To The Edge of the World: A Railway-Building Quest

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The railroads are to be the blade of tsarist autocracy pointed eastwards, carrying soldiers and bureaucrats and nobility eastwards to govern, to colonize and to conquer. The double eagle aims to rise in the east. And the iron horse will carry it there. You are to build the great railway through Siberia to the Pacific, and do it fast.
Or, of course, you can risk the displeasure of the autocracy. It is not advised.
Introduction

mouli

Terrible QM
Location
United States
To The Edge of the World

"[The Railway] is a project to occupy the first places of in the ranks of the nineteenth century, not only in our Motherland, but throughout the entire world…"
-Sergei Witte, Diaries

It is the twilight of the nineteenth century, the years flying past on the iron roads that now gird the world entire. The iron horse has brought murder and settlement and 'civilization' to the far corners of the globe under the serried flags of Western Europe, it brought new tilth and townships in the wake of death and war in the Americas, and as a result it is a symbol of modernity in this brave new world. That symbol stretches far indeed, through nigh every continent on earth.

In America, the United States stretches from the Atlantic Coast to the warm sun-dappled waters of the Pacific Ocean. From the woods of the northeast past the sullen cold waters of the Great Lakes, past cities sprawled onto the flat plains to the Rocky Mountains and beyond, the reach of the nation is vast.
The iron road spans it still. A golden spike driven into the Trans-Continental Railroad, stations holding court in places from San Diego to Reno to New York City. Thousands of miles of track, hundreds of howling engines and millions of tons of cargo on the tracks that girdle a young, arrogant new nation.

In Canada, the iron road runs north of its American sibling and under the Union Jack as well as the maple leaf. Tiny stations in far-flung towns that stare across the border, cities dotting the landscape at intervals too great for the horse and carriage, water-towers and stations where no settler has placed his home. The Canadian Pacific is a thin, iron ribbon through the vast stretches of the British Empire's most senior Dominion, slicing through francophone Quebec to the Rocky Mountains on a bed of Arctic wood, Sheffield steel and imperial bloodshed. From the Atlantic to the Pacific, staring across the ocean at an uneasy Russia – and carrying thousands of settlers to what the men in Whitehall call virgin land.
All that, girded by the railway.

Yet there is a place still left untouched. Imagine, if you will, that you begin in St. Petersburg of the swamps and the glittering courts of the Tsars. Where the city rests on lakes and islands, planted there by the imperial will of Peter the Great. A window to the west looking out on the gray Baltic with its self-consciously European architecture and its self-consciously autocratic aristocracy, where the nobility of the Russian Empire mingle uneasily with the technical specialists they are forced to import.
Say you start walking east, from there, and you have a writ from the court allowing you past the checkpoints and police and Cossacks. Perhaps your task is to deliver a message from the tsar, to the army in the Far East or Central Asia. Perhaps you are one of the great and good of the Empire, the governors and nobility ruling Russia with an iron fist, and yours is the appointment to the Far Eastern provinces. Or perhaps you are a diplomat, sent to treat with the Chinese and Koreans and Japan. There are reasons aplenty for the tsar to send his people east, for all that the iron law of distance makes it a terrible thing.
It's a long way to Asia.

The imperial roads run from St. Petersburg to Vladivostok, but they run via water more often than not. You would take a post-chaise from a station at the capital, perhaps, with the tsar's writ granting you the best of horses and the best of drivers on your mission. You would run past villages dotting Western Russia, the church steeple and the lord's house the only things taller than a single story. The rocking, uncomfortable run of the coach would leave you sore for day in and day out, halting every ten miles at the post stations to change horses or to sleep. At every station in the vast flat land that is Russia before the Urals, the stationmaster would meet you at the walls and despite the writ or your authority, would ask for coin before service. So it would go for days, weeks even, until you reached the onion domes of achingly ancient Moscow where the Romanov tsars first ruled, long before Peter came to the throne. Your great, prestigious mission for the army or the diplomatic corps or even simply to govern already taking weeks – and you are not even an eighth of the way to the Pacific.

And yet little would change for your journey even here, near the old capital of the empire. The roads near Moscow would be better, the roads leading away to the east would be worse. The bribes would be steeper near the big city, the patter more deft and the stationmasters more rapacious. Perhaps there is a crowd on the roads, whether from a procession celebrating a saint's feast day or a thick knot of peasant panje wagons headed to the markets of the city. Perhaps there is thus delay.
But would you even notice overmuch?

