Forum:Federal States/A New Freight Rail Proposal

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Hello, everyone. I would like to offer a new proposal for the freight rail network that would be a notable change but one that I believe will help us in the long run. Your feedback is welcome and desired. Recent omnibus ballots have indicated that there is an appetite for something that takes a broader national and regional approach. This is an important discussion to have, and I hope we can ultimately hold a vote.

Before going further, I want to emphasize that this is for freight rail only. Passenger rail would be completely unaffected by this.

Proposed points

This proposal federalizes the freight railways in a way similar to how motorways are laid out and redefines zones of operations for our biggest railroad companies. The through-going rail tracks and rights-of-way would be owned by the various states, and existing companies would be able to operate on any state-owned tracks as community-driven models. This is similar to how trucking companies operate on motorways. Services, like yards, short spurs to special facilities, etc. would all still be owned by the individual companies and would be part of what is expected to appear on the map.

Here are the specific proposals for freight-rail service:

Like the FS highway system, railroad corridors (tracks and rights-of-way) would be state-owned and not company owned. Short spurs to industrial facilities (<50 miles in length) may still be company owned, provided that access to all cities on the map below is available to all companies operating in the indicated zone.
Companies would continue to own rail yards, maintenance facilities, car repair shops, and even some major-city freight terminals if there are multiple in a city. No single company can monopolize port or intermodal terminal access.
States can create as robust of a system of railroad tracks, but these rail alignments will be open-access. Some states may wish to keep a robust farm-to-market system and multiple historic alignments to offset congestion. Other states may wish to convert legacy rails to trails or other recreational or ecological facilities.
States will need to provide larger rail companies (Class A and B) will local switching yards and maintenance facilities in whichever zones they operate, as discussed regionally. The companies would "own" their facilities but would be managed in part like franchises. More details on this below.
States may elect to have private Class-D railroads that own their specific alignments up to 100 miles each. These are allowable for states to protect their intrastate interests or to have terminal railroad companies in major cities.
Regions would be redefined by city destination points and not by state lines. Class A, Class B, and Class C railroad companies would declare zones of operation and be allowed to operate freely on the open-access tracks in these zones. Provisions are allowed for access outside the zones of operation.
Railroad classifications would be as follows:
- Class AA: This unused classification would be removed.
- Class A: These become community-owned railroads that declare three regions of operation. They may access three declared out-of-region destinations. Although Class A Railroads become community-owned, they must be allowed to have facilities in-region; regional coordination will commence on these if this proposal is approved. Regional collaboration will direct the ongoing managing of the company, and mapping will be left to individual state owners/coordinators. The original points-of-origin and headquarters will remain in their existing locations.
- Class B: Community-owned railroads that declare operations in two regions of operation and may declare up to two out-of-region destinations. Class B railroads become community-owned but may still be managed by an individual user that oversees and steers planning for the enterprise. The managing user would not be able to dictate to state owners where company facilities go but would be allowed to fully coordinate with them in an ongoing manner and map with permission of the state owner/coordinator.
- Class C: Collaborative railroads that exist solely in one region of operation but crosses state lines. These companies are managed by the users involved and require no outside involvement inasmuch it stays within one region. Class C railroads may access one out-of-region destination.
- Class D: User-owned railroads that exist solely within a state. They are restricted to 100 miles of total company-owned tracks, or they may operate freely through an entire state on the state-owned alignments.

The map below marks the proposed regions. Individual routings are the sole discretion of each state owner. There would be restrictions to coverage, depending on railroad class. Zones of operation do have some fixed boundaries to consider:

Southeastern FSA, east of the Asphale Mountains and south of a Rutherford–Huntington–Anne Abbey line
Northeastern FSA, east of the Asphale Mountains and north of a Rutherford–Huntington–Anne Abbey line
South-central FSA, between the Grand Lakes/Alormen River and the Asphale Mountains, south of the Massodeya River and a Massodeya City–Huntington Line
North-central FSA, east of the Alormen River, west of the Asphale Mountains, and north of the Massodeya River and a Massodeya City–Huntington Line
Southwestern FSA, west of the Alormen River and roughly south of a Governor's Ferry–Las Animas–Wahanta line
North-central FSA, between the Alormen River a Wayneright–San Pascual line and roughly north of a Governor's Ferry–Las Animas–Wahanta line
Northwestern FSA, roughly north of a Governor's Ferry–Las Animas–Wahanta line and west of a Wayneright–San Pascual line

Known planned cities and partially-mapped cities are shown with mapped cities. Not all cities are shown, and intra-state routings are the sole responsibility of each individual state owner. Yet, all mapped cities are expected to be well-connected to the national network. Regions are indicated by colors, and companies may not connect to any out-of-region destination greater than 150 miles from an in-region or region-exempt destination. Black icons indicate cities that overlap regions and are region-exempt due to geographical constraints.

