Forum:Federal States/Freight Rail Network Proposal
While our current procedures for organizing and planning freight railroads in the Federal States has been commonly accepted after we collectively voted on the structure several years ago, the freight network -- especially in regards to organized companies -- remains disjointed, and the "sponsor" structure of tasking particular mappers to try to organize national railroad lines and companies has been particularly challenging given varying levels of activity and regular turnover of stateowners. Additionally, as the project has matured, we are no longer in a "start-up" phase and have a stronger baseline to work from in regards to the overall geography of the nation. As such, I'm proposing that we officially codify the largest current railroads and, with a few logical planned expansions, create up to ten "canon" major railroads.
Structure
According to the official list of railroads, we currently have seven railroads of Class B (serving two or more regions) or higher, briefly summarized as follows:
- Compass and Western (C&W), organized by Zytik. Currently mapped from Warwick with various main lines heading west and northwest to the Alormen River.
- Cordilleras Southern Railroad (CS), organized by Glauber and Geoc3ladus, connecting Riopoderos and Clamash to the Asperic Ocean at Wahanta.
- GESF, a legacy railroad that predated the old rail structure and has various locations throughout the nation but largely concentrated in the Southeast.
- Great Western & Asperic (GW&A), organized by Brunanter, which connects much of the northwestern FSA.
- Lakes, Mennowa, and Northern (LM&N), organized by Alessa, which has many routes connecting the Heartland zone, the West Lakes, and up into Alormen.
- Minnonigan Central Railroad (MCRR), organized by myself and a few mappers who unfortunately have left the project, with a main line connecting Lake City with Andreapolis and Port Massehanee.
- Sauganash and Northern Railroad (S&N), another railroad I organized that connects Lake City with the Asperic Ocean at Wahanta.
I'm proposing that all seven of these railroads be "promoted" to a major status, along with three new companies that can be organized in the future to provided more connections to less-developed parts of the FSA (namely the Central, Massodeyas, Mid-Ardentic, and Northeastern regions). To keep things balanced, each company would still have some geographic restrictions as to where it can operate, with almost all states having access to two or more companies for their state. Instead of putting the onus on a mapper who would try to organize the entire company themselves, we would all agree to use this framework and these constraints in terms of what company operates where, and then from there each stateowner would be able to plan the routings and network within their own state as they so choose with coordination and cooperation of their neighbors, similar to how motorways get mapped. Note that this system would not preclude creating other regional companies that are currently considered Class C or D railroads; stateowners would still be free to create and manage those as they like.
As a reminder for mappers who are not familiar with American railroading: companies historically have been in strict competition with each other at a corridor level (so there may be several companies on several different alignments between two cities), but overall still work cooperatively to interchange freight between companies to provide service throughout the nation.
Geography
The following table details at a high level where each railroad would operate, including main line(s) and the number of overall regions served. To ensure competition, I assigned each railroad up to four "points": one point is assigned if the company serves all or a substantial portion of a region; a half-point if the company is restricted to a certain part of a region (no more than half of the region), and zero points if the company only briefly passes through a region (about 200 miles or less). As a reminder, this is just a draft, and can be modified.
| Railroad | Mark | Proposed Main Line(s) | NW | HL | WL | AL | MD | CT | NE | MA | SE | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Compass & Western | C&W | Stanton-Warwick to Puerto Eloisa via Massodeya City Stanton-Warwick to the East Lakes |
- | - | - | Yes | Yes | Yes | - | - | Yes | 4.0 |
| Cordilleras Southern Railroad | CS | Wahanta to Jericho via Swansonville Esperanza to the West Lakes via Sasecpro |
Yes | Half (outside of Mennowa) | Yes | - | - | - | - | - | - | 2.5 |
| GESF | GESF | Stanton to Lake City via northern Makaska and Maquadena Stanton to Massodeya City via Huntington |
- | Negligible (far southern ZH and 52 only) | Half (MN/IR/SN only) | - | Half (central/southern MC only) | Yes | - | Yes | Yes | 4.0 |
| Great Western & Asperic | GW&A | Jundah-Stuart to Andreapolis via Dennison Minneuka to Los Reyes via Dennison |
Yes | Yes | - | Yes | - | - | - | - | - | 3.0 |
| Lakes, Mennowa and Northern | LM&N | Ohunkagan to Port Massahanee via Minneuka Meehelsa (Deodeca) to San Pascual via Des Nonnes Minneuka to Fayette (Deodeca) via Barstone-Nenova |
- | Yes | Yes | Yes | - | Half (East Lakes and MK only) | - | - | - | 3.5 |
| Minnonigan Central Railroad | MCRR | Lake City to Los Reyes via Barstone-Nenova Lake City to Port Massahanee via Barstone-Nenova |
Half (Inland only) | Yes | Yes | Yes | - | - | - | - | - | 3.5 |
| Sauganash and Northern Railroad | S&N | Lake City to Esperanza via Sodana | Half (west coast only) | - | Yes | - | - | - | - | - | - | 1.5 |
| [future railroad 1] | ??? | Bascalon Bay (Deodeca) to Orterrado via Waltmore Mayport to East Lakes via Newport Waltmore to Thunderfield via Huntington |
- | - | - | - | - | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | 4.0 |
| [future railroad 2] | ??? | Stanton to Jericho via Huntington Thunderfield to Minneuka via Huntington |
- | Negligible (Jericho only) | - | - | Yes | Negligible (Reeseport-Minneuka only) | Yes | Yes | Half (North of Stanton only) | 3.5 |
| [future railroad 3] | ??? | Sandeval (Randalia) to the East Lakes via Caldwell City Port Massahanee to Montagne Polonaise (Astrasian Confederacy) via Massodeya City |
- | Negligible (Minneuka only) | - | Yes | Yes | Yes | - | - | - | 3.0 |
Discussion
Overall Plan and Structure
Interested in everyone's thoughts. --TheMayor (talk) 23:16, 29 June 2023 (UTC)
- I definitely like the sketch. IMO we should treat this as a continuation of the current structure, just replacing official chairpersons with a loose/evolving masterplan and some level of coordinator involvement to make up for less activity. Mainly this means mappers could still work on railroads in vacant states given coordinator permission, with the understanding that future applicants can switch things up. Some level of organic collaboration is kept that way, and those invested can continue their work.
