Hi Jeff Engel,
My usual between **, okay?
[quote="JeffEngel"][quote="PeterZ"]I don't believe that Chisholm would benefit more from an immediate project to dig canals than a railroad when the materials become available. There is a ~100 mile stretch in Crest Hollow that might work to build a canal connecting The Cauldron to Howell Bay. The rest of Charis Island would benefit from upgrading the major rivers to improve their transport ability. I don't believe Margret's Land is populated enough to warrant that sort of investment yet.[/quote]
If you're counting on refugees from Siddarmark and other places in the mainland for labor, you could count on them for more population in Margaret's Land too - assuming there's reason to settle down there during or after canal/railroad building. And a lot of the canal building simply is river dredging and improvement, pretty much anywhere you can. Margaret's Land canals would serve primarily to close gaps between natural waterways: the Delthak River, the river running across Sea Trove from the mountains to Margaret Bay, and the blue waters of Howell Bay, Margaret Bay, and Tranjyr Passage. That complex would [i]also[/i] do the job of the Howell Bay to the west coast canal. It's much more ambitious than a Tellesberg-Cauldron Canal which would do that job too, but it would do not only that but link Howell Bay to Margaret Bay and northern Margaret's Land to southern Margaret's Land.[quote]
** Turning the Delthak area or region into the Ruhr seems a given, and RR to connect more convenient towns and/or cities to come {Howsmyn as 'Duke of Delthak' seems only just], but making Margaret's Land more firmly Charisian by far faster connections including major transportation links and trade are all to the good.
While Howsmyn could probably fund it all himself, it's too important to Charis and the crown not for them and the CoC to help financially.
Nonetheless, the west coast ports and transport connections nearer Tellesburg should also be carried out, the more ports can always find more trade, and the Tellesburg money interests may prefer to invest closer to home, when they realise that Delthak etc might become serious competition for them.
Besides Silverlode as a revenue source, as Merlin or Nahrmahn has probably already told the inner circle; RR's mean land the government couldn't sell for two dollars an acre can now be sold for four, now that rapid transportation assures it gets to market before it spoils, which ought to encourage internal immigration within Charis and the rest of the empire.**
Chisholm, however, is another kettle of fish. Outside the Fence, there isn't place where a canal would truly help expedite transport. Any canals built would not be useful in winter. Better to wait for materials to become available and build railroads. If economic dislocation becomes a serious problem soon, build a canal along the Fence to hire extra bodies. [/quote]
I'm not clear enough on Chisholm's traffic specifics to rule out short-range canals here and there to improve movement of raw materials and finished products inland. Certainly cold is an issue, but it can be for railroads too with snowfall, southern Chisholm is less vulnerable that way, and seasonal use of either canals or railroads can still be much better than not having them at all.
The Fence is a natural place to consider a canal, but how much traffic is there from points near it on one side to points near it on the other, or for which it would cut out a huge amount of the travel time? Raven's Land isn't much of a market for anyone yet, as a consumer or supplier, and the Western Crown Demesne isn't either. The northern and southern Chisholm coastal areas could helpfully be connected by a canal anywhere across the WCD, from the Fence on down to the southeastern base of the isthmus, and it'd reduce travel time from Charis to the northern Chisholmian coast slightly, but those are probably not sufficient gains to compel that expense and effort - barring local factors that I at least don't know enough to rule in or out.
** Agreed; a canal above the fence has been discussed before by PeterZ and I
, but a barge canal or RR is a lot cheaper than a steamship canal until heating, shelter and communications are more easily handled along Chisholm's northern coast.
Unless there are valuable minerals, like copper and tin etc, I don't see that happening for a while, given all the warmer more accessible land further south.**
Chances are, plenty of the connections in Chisholm will be better made with railroads than with canals - certainly eventually, and probably even in the near term. It's not riven with internal waterways like Charis/Margaret's Land for canals to finish linking up. But right now, expertise and materials for canal building are much less tight than for railroads - and refugee labor may bring mainland canal skills but no railroad building skills at all. And the existing canals and rivers can be expanded to create new and better links, in some places, likely with more ease than railroads starting from scratch.
** Actually Chisholm has some rivers in excellent places to speed trade east to west and vice-verse besides north to south, as a previous post of mine alluded to, with only short RR connections for now to reduce transport time from a couple of month's to 4-5 5days until the full RR is completed, an enormous improvement, NTM changing the way Chisholmians think about time, distance and space in their own quasi continent.**
[quote] I would prioritize Chisholm for railroads with Emerald and Zebediah next more for political reasons than economic ones. [/quote]
I wonder about Zebediah - not about the political reasons to support its infrastructure, all granted there, but about the useful communication links and what they need to go over. I think Zebediah is relatively flat - the map and my vague recollections suggest that anyway; as ever, happy to be corrected - which would be handy for building railroads [i]or[/i] canals. It's got a number of reasonably deep bays, which suggest some good work for small canals for local-to-Zebediah traffic. It's not really much of a candidate for canals for ocean-going vessels, unlike the possible Charisian canals, but that does make them easier projects too. On the other hand, if it is as flat as it looks, warm, and dry, shooting railroads wherever you need them to be would be as easy as it is going to get.[quote]
** Agreed, until we know what minerals Zebediah may have, barge canals and RR will be all that's needed, though any new canals {RFC may have been holding out on us
] will have to compete with steamships and so may be uneconomical, while the RR's flourish thanks to their speed.**
As for The Lock, commerce between the islands will keep Lock island a wealthy Earldom for quite some time. I also believe that between the ravages of war in the mainland, economic expansion in Siddermark and the EoC, there will be mass migrations by the displaced and unemployed to work those projects. I don't believe there will be enough Imperial citizens to staff all the projects Silverlode's wealth will make possible.[/quote]
For that matter, there are likely more than a few people in the Raven Lands or the Duchy of Fallos too (relatively speaking - they're both underpopulated) who may be lured off to work on canals, railroads, and Silverlode mines, or on subsidiary projects. Fallosian fisherfolk and lumberjacks may move to feed Silverlode miners and cut the timber for those mines. And Corisande's farms are likely to need far, far fewer people with Out Islander farm industry finally unleashed there.
The key industries are having to develop skilled labor from scratch or nearly so, putting a serious crimp in development, however much money or urgency there is. But certainly there are plenty of sources of labor, materials, and money to shift around to cover the remaining needs and support the development of transportation as well as direct industry.[/quote]
** Yup, I'm not worried about labor lacking long term in the EoC after the war, rather I won't be surprised if there aren't a lot of crown supported A&M colleges spread across the EoC with some wholly CoC supported, with experimental farms and mechanical departments that demonstrate and share the latest approved tech, with farmer cooperatives and low interest crown and CoC loans to encourage their purchase, all advancing Charis beyond her enemies' ability to even envision.
Then what are Cayleb and Sharleyan going to do?
What's going to be the challenge then?
Will that be why they jump into encouraging serfs to flee their servitude?
L
**