Canal Across Charis?

Hi PeterZ,

From my previous posts as you know, I'm in favor of liberating the Harchong ex-serf dependents even by purchase, there's going to be plenty of land for them to settle and make all their own without long journeys to Charis etc, even though I'm sure Sharleyan and Cayleb will insist on some making their homes in Charis and Chisholm specifically to show the empire is open to all.

Besides "Buying Sodar", I'm again referring to the Barren Lands, more immediately Greentree and Westbreak Islands, which already have some population so terraforming isn't impossible, just a low priority until now.

I'd prefer the companies who need the labor to hire the immigrants in their home countries, rather than the crown providing passage, they'd have a more vested interest in getting the people they need.

L

PeterZ wrote:

JeffEngel wrote:
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.

Which brings me back to an idea discussed a while back. Buy Harchong slave women and children for resettling and emancipation in Charis. Encourage immigration for sure, but why not also buy slaves make free where their labor is more needed?

Hi LouisR,

Thanks very much for the excellent points in both your posts!

From Zebediah's craggy coastline, I also strongly doubt its flat.

Indeed I seem to recall some early maps that showed its northern region to have a chain of mountains from east to west.

Your concern about water is quite valid, but given the large steam freighter looming large in the near future, I doubt barge canals even on a island the size if Zebediah could compete in terms of time and construction costs, let alone respective shipping time etc, although dredging [and connecting] any rivers we don't know about yet is a given.

L

Louis R wrote:If Zebediah is flat - and you're right that that is what the map shows, but it would surprise me to find that it is, and not just not filled it - canals are a non-starter, and railway will be the only option. If it is an option, that is.

Canals first: flat tropical islands are dry tropical islands, as anybody on Antigua or Anguilla can tell you. There has to be at least several hundred feet of relief to squeeze even moderate quantities of water out of the passing winds, and canals need quite a bit of water to operate. A flat island probably wouldn't have it available on demand.

Flat does mean that railway building is easy. OTOH, it likely also means that there's little or no local coal, so all the fuel for a railway would have to be shipped in. That would affect the economics. The flip side is that flat also often means an old, geologically stable and heavily eroded terrane - which are often good places to find petroleum

JeffEngel wrote:
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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 or 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.

Hi Jeff Engel,

I don't think the Earl of Lock Island will be hurting from lost tolls, rather increasing traffic after the war despite the other discussed western and northern improvements etc, because as the transportation revolution overtakes the continents even more trade than ever before will flow to Tellesburg via 'the Lock'.

L

JeffEngel wrote:

Louis R wrote:We've never, AFAICR, met the current Lord Lock Island, assuming of course that she isn't actually Lady Lock Island, but he's more than likely a pretty junior officer. Important as the Earldom is, the incumbent's political clout is going to be pretty limited compared to that of the late High Admiral.

Sure, but the deference due the heir of such a martyr to Charisian freedom amounts to a lot of passive political clout by itself.

Hi PeterZ,

Very possible.

There appear to be similar deposits in Charis according to the maps and textev, but I'm betting there's coal on Zebediah along with a few other precious minerals, like copper and tin.

Shucks, all sorts of minerals are possible including just 'rock' although critical to chemistry and industry.

L

PeterZ wrote:

Louis R wrote:If Zebediah is flat - and you're right that that is what the map shows, but it would surprise me to find that it is, and not just not filled it - canals are a non-starter, and railway will be the only option. If it is an option, that is.

Canals first: flat tropical islands are dry tropical islands, as anybody on Antigua or Anguilla can tell you. There has to be at least several hundred feet of relief to squeeze even moderate quantities of water out of the passing winds, and canals need quite a bit of water to operate. A flat island probably wouldn't have it available on demand.

Flat does mean that railway building is easy. OTOH, it likely also means that there's little or no local coal, so all the fuel for a railway would have to be shipped in. That would affect the economics. The flip side is that flat also often means an old, geologically stable and heavily eroded terrane - which are often good places to find petroleum

With the Earldom of Blackwater on the West side of Corisande, it might follow that Zebediah has similar deposits somewhere on the island.

If we go by the pattern of transportation development we've seen here in the real world, canals were a pre-railroad development. That is, the development of barge canal networks in England and the USA, for instance, largely took place before the general deployment of railroads in the 1840-1860 period. Once the railroad network was in place, the speed of the railroad, and it's ability to reach places not easily connected by barge canal, pretty much obsoleted barge canals for anything except bulk freight items that could live with the canal's low speed in order to benefit from it'd low cost.

