Map Thread V

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Remember, I'm criticising your map, not you.

1. Space filling empires. The world does not need to be made up of only four nations.

2. You haven't explained the world in any great detail, or given any real specifics as to the major events in the world apart from who tested nukes and when.

3. The borders are ridiculous. All of them. That's not an exaggeration; none of it makes any sense.

4. The borders you have drawn are more than one pixel thick, and are just random curves that make no actual sense.

This has got to be one of the worst maps I've seen. I know that sounds extremely nasty and unkind, but it's honestly true.
1. Those four nations were the only ones left standing after a 30 year WWI, and only one survived in it's pre-war government system.
2.I had limited time to post, very limited, and it isn't a perfectly serious map, just a quick map of a very strange world.
3. Of course, except that the Commonwealth tried to hold most of their empire, that Germany more or less won in Europe, that many borders were made hastily to make peace or that the Japanese took coastal China while the USSR got the interior.
4. It's and old map, I should have fixed it but time was against me.
But hey at least it's memorable:D
 
My latest work; it is set in a timeline where the Crusades go much better for Christendom (with the exception of Byzantium, who is subjected to the ravages of the Crusaders as well).

There is no particular year for it.

http://i278.photobucket.com/albums/kk101/thewanderingjew/CrusadesAlteredFinal.jpg?t=1240001711

Edit: It's a little small. I'll make a better version including a key.

There's a small error in the map. the lake between galatia and ancyra is a dam that surely did not exist back then(I'm guessing the time is shortly after the crusades)
 
I worked my ass off on this in a FH thread so this goes here as well!!:p


The US High Speed Rail Network

California Line: the CL is a simple linear line comprising of the most used stops. Starting in San Diego (this could even be supplemented in the future with a Tijuana stop if things work out) the route goes to Oceanside, Huntington Beach, downtown LA, then Oxnard. Not only will this route provide overland transportation but it could even act in a rough commuter sense, ferrying people from Oxnard and Orange County to downtown. There is a long stretch from Oxnard to Salinas and was chosen primarily for scenery as most SF-LA travelers would presumably be on vacations. I'm not sure of the make up of the average passenger, if they would be vacationers or business but this route can easily be supplemented with a more utilitarian route though the valley to Bakersfield and Fresno. Whatever the route, the rail passes through the Bay Area with stops in San Jose, San Francisco, and Oakland. Perhaps even a stop at Berkley to supplement the college crowd which I will touch on later. The route finalizes with passage through Stockton and the capital of Sacramento. To augment profitability (which is the key in all of this), the route ends at Reno-Lake Tahoe.

LA-Vegas Line: Arguably the biggest cash cow in the whole deal. A simple low cost straight (or as straight as possible) line from Los Angeles station to Las Vegas. As TheMann pointed out, this could actually be augmented with another straight line from Vegas to Phoenix. Not only would this provide another cash link, it would indirectly link Phoenix and the California line, thus furthering the high speed link.

Texas Triangle: Contrary to popular belief, a Texas railroad can be done and done profitably. It is all about planning. The key is the simple link up between Houston-Dallas-San Antonio. Capturing the sprawl of the Houston area is key since a trip from the Woodlands (north Houston) to Galveston can take 45 minutes to an hour. Featuring stops in Galveston, Clear Lake (NASA), downtown Houston, and the Woodlands the line can actually serve as a de facto metro route for the Houston area which is fed up with traffic. This trend continues in San Antonio where stops connect downtown San Antonio with New Braunfels, San Marcos (Texas State University), Austin, and the Temple-Killeen military area. In addition Dallas and Fort Worth would be connected and this can be augmented with a stop in Arlington where the Rangers and Cowboys will draw large crowds. On the eastern most side the Houston area connects with Prairie View (Prairie View A&M) and College Station (Texas A&M) taking countless college based cars off the road (especially on football game days). The design also leaves the route well prepared for spurs to Lubbock-Amarillo (and later Denver), Oklahoma City, El Paso (and later to Phoenix), Baton Rouge, and Corpus Christi-the Rio Grande Valley, and Mexico. If done properly, Texas can be fast and profitable, especially as the cities are in that awkward "to close to fly, to far to drive" zone. Also the network would be perfect in completing an eventual trans-continental route.

