 100-150 days a year. So yes, I suspect Central Pacific would probably have found the chance to build a long railroad for the Tsar a godsend. As would their investors.
 
Pardon me, Oops. Central Pacific. Same people. Different company. Would eventually merge.

Different people. Different company.

http://www.up.com/aboutup/special_trains/heritage/southern_pacific/index.htm

http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/eqs35

Yes, the Big Four took it over - but there must be a dozen sites spelling out that it started off in other hands in 1865 just on the first page of a quick search.

In 1865 and 1866, the Central Pacific was definitely feeling a financial crunch. The Sierras were proving to be more difficult to build over than they had anticipated. And since the railroads got paid by the mile completed, Central Pacific was not making very much money finishing maybe 50-100 miles a year.

So the chance to build a lot of miles in Russia and get paid the same way (per mile or I should say per verst or per kilometer) might well have looked attractive to the Big Four.
Which of the issues with this do you want to address first?

And if there were areas in the Amur Valley where there were plenty of large bridges to build and timber to clear, there was also hundreds of miles of steppe in Western Siberia that is flat as a pancake that would pay off immediately and where 5-10 miles of track a day could be laid.. As would right of way in settled areas of Russia west of the Urals once the railroad was built and started carrying freight. And except for the cutting along the shore of Lake Baikal and the crossing of the Urals themselves, no areas of mountains to slow railroads down. Though the building season would only be about 100-150 days a year. So yes, I suspect Central Pacific would probably have found the chance to build a long railroad for the Tsar a godsend. As would their investors.
I suspect your knowledge of railroad construction is worse than my knowledge of kung fu.

"Plenty of large bridges to build" for example is generally considered a hassle, not a godsend.

Having to ship supplies thousands of miles to get them to the railheads . . .

Well, this should speak for itself.

Those are just the first two things that a little knowledge would cover.
 

Flubber

Banned
Elfwine, do you remember that famous Farside cartoon by Gary Larson What Dogs Understand/What Cats Understand?

It consists of two panels. In the first one, a human is speaking to a dog. The human's speech balloon reads something like "Bad dog, Rover. Don't get on the couch. Bad, bad dog, Rover." while a thought balloon above the dog's head reads "Blah blah, Rover. Blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah, Rover."

In the second panel, a human is speaking to a cat. The human's speech balloon reads "Bad cat, Fluffy. Don't scratch the couch. Bad, bad cat, Fluffy" while the thought balloon over the cat's head is empty.

We're both talking to a cat here.

It's time to check out of this thread.
 
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