Railway campaign

[rcaf_777]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

Well the war starts in the mid 1990's so the majority of manpower and materials would be going towards that rather then improving civilian infrastructure as it did IRL. Some work may have commenced, but quickly halted as the war kicks in.
We can see from the timelines (all three canon versions) the war was in full swing very quickly too - very little build up time. The only units left in the US were a few assigned to civil defence plus a handful waiting for shipping to come available to take them to Europe, the Middle East, or Korea.
We also know that the first nukes to hit the US were in November 1997 which absolutely would have halted any further work which may have been slowly proceeding.

Re the walking dead, in that you haven't had nuclear war tearing the place up. Most infrastructure is still in one piece (mostly) and, provided the manpower and skills are available, generally repairable. Zombies don't tend to rip up rail lines, destroy entire cities, and commit acts of sabotage...

You do know that most railroads in the us are civilian run right?...not sure why or how troops come into play

And are you saying that the us military would not use any rail before the war to move heavy equipment? Hmmmm can't see that happen

What do you think the state of the rail system is prior to the war?

[Legbreaker]

Troops come into play because of conscription. Also, you're going to see the military buying up all sorts of equipment all of which will need raw materials such as steel to make. With military age men and women being drafted there's also corresponding pressure on the factories, etc for manpower.

Yes, of course the military would be using rail when and were possible, just as they've done almost since the first railway track was laid. This again will likely have an impact on other areas with rolling stock tied up for shifting tanks, etc rather than raw materials and finished goods.

If the war was expected to drag on then yes, investment would have been made in transport infrastructure, but we already know that the first six months or so NATO was on the advance with the Pact barely able to slow them down until the China issue was effectively resolved by use of nukes. Until that stage the railways had obviously been up to the task required of them as the books state the units held back in the US were there because of a lack of available shipping, not rolling stock.

With June 1997 comes the destruction of the "last major naval fleet-in-being". At this point you can be damn sure all available steel would be redirected to the shipyards, as would a great deal of manpower. It's very unlikely any shipping would have been completed though before November stopped everything.

I don't know what the state of the US rail system was, I'm not there and never have been, but it's fairly common knowledge it wasn't in good condition. I also don't know when IRL upgrade works commenced, nor how far along they were by 1996/97. There are plenty of people on here better placed than me to comment on that. However, the points I've made above about pressures on manpower and resources apply equally to all nations around the world, although the Soviets may have been in a slightly better position as they'd been at war a bit longer and their economy was already on a war footing.

[kato13]

Some information I found.

I decided to look up derailment rates as while collisions and fatalities make news, derailments are probably the most disruptive traffic wise.

The US was certainly out of it's worst phase (derailment wise) by the time of the twilight war.


source
http://www.vox.com/2015/5/13/8598703...t-train-safety


In 2001 (the earliest year I can find comparisons)
the US had 1.21 main line derailments per million train miles traveled.
Australia had 1.84 (Had to convert kilometers to miles)
Canada (CPR) had 1.44
Canada (CN) had 1.76

European reporting that I have found focuses on fatalities not total derailments so I could not include those numbers.

Sources
http://railtec.illinois.edu/articles...kan%202004.pdf

https://www.atsb.gov.au/media/28354/rr_2008007.pdf

https://www.tc.gc.ca/media/documents...ty/TranSys.pdf


The US does have its weaknesses. A greater percentage of derailments seem to be due to infrastructure failure, which could lead to longer term delays in recovery of a line. The long empty spaces in our country also lend themselves to sabotage. I'm my game world Spetsnaz are extremely active in rail sabotage as they see that as the way to disrupt the US military without direct confrontation (allowing for a greater number of actions).

However from an infrastructure standpoint I don't see the US being radically different from other nations as to say that it is significantly more likely to have a breakdown (as it might have been in the late 70s early 80s).

[Legbreaker]

Yes, we know the KGB were active in the US so it stands to reason they'd be carrying out acts of sabotage from the moment the US entered the war in Europe. This could have been as overt as blowing up bridges or as covert as simply moving a decimal point on a spreadsheet.
I'd expect most of the sabotage would petter out after November 1997 as the agents realise they're not going home any time soon and need to make the best of a crappy situation. Only the hard core agents would keep up operations I'd think.