Boswash Line: The hardest to screw up but the hardest to build (but I'm not concerned with construction, this is just hypothetical). The line begins really in Washington DC, but I added a south extension to capture Richmond, connect with the southern network, and even grab Norfolk-Virginia Beach. Washington goes to Baltimore, Wilmington, Philadelphia, Trenton, Newark (closer to the airport the better), NYC, Hartford, Providence, Boston, and I ended in Concord, NH. I ended in Concord largely because I am unfamiliar with the suburban makeup of the Boston area and decided to end at the political capital of New Hampshire rather than in Boston or Maine. This can easily be adjusted to go to Maine and even to Nova Scotia, but the key is profitability. It may make sense just to end in Boston rather than hope Augustans and Halifax (ers?) make frequent trips to the Boswash. In addition I augmented this line with a Philadelphia-Atlantic City spur for casino profitability.

Pac-Northwest Line: Easiest line. Eugene (University of Oregon), Corvallis (Oregon State), Salem, Portland, Olympia, Tacoma, Seattle, Vancouver.

Ohio-Chicago Circle: Green Bay to Milwaukee is essential due to all the Packer Cheeseheads. Chicago would be a major transitory point and the premier destination. Next stop is South Bend Indiana for all the local Notre Dame faithful that pack that stadium in the fall. Lansing is next for the capital of Michigan as well as Michigan State then Ann Arbor for University of Michigan (those 112,000 fans got to come from somewhere). Detroit-Toledo-Cleveland is all obvious. Cleveland-Columbus-Cincinnati-Louisville is as well. A simple line from Louisville to (maybe a stop in Bloomington?) Indianapolis back to Chicago completes the circle. The key to this line (along with many of the lines) is the college town. Rail from the cities to these towns takes hundreds of thousands of cars off the roads in the fall, gets students to their college rapidly without the added burden of a vehicle, and gets the home faster than driving. Your average college student will make 3 to 5 trips home a year, multiply that by hundreds of of thousands then add the millions who support their old schools, do senior visits, and of course athletics. The college routes are cash cows and often between major cities.

Mizzou-Chicago Line: Another easy linear line. Kansas City-Columbia (University of Missouri)-Jefferson City-St. Louis-Springfield-Decatur-Champaign (University of Illinois)-Chicago.

Atlantic Line: The Atlantic Line is a trickier linear route because it will act as the north-south connector for many east-west routes. Starting at Richmond (which has become a natural hub); it connects to the Carolina Piedmont with stops in Raleigh-Durham-Greensboro-Winston Salem and finally Charlotte. The money alone from ACC athletics and NASCAR fans should pay for itself. In addition Charlotte connects with Columbia then Charleston-Savannah-Jacksonville-Daytona-Miami.

Tampa-Orlando Spur: Easy enough. Simple line from the Tampa Bay area to Orlando then to Daytona (which I forgot to show on the map). This allows for all the Florida cities to be connected as well as the addition of the Disney element.

Florida Coast Line: Connecting with the Orlando hub, this route is crucial in that it will make up the future transcontinental route that roughly follows I-10. In the meantime this route services vacationers, college kids, and those looking to go deeper into Florida. Orlando-Gainesville (University of Florida), Tallahassee, Panama City, Pensacola, Mobile.

SEC Line: Named after its cash cow, the line serves many Southeastern conference schools taking literally hundreds of thousands of cars off the road in the fall and servicing thousands of students while providing intra-city networks. Starting at Starkville (Mississippi State) it heads to Jackson then Baton Rouge (future home of a connection to Houston), then New Orleans. Depending on cost and risk, New Orleans can either be a spur to Baton Rouge or directly go to Biloxi (spurs should be limited as they cost more in trains and detract from the linear nature of stops). From Biloxi it’s on to Mobile (where it meets the Florida Coast Line) then Montgomery, the Auburn (University of Auburn) then Columbus (Georgia) then finally Atlanta.