- For my work in New Carnaby, I had been brainstorming for a larger railroad company that kind of fits with Future Railroad 1. The main corridors would have been one along the Carnaby and Rosiere rivers to Horicon and one following the Sebenebsuc through Chesnuts and Meyersburg. I figure I could just add that on to your proposed company.
- I do have a few ideas for renaming GESF, too:
Federal Cradle and Lakes (FC&L RR)- Federal Cradle and Saguanash (FC&S)
- Federal Cradle and Frontier (FC&F)
"Federal Cradle" refers to the southeast being the birthplace of the colonies (Huntington capping it off).[Note: relocated to new section to collect additional possible names. --TheMayor (talk) 21:49, 30 June 2023 (UTC)] And, random idea, but if anyone actually wanted a class AA railroad, I could see an extension of the Michisaukee section to Alormen and the northwest. --Fluffr Nuttr (talk) 06:05, 30 June 2023 (UTC)- The point is that this plan would indeed replace the existing structure. With a national plan in place there would be no need for individuals or coordinators to try to oversee individual companies, since their “jurisdictions” are already pre-planned and approved. Likewise, there would be no need to allow mapping in vacant states, since the corridors would already be planned out and ready for a future mapper to map themselves, similar to the core routes of the motorway network. Finally, there would also be no need for any Class AA freight railroads, as the entire point is to balance the “strength” of the companies to provide competition throughout the country and ensure no single company becomes dominant. —TheMayor (talk) 12:50, 30 June 2023 (UTC)
I think I can get behind this for the most part. I do have a couple of questions, as someone who was actively working on getting LM&N to Class-AA status (had the three coordinators, working with users to plot routes, etc.). In some ways, this puts a stop to what I was doing. Regardless, here are my questions:
- Does this map preclude any expansion of these lines if logical and within the same region? For example, you honed in on some of the lines I was already pursuing. Another one was from New Harmony southward to newly independent Astrasia. That would be solely within an extant region and in close proximity to the other north–south line in the region (not sprawling, in other words).
- Relatedly, are there going to be forced divestments? LM&N would be forced to divest some of its routes in Mennowa and the region if this goes through, and the map is the limiting factor. There are a couple lines I'd happily divest but a couple I'm not so sure I would want to.
- Finally, I don't see as much long-range corridor overlap as I would in the US. Surely a rail-happy FSA that it portends itself to be would have more overlap. There are places where I could see these seven companies each expanding slightly to ensure more complete connections; or, are we going with a more nationalized oversight with separate companies but forced interoperability as if a single network?
Thanks for putting this together. — Alessa (talk) 13:10, 30 June 2023 (UTC)
- Good questions. My thoughts:
- Within a currently-served region there would be no limitations as long as the applicable stateowner(s) agree on it. For instance, if it’d make sense for LM&N to go out to Randalia via Alormen, there’d be nothing stopping the Alormen mappers from building that link. What’s shown on the map is only core corridors, and it still may not be all-inclusive. However, that’d be up to the regions and the stateowners to decide logical spur routes throughout the region.
- Nothing that’s currently mapped would be forced to change. However, as you mention in your third point, an American-style system has lots of redundancies and competition, so there may be new parallel lines you’d want to add from different companies. However, like the motorways, the intrastate alignments would be entirely up to the applicable stateowner to determine.
- The map would get pretty messy if all the logical competitive corridors were fully identified, but you are correct, multiple companies could serve the same corridor without issue. This could be in the form of complicated densely-packed parallel lines (such as the real-world northwestern Indiana), or mappers may want to employ “union” or “terminal” railroads where two or more freight companies share the same stretch of track using a shell company of sorts that’s jointly owned by the applicable railroad companies. That would be up to the individual stateowners, but if there are some glaring omissions that wouldn’t break the four-point cap in the table above, please add them. —TheMayor (talk) 13:24, 30 June 2023 (UTC)
I should let you know Mayor, that Iroquesia doesn't have the GESF running through, as of yet. I don't think it's connection was there when I picked up the state, and I've not added it in since picking it up. Is the route map you posted an older version? I wouldn't oppose to adding a GESF route through, but it appears that the only mapping for the company is in the Southeast if your map is up to date, so I'd want a more solid concensus on exactly where all the GESF routes would go.
What is missing is the Wallawaukee, Sierra & Western Railroad which I do have mapped passing through the state, though I don't know if that is a Class B or not. I've inset the map I've created for my own reference. -Aces California (talk) 08:39, 1 July 2023 (UTC)
Railroad Names
GESF Renaming
Previous discussions have suggested that GESF is too similar to the real-world BNSF Railway. List potential alternate names below. --TheMayor (talk) 21:49, 30 June 2023 (UTC)
- Federal Cradle and Lakes (FC&L RR)
- Federal Cradle and Saguanash (FC&S)
- Federal Cradle and Frontier (FC&F)
"Federal Cradle" refers to the southeast being the birthplace of the colonies (Huntington capping it off). --Fluffr Nuttr (talk) 06:05, 30 June 2023 (UTC)