Time stretches on like jelly, in those coaches on the great road through Russia. And the hand of the state and its laws grows ever so slowly lighter as one heads east through the vast steppe that approaches the Urals.

So you would ride, in the back of a coach with another three well-paying members of the gentry as three more rode outside on top, as a coachman whipped the horses into a trot on the sometimes-dirt sometimes-paved roads in Central Russia. Past ancient Vladimir with its great cathedral, through Kazan the Tatar city conquered by Tsar Ivan, and spending every night on the way in the wretched coaching inns run by the government, where a bribe is needed to garnish your requests and lice are often a fact of life. Soon, though, you would come to the rivers – as soon as soon goes, in the Russian Empire. Perhaps three weeks. Perhaps eight. It depends.
Time tends to stretch at times on the road to Asia.

The rivers themselves are the great highway to Siberia. Paddle-steamers would take you on the larger rivers, small ferries run by peasant boatmen on the smaller, and all of it on rivers navigable for perhaps five months of the year before ice begins to form and some of them begin to freeze. Ice floes are a perennial spring hazard here, and you may even be knocked off the ship into freezing hypothermic water by one should you injudiciously take the air. Or perhaps your boatman is a reckless one, speeding up to fly past and under a crumbling old river bridge more ancient than the katorga camps it connects – and perhaps the bridge collapses. There are many accidents here on the road.
Yet should you be fortunate, the ice would come for your travels in Russia, with just as much grim certainty as the conscription roll or the taxman. The rivers are navigable in full for five months, and you would most certainly take more.

So you would use a sleigh through eastern Siberia, past Baikal half-frozen and deeper than the dreams of Verne, over the ice and snow in the two-horse sleigh called a tarantass. By this time as the sleigh rockets over the ice and you near the Amur River, you have like as not not bathed properly in months save for the occasional quick wash in a stream. There are few places to do so in the coaching-houses. And in Siberia, there is no running water. In a Siberian winter, you generally would prefer not to bathe in the rivers.

And so the time would move, glacially slow and suddenly fast, coming out of the wilderness of the Siberian track – no more than birch poles or clumps of posts lining a path barely large enough for two sleighs abreast – into the cities, where time suddenly moves fast and people do as well.
The last city you would reach would be Vladivostok, after months of travel at the least, months that stretch on to infinity as boredom wars with anxiety and the road takes its toll on you. Few are used to the rigors of travelling at the fastest possible speed through Russia.

Vladivostok, the imperial outpost on the Pacific, the slatternly town of perhaps twenty thousand with its neglected garrison on a tenuous supply line, is the last great outpost of the Empire. They call it the Ruler of the East in the imperial court you would have left far, far behind in St. Petersburg. Once you reach it, you would see that it rules precious little, so far from the imperial center. Here the hand of the tsar rests lightly and acts with glacial speed, messages and messengers taking months or near a year to travel from the imperial capital to the Far East. The army is thinly spread, staring down the Chinese and the Japanese and Koreans, its generals greedily contemplating the future in the Far East and cursing the tyranny of distance.
Yet that distance can be narrowed.

You would not have travelled on the iron horse. The railways have yet to span Russia, in these last two decades of the nineteenth century. But now they shall. There are signatures from the tsar, proclamations to the Minister of Finance, machinations in the capital and court, far from Vladivostok or Siberia – but the empire has seen how the iron road has crossed the Americas.
They are now determined it shall be the same here. The railroads are to be the blade of tsarist autocracy pointed eastwards, carrying soldiers and bureaucrats and nobility eastwards to govern, to colonize and to conquer. The double eagle aims to rise in the east. And the iron horse will carry it there.

And you, my tired traveller? You will be the one to build it, and your overseer shall be Sergei Witte, the Minister for Finance, the barely-aristocratic member of the gentry, the iron fist that rules the Siberian Development Council in court. You will change the world and the empire, you will give the throne in St. Petersburg its avenue to the East where the future awaits. So it has been decreed by His Majesty, so it has been whispered and planned by Sergei Witte, and so it shall be done. This will be your moment to leave your mark and make the future, and that was made clear as the iron-gray eyes of the Minister of Finance stared through you when you were appointed, his greetings and his promises soft as silk and firm as steel.
You had best not let him down.

