Mongolian Railroads

What if someone in the Mongol Empire invented trains and railroads become a popular mode of transportation throughout the Empire?
 
Kinda ASB, They were a nomadic tribe with no scientists or the industrial base needed to make railroads.
 
This should be in ASB.

In order to have practical railroads, you need a variety of other inventions to be practical before actual railroads can be used. You need at least steam power developed sufficiently to be of use on sufficient scale, then, you need industrialization on a scale sufficient to manufacture components necessary for large enough railroad construction, and for sufficient number of steam-driven locomotives.

Even if you use alternate method of propulsion (i.e. horse-driven, or otherwise not highly technological propulsion), you severely reduce the usefulness of such railroads, and you STILL need to have good industrial base and empire-wide organization to produce and maintain railroad tracks and stations. Remember, railroad tracks require more frequent maintenance than standard roads, require standardization in production, and require industrial manufacturing capacity to cover sufficiently large portion of the empire, as opposed to craftsman-based manufacturing, or small manufacturing capacity.
 
Song China?

To put it simple, some form of industrial revolution is required for railroads on a sufficiently large scale. Anything else is likely to be a palace curiosity, but otherwise too expensive and too low-powered to be of much use. And if you have an industrial revolution in Song China, then railroads are going to be the least of your concerns... the history of the world is going to change drastically.
 
What if someone in the Mongol Empire invented trains and railroads become a popular mode of transportation throughout the Empire?

They can trade technology with the Mayans who developed VTOL aircraft at about the same time. It will be a far better exchange than with the Navajo who patented the method of carbonated water.
 
They can trade technology with the Mayans who developed VTOL aircraft at about the same time. It will be a far better exchange than with the Navajo who patented the method of carbonated water.

But you left out the Byzantine Empire's atomic weapons supply :p
 
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