Loading map...

What does this mean for the average user?
Simply put, not much at all. Railroad tracks and alignments would become owned by the state in a manner similar to state highways. States can continue to make as robust of a system as desired. The biggest change would be that railroad company relations would be removed, and states are expected to contribute to mapping railroad facilities when they are ready. The preplanning of Class-A companies will be regionally discussed, decided, and laid out just like the motorway network was. Existing users and those that join a region later will be expected to honor the structure just like they do the motorway network.

What does this mean for railroad companies?
Coordination becomes easier, if not outright determined. Class A Railroads would be completely canonized and set up for perpetual use without having to maintain complex relations, worry about state changeover, or face other major complications. Class B Railroads would similarly be fixed but still allow an individual user to have greater oversight. Those that wish to have smaller companies and work more one-on-one with users are still able to do so. The existing major railroads in the western and central parts of the country would be most impacted by this:

Current large companies in the western and central FSA
Company	Headquarters	Notes
Cordilleras Southern (CS)	Wahanta, CL	Potential out-of-region access: Port Massehanee, Midesapa
Compass and Western (C&W)	Penquisset	Current out-of-region access: Minneuka, Mennowa City
Great Western & Asperic (GW&A)	Sierra	Currently only access Minneuka in . Access to Minneuka could still be retained if reclassed as Class B.
Lakes, Mennowa, and Northern (LM&N)	Minneuka, ME	Out-of-region access: Caldwell City, Reeseport, Port Massehanee
Minnonigan Central Railroad (MCRR)	Lake City, MN	Out-of-region access: Port Massehanee, Caldwell City, potentially Ohunkagan

What does this mean for future expansion or changes?
Adding Class C Railroads (single-region companies) would simply be coordination between states. This remains as easy as interpersonal dealings are now. Adding Class B Railroads would simply need the approval of the two regions involved. This can be handled on a smaller scale as needed by the regional coordinators. While additional Class A railroads are expected in the future, they will require full approval of the state owners/coordinators of the regions involved. Ideally, there should be competition between companies, but there is not present need for more than three companies to have the exact same footprint at this point in time.

What are the goals of this proposal?
Coordination of large railroad companies is very difficult, and omnibus ballots often reveal a desire to coordinate these things. Coordinating it is difficult a lot of times, and we are also having a situation where we have inadvertent regional monopolies and issues with poor regional connectivity. This hopes to establish a framework for addressing these issues. In some cases, the few of us that are trying to coordinate larger rail companies are running up against limited alignments, limited connections, and existing occupancy. State turnover means that previous coordination is lost, new users are understandably not aware of regional frameworks, on-map relations are cumbersome and get broken, and people also just forget previous agreements. Many companies also end right at state lines now, either due to vacancy and turnover or due to regional boundaries that prevent links between economically related cities. The goals here are to create regional cohesion, provide a framework akin to the highway system that lasts beyond individual users, and to allow for logical paths to expansion and addition. This also empowers regions to handle Class A railroads instead of the burden being on a single or two users, while still giving a single user to be an active manager of a Class B railroad. By 'federalizing' tracks at the state level, individual user creativity can still be carried out, whether through double-tracking, electrification, allowance of passenger to use freight alignments, or to have seemingly locally-needed connections. It allows states to have more robust networks, while others do not give much thought to railways provide the necessary basic connections. The ability to add companies down the road allows regions without a lot of established companies and corridors to build their networks and infrastructure, while allowing areas like the western parts of the FSA with more robust infrastructure already determined to continue developing.

Anyway, I welcome thoughts on this proposal. This proposal would be a break from how the real-world United States does it, but it has historical precedent and plausibility. If so desired, I could expound on how we would have gotten to this place if others are interested in such potential history. Otherwise, I would like to see if others think this is worth pursuing. Cheers! — Alessa _(talk) 15:58, 1 March 2025 (UTC)

Discussion

I can see how this would really help with on-going project coherency. Also, it should be simple enough to come up with a back story on how the federal gov / states nationalised the infrastructure. /wangi (talk) 17:18, 3 March 2025 (UTC)

Given that some states have already put a fair amount of time and thought into their rail networks, I would prefer to see a state-owned "common carrier" rail network be an option for states to implement but not required. Other than that relatively minor quibble though, I think this idea has a lot of merit. --TheMayor (talk) 18:32, 3 March 2025 (UTC)

I like this - as much as I hate to say it, the high level of coordination required for the current rail system keeps people (including myself) from engaging with it and makes things needlessly arduous. From an in-world standpoint, I also think it's interesting to have a state-owned railway network, especially in a country that generally has better public transport than the real-world US. Icefur2 (talk) 02:58, 5 March 2025 (UTC)