Chapter 1957 Is industrialized North America good or bad?
After years of hard work, Datang's domestic railway operations have entered a stage of popularization and high-speed operation.
The major trunk railways that the Railway Corporation has spent nearly twenty years building in various places have been completed one after another. Even the most difficult Sichuan-Hankou Railway and Southwest Railway, most of the sections are currently open to traffic, and only some sections are not yet open. The construction is just completed.
Most of the main railway lines in other places have been laid.
For example, the Northeast Railway was only built as far as Shenyang in the early years, but later it continued eastward to Busan, then northward to Jilin, and then continued northward all the way to Khabarovsk.
The Prairie Railway runs from Tianjin to the north, passes through the Youzhou Houbei branch and goes all the way north to Lake Baikal, while the west line goes west to the north bank of the Hetao.
The Central Plains Railway Network is centered on Zhengzhou, with the northern line connecting Tianjin, the east line connecting Jiaozhou Bay, the southeast line connecting Xuzhou, Fengyang, and Jinling; and the southwest line connecting Hanyang. As for the west, it is the Northwest Railway, passing through Chang'an and Lanzhou all the way. , Gansu, after leaving Jiayuguan, continue passing through Hami, Ili, and Yining to reach Balkhash Lake.
And branched off on the south shore of Lake Balkhash, the southern line of the Central Asia Railway goes south all the way to Tashkent. The west line goes west to Kuri in the northeastern corner of the Caspian Sea.
At the same time, the Jiangnan Railway Network in the hinterland of the mainland connects Ningbo, Hangzhou, Shanghai, Suzhou, Zhenjiang, Jinling, and Jiujiang.
The Guangdong-Ganxi Railway in the Southern Railway Network connects Jiujiang, Ganzhou, Guangzhou, and Hong Kong.
There is also the Huguang Railway, which starts from Nanchang in the east and connects Wuchang and Changsha; and the Southwest Railway continues west from Changsha.
There is also the Guangdong-Hankou Railway that runs south from Wuchang and connects Changsha, Zhaoqing, and Guangzhou.
There is also the Sichuan-Hankou Railway starting from Hanyang and entering Sichuan along the north bank of the Yangtze River.
There is also the Guangxi Railway running southwest from Changsha, connecting Guilin, Liuzhou, Nanning and Lianzhou.
The railway line from Thang Long to Kunming is still under construction.
At present, the construction of main railway lines in the Tang Empire has reached the peak that the current technology and funds can achieve. Except for a few areas with too complicated terrain conditions, most places have main line railways.
At the same time, around these trunk railways, Datang Railway Company has also built a dense network of branch railways. These branch railways vary according to local geographical climate and economic conditions.
However, in economically developed areas and provinces with flat terrain, branch railways are extremely dense.
Take Guangdong, for example. In fact, the terrain in Guangdong is not that good, but its economy is not good, and its agricultural conditions are not that good. The economy relies more on industry and commerce. Therefore, when Chen Lifu took charge of Guangdong, he paid great attention to transportation.
After so many years, Guangdong has forcibly built railway lines to every county. Many places are even mountainous areas, making it extremely difficult to build railways.
In areas with flat terrain such as the Pearl River Delta, the railway system extends directly to towns. In economically prosperous areas, you can even see a train station platform in a village.
However, these densely packed railway networks that go deep into villages and towns are not strictly railways, but rather light rail systems. The trains running are generally light passenger and freight trains, and are mainly responsible for short- and medium-distance public transportation.
But no matter what, these are rail transits. Even the track standards adopted by light rail are the same as standard railways, and they are directly connected to major railway lines.
This has also resulted in the densest and most complex rail transit network in the world.
The denseness of its tracks is enough to give anyone responsible for train dispatching a headache.
In order to facilitate management, Datang Railway Corporation directly operates the Guangdong Railway Network separately, and has established more than ten railway branches under the Guangdong Railway Network, each of which is responsible for operating the dense railway network in their respective regions.
Compared with the highly dense and complex railway network in Guangdong, the construction of railways in other areas, such as Zhili Fourth Road, is much more rational and is generally connected to counties and counties. However, it will not be as complicated as the Guangdong railway network.
Not only connecting the county, but also connecting the towns and villages.
However, there are still not many provinces that can provide railways to counties. In most areas, only relatively large cities have railways. There is no way to do this. After all, building railways costs money, and not every place is worthy of investing a lot of resources.
To build dense railways.
Leaving aside the mainland, most of the other localized areas have good railway construction. For example, Beihai Province has already built a railway line that runs through Honshu Island.
There is also a Luzon Railway on Luzon Island in Luzon Province.
Banten Island in Banten Province also has a railway.
Malacca State also has a Malacca Railway.
Ceylon Island, a super large military base, also has a railway.
Even in South Africa, where the situation is complicated, the South African Railway, which was specially localized and built for gold mines, has been completed. It is said that in order to complete the South African railway quickly, the African Labor Service Company also paid a heavy price.
At least more than 100,000 free employees died.
However, it was precisely because of their sacrifice and dedication that the South African railway was repaired and opened to traffic in such a short period of time, contributing to the Tang Empire's mining of South Africa's gold mines.
The construction of railways in the empire and overseas can also be seen as the most obvious manifestation of the empire’s industrialization achievements in the past twenty years.
More importantly, the railway further stimulated the development of local economy.
There are benefits to building railways. Whether the railways themselves make money is another matter, but cities with railway stations will definitely benefit. This is why local officials in the Tang Dynasty are so keen on building railways.
Even in overseas territories, this is no exception!
For example, officials of the American Affairs Office have been working hard in recent years to build a railway in North America.
But it has never been approved.
Because if you want to build a railway, you must first localize it, and the topic of localization in America has become a taboo topic in recent years!
In the early years, people didn’t think much of the localization of North America. They thought it was just a larger overseas territory. When the local population ratio data was almost the same, localization could be implemented.
But in recent years, the upper echelons of the empire have unanimously stopped talking about localization in North America.
Why?
Because the total number of imperial immigrants in North America is close to exceeding 10 million, and more importantly, North America is so rich in various resources, not just agriculture, but almost all kinds of minerals.
With sufficient population and resources, as well as local technical support, once North America is localized, countless factories will rise in an instant.
This means that outside the mainland, a huge industrial area will appear on the other side of the Pacific Ocean thousands of miles away.
Would a populous, resource-rich, and thoroughly industrialized North America be a good thing for the empire?