Railway campaign

[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 --