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Geopolitical consequences of building 1840-1860 of a TEAR ( Trans-Eurasian Railway ) instead of ( later IOTL http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Siberian_Railway and earlier and weaker Russian Empire ( RuE ) RW projects - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_rail_transport_in_Russia#Government_ownership )???

Participating countries: the ITTL earlier version of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/League_of_the_Three_Emperors - i.e. German Confederation + Austrian Empire + minor interested German states. The yet not conquered countries and territories in Central and East Asia would be made by positive and negative stimulae to take part and this will literally pave the way for RuE faster conquest.

Such TEAR would result in concentration of RuE colonization and settlement hundreds of miles south then IOTL leaving Siberia more or less empty...

RuE might be interested from military ( defensive ) considerations to be happy to keep the line off Moscow and St.Petersburg. ( The major political reasons why RuE delayed the introduction of RW mode of transport IOTL ).

Lets make this TEAR 2-lined and really gargantuan , similar to OTL 20th century Hitler's RW dreams : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breitspurbahn - the Hamburg - Rostov section is geographically logical...

TEAR double-lined 3+m super-gauge track running for 11 000 km from Hamburg ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamburg ) to Port Arthur ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Arthur,_China )

Some maps:

Europe 1840 AD - political



TEAR - European section



TEAR - full



TEAR on global perspective



Inspiration: http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/25/a-railroad-rarety-train-arrives-five-days-early/
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