Dixie Line: While the SEC line services the bottom half of the southern states, the Dixie Line services the northern half. Starting in Columbia it connects to Clemson then Athens (University of Georgia) then Atlanta. The line hits Birmingham then Tuscaloosa (University of Alabama). It then ends with Starkville-Oxford (Ole Miss University)-Memphis-Little Rock. Little Rock would be used as a staging point for future connections with the Texas Line in Oklahoma City and perhaps even the Mizzou-Line through Fayetteville and Topeka.

Tennessee Line: Another linear route and my least favorite since it acts sort of as a “left over’s” route. It starts at the Richmond hub then hits Blacksburg (Virginia Tech), Bristol (the 200,000 seat Bristol Motor Speedway), Knoxville (University of Tennessee), Murfreesboro, Nashville, and Memphis. With the exception of Memphis to Nashville traffic I have a hard time seeing this route as anything but a fast direct highway to Volunteers and Hookies football games and NASCAR races. While those can be cash cows, then aren’t profitable by themselves.

Pennsylvania Line: Basically acts as a connector between the Atlantic and Midwest. Starts in Cleveland then hits Youngstown, Pittsburgh, State College (Penn State), Harrisburg, and ends in Philadelphia. A stop at Reading or Lancaster could be possible as well.

Erie Line: Roughly follows the old Erie Canal and acts as the primary link into Canada. New York City to West Point (if necessary) to Albany. From Albany its Utica-Syracuse-Rochester-Buffalo then into Canada with Hamilton-Kitchener-Toronto. This line can be easily augmented to account for Ottawa and even a Hamilton-London-Windsor-Detroit route to link Ohio-Chicago with Erie. Finally an Ottawa-Montreal line would be a hop-skip-and a jump away and would loop easily into Boswash.


Noticeable Non-Routes

No transcontinental railroad: This is because any railroad across the US will take many more hours than plane travel. People will only tolerate the railroad so long as cuts down on travel time and remains competitive in terms of prices (something Amtrak fails to do on both accounts). I would say the maximum distance people would travel on a High-speed network is around 400-500 miles. In essence, I could see myself taking a train to Oklahoma City or New Orleans from Houston (and easily to Dallas or San Antonio) but not El Paso or anything beyond the 500 mile arc. That’s why I went out of my way to design good regional travel, not national travel. For the foreseeable future, airplanes will reign supreme in that regard. This is also why no Rocky Mountain area cities are served. They are few and far and in-between and a line from Denver to Kansas City would be little used and very expensive. The only conceivable line I could see in the mountains would be a Pueblo-Colorado Springs-Denver-Boulder-Ft. Collins line, but I have doubts to its use beyond the college crowd and mountain and winter upkeep are very expensive.

Minnesota to Wisconsin: While an extension from Green Bay to the Twin Cities looks good on paper, how often would it really be used? The 500 mile mark is exceeded just past Chicago so your average Minnesotan would only use the track for trips to Milwaukee and Chicago as well as the one time a year the Vikings play the Packers in Green Bay. It is right on the border of being useable and could wing either way, but I give it the axe since I’m trying to be as conservative and profitable as possible. Also lines to Duluth, Thunder Bay, and even Winnipeg would be simply too long to be practical.

Louisville-Nashville: If the existing layout proves profitable and popular then the first track to be built would be another north-south route such as this. However, being conservative, I have to ask just how many southerners would take the train to Chicago or Ohio? I highly doubt the demand for business travel between the two regions would be sufficient enough to justify train travel. Those who do travel between the regions are more likely to fly. The only people using this track would be people looking to travel between Louisville and Nashville. The two cities are close enough (little more than an hours drive it looks like) that train travel can’t be justified and car travel is preferred. Even if all travelers between the two cities used the train, would there be enough demand? I doubt it, but it’s high on the list of future projects.

rail lines stops.PNG
 

Krall

Banned
Well its a map of 1939 so the parts in China like that ar the parts controlled by Japan or in hold by Japan.

But they weren't annexed by Japan, so they shouldn't have a border around them.

And it's completely ASB for Japan to invade China and have taken the exact same area of land by 1939 as they did IOTL despite the changes made to the timeline.
 
I worked my ass off on this in a FH thread so this goes here as well!!:p

....

Intriguing. You might also get a spur that goes from STL to Memphis. Which while I know you are avoiding the whole national deal would leave the opportunity to do an intriguing Mardi Gras train ride from STL to New Orleans. Party train ride anyone?
 
