Hello all, for a good while now I've been pondering how the events of Turtledove's 191 timeline would affect the development of Rail transport in North America. Actually I've been wondering how rail would develop in mant TLs, but lets eat one elaphant at a time.
To begin with, in'How few remain' theres mention of an Alt Transcontinental Railroad, that was basically done to prevent further succesion in the west of the USA. Basically it would most likely have been a rush job and thus even more shoody and corrupt than in OTL. Its also confirmed that the Union Pacific is still a functioning company in TL191, Theres no mention of the Railroads to the North but I imagine they would almost cetainally have to deal with the severed links to the south, maybe an earlier Penn Central, I... oh I just made myself sad. Of course the big one to watch would be rail development in the CSA, Christain Whoolmar in his books 'Engines of War' and 'the Great Railway revolution' makes it clear that the lack of trunk route between major cities in the CSA and centralized control of the Railroads, whilst not costing the south the civil war, did not help matters. So that would be a priority in the immediate postwar period as would the general upgrading of the Network, would US manufactures be willing to sell locomotives to CS roads?
The major area of interest for me is the CSA transcontinental across Sonora and Chihuahua, would it be a purely military road? what and where could it serve? would it be run by independent companies or would the CS government hold it from the outset?
Also related I would like at some point to build a H0 scale model of a Jake Featherston Presidential train, I haven't read that far ahead yet, but I might butcher an 'Amerika' model.
Please let me know your thoughts.
Luath.