The only obvious exception to this general development were the inter-ocean sea-level canals, such as the Suez Canal and the Panama Canal (although the Panama Canal has locks, it is still definitely an inter-ocean canal), that allowed seagoing ships to greatly reduce their travel distances and to provide improved point-to-point transportation.

Assuming the same economic forces prevail on Safehold, the early development of the railroad will effectively scuttle any significant further development of the existing barge canal system. There may be some inter-ocean canals (Gulf of Mathyas to Hankey Sound, Howell Bay to the Cauldron, for instance), but they will take years and years to cut, and are not likely to have much to do with our storyline.

Philip Stanley

While that was the pattern in North America - and the last small ship/barge canals there weren't completed until close to 1900, BTW - it wasn't in continental Europe, where the development and use of inland waterways continued apace right through the 20th century. In England, the displacement of canals by railway was apparently as much due to issues of water supply as any superior service they afforded [or, more correctly, the RR was superior because the canals had trouble maintaining movement through the locks at the height of land on the routes through and south of the Pennines].

Philip Stanley wrote:If we go by the pattern of transportation development we've seen here in the real world, canals were a pre-railroad development. That is, the development of barge canal networks in England and the USA, for instance, largely took place before the general deployment of railroads in the 1840-1860 period. Once the railroad network was in place, the speed of the railroad, and it's ability to reach places not easily connected by barge canal, pretty much obsoleted barge canals for anything except bulk freight items that could live with the canal's low speed in order to benefit from it'd low cost.

The only obvious exception to this general development were the inter-ocean sea-level canals, such as the Suez Canal and the Panama Canal (although the Panama Canal has locks, it is still definitely an inter-ocean canal), that allowed seagoing ships to greatly reduce their travel distances and to provide improved point-to-point transportation.

Assuming the same economic forces prevail on Safehold, the early development of the railroad will effectively scuttle any significant further development of the existing barge canal system. There may be some inter-ocean canals (Gulf of Mathyas to Hankey Sound, Howell Bay to the Cauldron, for instance), but they will take years and years to cut, and are not likely to have much to do with our storyline.

Philip Stanley

The nice thing about a railroad is that you can put the thing where you want it, connecting point a to point b. Lots of little side lines constructed to get grain to market from the elevators in the Midwest... Harder to do that with a canal.

And once the RR is in, it is faster and more efficient.

Don

n7axw wrote:The nice thing about a railroad is that you can put the thing where you want it, connecting point a to point b. Lots of little side lines constructed to get grain to market from the elevators in the Midwest... Harder to do that with a canal.

And once the RR is in, it is faster and more efficient.

Don

Faster yes ... more efficient? Not exactly.

Water>Rail>Road, in terms of amount of cargo you can move for the same energy. The difference is that Rail and Road can be faster*, and also more terrain tolerant.
*Though not when everything is muscle/animal powered.

Kytheros wrote:

n7axw wrote:The nice thing about a railroad is that you can put the thing where you want it, connecting point a to point b. Lots of little side lines constructed to get grain to market from the elevators in the Midwest... Harder to do that with a canal.

And once the RR is in, it is faster and more efficient.

Don

Faster yes ... more efficient? Not exactly.

Water>Rail>Road, in terms of amount of cargo you can move for the same energy. The difference is that Rail and Road can be faster*, and also more terrain tolerant.
*Though not when everything is muscle/animal powered.

The last line of your post says it all. Nobody is proposing a muscle powered railroad. We're all thinking steam, and eventually desiel.

Just a side comment, rivers and canals still serve a useful function in the USA. Cross the Mississippi, for example and you still see barge traffic as well as the St Lawrence still opening the Great Lakes to merchant shipping from the sea. But note that everywhere this is true, that traffic is greeted by trucking and rail heads. Nobody that I'm aware of proposes to build new canals.

Doing someting more cheaply is not the same thing as doong it more efficiently. Time is money.

Don

Here is one thing that is going to appear on Howard Bay. Passenger and cargo ferries. Your average sailing ship can make under the right conditions 6-8 knots but a ferry with a top speed of 14 knot will be able to cruise steadily at 9-10 knots all day every day.