Nicely done Big Tex, though I prefer the some of the Administration names (Pennsylvannia->Keystone, Erie->Empire, Bowash->NE Corridor). A spur from the Erie or Bowash to Montreal seems likely to give more return than an extension to Maine.

Also I think there'd be a much more significant 'Chicago Hub' system of small routes: don't mess around with the small Green Bay but have a Chicago-Milwaukee spur, and a seperate Rockford-Madison-Minneapolis line (the twin cities after all being bigger than Kansas city and closer if you don't detour to Green Bay, and the prior two both being significant population centres). Also put in a Iowa Omaha-Des Moines-Quadcities-Chicago line seems pretty much in line with your other routes...
 
Thats a lovely map Ampersand, especially Portugals chilly empire and random island, though I do dislike it when people plonk down colonies and forts on Anticosti island with no regard for its difficult terrain, beaches of death, and only two remotely usable Bays ;).

Thanks Nugax. Hey, someone's gotta own that piece of land:D Besides, the Navarrese had previously owned the Gaspésie, controlling the mouth of the *St. Lawrence. They've ceded the mainland, but have not given up all the fishing rights. It's more of an increaser of territorial waters than anything else.
 
I worked my ass off on this in a FH thread so this goes here as well!!:p

The only conceivable line I could see in the mountains would be a Pueblo-Colorado Springs-Denver-Boulder-Ft. Collins line, but I have doubts to its use beyond the college crowd and mountain and winter upkeep are very expensive.
Cool map, always nice to see alternate/future transportation maps, as they really reflect the urban and economic centers of the period and are sparse enough to be interesting when they pop up.

I'm going to advocate for a Front Range line on your map. Besides being used for the college crowd, a line going from Pueblo to Fort Collins would effectively connect most of the urban centers in Colorado, and is pretty much the furthest possible extension of the current high speed rail system planned by RTD. Also, as for mountain and winter maintenance, the path wouldn't actually be in the mountains but more in the foothills, where all the connecting cities are. Winter maintenance might be difficult, but there's usually only one or two major snowfalls in the Front Range IIRC, since most of the snow doesn't come east of the Rockies.

So I would say the line should go Pueblo-Colorado Springs-Aurora-Denver (probably Union Station)-Westminster (Front Range Community College)-Boulder-Longmont-Fort Collins, and maybe if you want to extend it further, go up to Cheyenne-Laramie. You could also have a spur going to Denver International Airport from the Denver stop, since the airport is pretty out of the way of the city proper.
 
California Line: the CL is a simple linear line comprising of the most used stops. Starting in San Diego (this could even be supplemented in the future with a Tijuana stop if things work out) the route goes to Oceanside, Huntington Beach, downtown LA, then Oxnard. Not only will this route provide overland transportation but it could even act in a rough commuter sense, ferrying people from Oxnard and Orange County to downtown. There is a long stretch from Oxnard to Salinas and was chosen primarily for scenery as most SF-LA travelers would presumably be on vacations. I'm not sure of the make up of the average passenger, if they would be vacationers or business but this route can easily be supplemented with a more utilitarian route though the valley to Bakersfield and Fresno. Whatever the route, the rail passes through the Bay Area with stops in San Jose, San Francisco, and Oakland. Perhaps even a stop at Berkley to supplement the college crowd which I will touch on later. The route finalizes with passage through Stockton and the capital of Sacramento. To augment profitability (which is the key in all of this), the route ends at Reno-Lake Tahoe.

LA-Vegas Line: Arguably the biggest cash cow in the whole deal. A simple low cost straight (or as straight as possible) line from Los Angeles station to Las Vegas. As TheMann pointed out, this could actually be augmented with another straight line from Vegas to Phoenix. Not only would this provide another cash link, it would indirectly link Phoenix and the California line, thus furthering the high speed link.

Cool map, but your LA-Vegas line would never work. You have it cutting straight through mountains. Redirect it east through Riverside-San Bernardino and then north through the Cajon Pass to Vegas. The Cali line would be very expensive to build, there's a reason why CHSR is going through the Central Valley not the coast.
 
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