[kato13]

I suppose I should clarify that when I say "In my game world" I am including all real world (going back to 1972) and game timeline variations and additions to the printed works. It does not necessarily mean what is happening at the moment a game with players start.

Spetsnaz(GRU)/KGB could still be disrupting rail lines in 2000, but I expect activity would be reduced to almost nil after troops and material were no longer being sent overseas (mid to late 1998?) and virtually every rail line is seeing under 10% of their prewar use. I do see some possibilities in areas like Colorado Springs where I am assuming MILGOV would still be using rail lines to some productive degree.

[Legbreaker]

That makes sense, but I wonder how many would continue when it became obvious (at least locally) that there was no effective US government to carry on the fight. Without Comms it'd be up to the individual cells to decide, and as time dragged on without contact from HQ, justifying further action which could harm their own continual survival, would become harder and harder. By 2000 it's likely only limited actions in support of those soviet units in Texas and Alaska would be ongoing.

[Targan]

I'm sure that there's at least one named Spetznaz unit operating in the US (I thought it was on the east coast too) in one of the modules or Challenge mini-modules but for the life of me I haven't been able to find it with a quick search today. There's definitely one group of Soviet soldiers operating on the East Coast however.

*POTENTIAL SPOILERS*

-- SPOILER - highlight text to view --
I did find the Challenge mini-module Strangers in a Strange Land (page 14, Challenge Magazine issue 48) which is about Soviet Group Medved, 112 Warsaw Pact soldiers and officers who were broken out of a POW camp at Graterford Prison in Pennsylvania in a well-orchestrated KGB operation on December 5th, 1997. Originally there were 400 of them and they were supposed to make their way in small groups to a rendezvous point near Philadelphia then cross the Delaware and then hide in the New Jersey marshlands until submarines could evacuate them in January 1998.

The evacuation never happened, and in any case many of the POWs deserted and disappeared into the countryside as soon as they broke out. The ones that did follow orders were organised into 4 x 25-man platoons and a HQ element. They managed to keep things very successfully on the down-low and were still operating at the time of Going Home but they're very short on firearms and ammo and don't have much in the way of heavy weapons or vehicles. They're led by a Soviet Army Colonel, formerly of the 5th Tank Division.
-- END OF SPOILER --

[Adm.Lee]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

Yes, of course the military would be using rail when and were possible, just as they've done almost since the first railway track was laid. This again will likely have an impact on other areas with rolling stock tied up for shifting tanks, etc rather than raw materials and finished goods.

Short-term, this is good for the railroads, that's a lot of traffic that they wouldn't have had prior to 1995. I'm sure they've long had plans gathering dust on how to move military cargos (and they would have had practice in the 2nd Gulf War, 1990-91). That could have shown whatever shortcomings were existent after the recovery of the 1980s.

If the war was expected to drag on then yes, investment would have been made in transport infrastructure,

Were I in Wall Street, rail is one place I would be sure to invest in in 1995-96, pumping money into infrastructure improvements.

as the books state the units held back in the US were there because of a lack of available shipping, not rolling stock.

Agreed. I attended a lecture once comparing US rail performance in WW1 (an embarrassment at best, nearly screwed the war effort at worst) to WW2 (came through with flying colors). Lessons were learned, and I don't think that would be too far gone, again with the example of 1990-91 available.

It's very unlikely any shipping would have been completed though before November stopped everything.

Ah, steel production. Now we're hitting at a weak spot in the US economy in the 1990s-- not all of it's gone overseas, but I bet a lot sure did. (I don't live in the Rust Belt, but near it, so it was hard to miss that in the news.) Prices and availability for rolling stock and rails get hit, and it all goes pear-shaped after the TDM, anyway.

However, the points I've made above about pressures on manpower and resources apply equally to all nations around the world, although the Soviets may have been in a slightly better position as they'd been at war a bit longer and their economy was already on a war footing.

I'd think they might have been in a slightly worse position, as their network (IMO) had less slack in it to cover for the wear & tear of extra-ordinary usage, especially wastage as so much stuff had to go longer distances to get to the Far Eastern Fronts.