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condition of investment, probably get away with agreements about format. Don't try for any control over
content. The court will throw out the whole contract.
The start up money is there. By 1633 both Grantville and Magdeburg are competing with Amsterdam
and Venice as financial and industrial centers. There are both businesses and individuals with the
resources to do it. There will be movie studios, plural. Record producers, plural. Record player
manufactures, plural. Movie houses, plural. Very plural. Both the traveling show sort that visit a village for
a day or two and go on to the next and the in-place sort that have a movie projector and rent films.
How will they come about? Messily. Even if a consortium of some sort arranges an agreement on
formats, the only people who will be obligated by it are those that signed on the dotted line and took the
investment money. Even they will not necessarily follow the agreement if it starts costing them money.
This information is available to the up-timers and down-timers who have access to Grantville and its
books. It isn't available all in one place or one article, true. But a careful study of the media and its history
by use of the modern encyclopedias and other books will find information on the subject. Other books,
perhaps biographies of stars like Clark Gable and Katherine Hepburn, may mention aspects of the media
in passing. Carefully piecing these articles and passing comments together will tell the avid student or
potential investor all he needs to know to see the pitfalls and advantages.
Agreements will be reached about format for records and film. Record players and film projectors will
be designed with the possibility of upgrades in mind. Sometimes. Companies will start making their
particular brand of record player and go broke. Which will, of course, leave the record producer for
records of that type in the lurch. It will happen faster this time, because one of the obvious lessons that
even a fairly slight perusal of the history of media brings is the desperate need for content. Nothing can
really prevent it. The stars are going to shine. Because as much as people need food and shelter they
want entertainment just as much. Or more.
Note:This essay describes the result of one individual's research into the possible routes and expansion
of railroad in Germany after the Ring of Fire. This plan should be regarded as a proposal, and not as an
edict. Canon in the 1632 series is established by stories. As you write your stories, you may choose to
use this plan, or not. It is up to the author.
 The Editorial Board
Railroading In Germany
By Carsten Edelberger
"The railroads are about to make a big comeback in the world."
Eric Flint,1632 .
Introduction
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The railroads will be the steel backbone of the inter-modal rail/water transportation system of the United
States of Europe (USE). The first rail line will provide a link for Grantville into the existing road-and-river
transportation network and to the capitol in Magdeburg. The tracks will then spread across the State of
Thuringia-Franconia (SoTF), more tightly connecting its important towns and providing them with easier
access to the rivers of Elbe, Weser and Main.
* * *
Railroads, together with improvements of other infrastructure, will create a system capable of real mass
transportation. They will reduce transportation times from weeks or months to days, and will vastly
improve the reliability of the transportation system. At the same time, they will drive the cost of transport
down, thus allowing vendors to produce for a greater market. Finally, railroads act as a classical military
"force multiplier," by improving the speed at which armies and their supplies can move.
* * *
We don't have enough oil to fuel lots of cars with internal combustion engines. Granted, there are oil
wells near Wietze, but it will take much time and effort to develop them. In the first few years, only some
150-200 barrels a day are expected, and that's definitely not going to impress a Texas oil tycoon.
Moreover, even if we had the fuel, we would still need to upgrade the highways. In most parts of the
USE, the roads, outside the immediate vicinity of towns and cities, are unfit for horse-drawn carts, let
alone motor traffic.
Rivers might be an alternative for transport in many parts of Europe, but not for Grantville. The nearest
river is the Saale, which runs north, past Saalfeld, Rudolstadt, Jena, Naumburg, and Halle, and empties
into the Elbe (the junction is 18 miles upstream of Magdeburg, the USE capitol). Unfortunately, the Saale
cannot meet our rising demands for transport. Upriver from Naumburg, transport with barges is almost
impossible because the Saale is small and shallow. It is a nice trout stream, not a navigable river. Even
rafting has to wait for snow melt for enough water. The Saale river can be improved to a certain degree,
but the process would be laborious, costly and time-consuming. Going in any direction other than straight
north with waterways from Grantville is absolutely impossible anyway.
Thus, railroad is not the best, but rather the only, solution to Grantville's high volume transportation
needs. The first rail line will provide a link for Grantville into the existing road-and-river transportation
network, and in particular to Magdeburg. The tracks will then be spread across the SoTF, more tightly
connecting its important towns and providing them with easier access to the rivers of Elbe, Weser and
Main. Ultimately, the railroads will be the steel backbone of the entire USE.
* * *
Starting the railroad infrastructure will be the first really big infrastructure project outside the immediate
scope of Grantville. As most up-timers with appropriate knowledge are committed elsewhere, the
project will rely heavily on, and be run mostly by, down-timers.
It will not be in the top priority list but will be ranked perhaps just after the military, very high in the
secondary list. That's because we already have lots of most important projects to do. Projects like
winning a war while retrofitting an army and simultaneously building our own army, navy and even our air
force, just to name a few. But this project has great importance both in military and economic terms, so in
the end it will get what's needed.
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The General Plan
We should initially establish a railroad system comparable in capabilities to an 1870-vintage secondary
railroad.
Our focus will be on transporting freight. Initially, we will make only a bit of additional money by
transporting passengers. Average people from this time rarely leave their village or town if not forced to
do so by war or other urgent circumstances. And the ticket for a train ride will be very expensive at first.
So, at first the principal passengers will be up-timers, novelty-seeking nobility, very bold and rich
businessmen and couriers.
There are two exceptions to this rule. First is transporting military units. But in most wars in which trains
were used to transport soldiers, they were given only a modest increase in comfort in comparison to their
horses. So, we too will consider them as freight, if a valuable and demanding one.
The second is public transport in urban areas. Industrialization tends to draw workers into the city;
public transport becomes a tool to reduce the concentration of people. Commuting helps to keep prices
in urban housing lower and allows for greater flexibility in working while maintaining a more stable private
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