Mechanics: These are important, and relevant to the first starting choice. Please do read them.

The intent of this quest is to explore the information asymmetry and the bias inherent in information that drives a great deal of major projects and state policy, and act as a short, ten-turn testbed for the mechanics that are detailed below. There is not usually a progress bar or a percentage chance of success on actions, nor is there usually a single unbiased metric of output/result per project action or segment. These things work through people and data that by nature provide biased, incomplete, at times inexact information that has to be filtered. As such, information provided will always be in character for the subordinate or the agency, with a note about the bias or the observed performance provided at the start of the quest. All biases and such will be consistent – there is no random behavior, inasmuch as characters and subordinates will act within their frame of reference of the world.

Thus, we will not have turn-action dice and DCs, and we will not have progress bars for numbers to fill, because those are rather difficult to provide under these restrictions. Major salient points to remember are:
(1) There are no dice and no DCs shown. If there is inherent randomness to an event or turn I will roll in the background. You do not know about the dice and should not assume there are dice. Assume there is logic rather than randomness.
(2) Characters are competent. They will provide information as their profiles will indicate, but they have their own biases. For example, an expert American railway engineer would be incredibly good at rapid railway construction across the steppe and the Urals, but have severe issues with personnel and the Siberian winter. Or a Russian railway engineer, being better on the personnel side but having an inherent optimism in his timetables for completion due to inexperience and a lack of supporting staff. Character profiles are key here to plan actions in turn.
(3) Statistics are present each turn, but remember that such data as the Russian Empire can gather is both incomplete, in that it presents a single, very compressed slice of information, and it is dated. Data takes time to gather and by the time it reaches you is always, always out of date. They're useful, but not an omniscient information source.
(4) International perspectives and outside points of view are also provided in each turn, and can act as alternate views of the project to counteract the bias of your personnel. Bear in mind that these views are often more biased in a different way – for example, the British rail engineers' journal that finds ways to nitpick the Transsib because 'Russians can't build rail and don't know how', thus finding ways to prove that to themselves by finding often minor and niggling faults as well as major ones.
(5) Corruption is an in character thing. Your character's biases and interactions will determine other characters' interactions with him and with the rest of the project. A corrupt but competent chief will be able to use underhanded means to retain court support, but will also have more corrupt subordinates as they look up and see a culture of corruption permeating down. A martinet at the top will lead to less reporting of bad news, since people don't want to be sent to the labor camps for reporting the wrong thing.

Each turn will proceed as follows:
(1) You will have a set number of actions to use, in a priority order. You should prioritize actions to force completion of the ones deemed most critical. Policies are broad here at the top and will be more in the nature of 'Obtain funding', 'Personnel Recruitment', 'French Loans', 'Route Surveys', and so on. The vast bulk of the top level of an engineering project is finance/resources and logistics, not number crunching.
(2) You have a nominal budget, which can be considered accurate as it's under your eye. You have a court/tsar opinion, narratively displayed, and a SibCouncil opinion which indicates what the Siberian Development Council headed by Witte think of you. Dawdle or fuck up and they'll remove you. At times, scapegoats are key.
The actions in (1) will have rough indicators of what money they will cost and what impact they have on completion, but remember that character background and personnel influence the projections. Spend the resources in (2) on actions in (1). You have ten turns, each one a single year. Laying track happens on automatic at a minimal rate already due to the simple structure of the initial corporation, the issue is speed, logistics, and financing – as well as dealing with the hellish Siberian terrain in places.

You may choose one starting change, to make things easier:

[]None: This answer puts you in historical shoes.

[]Surveys: The Russian Imperial Technical Society won its fight to have the route properly surveyed while Minister Vyshnegradskii took his time in authorizing the track-laying. As a result, you have reasonably accurate information on terrain and distances in Siberia on the planned route of the Trans-Siberian, and you thus have more accurate projections of completion and cost. However, this has also resulted in the businessmen who opposed Vyshnegradskii becoming more than a little vexed at the supervisor – you. Expect trouble from the bankers.

[]Expertise: The Tsar took a personal interest for a while, and thus imported technicians from Britain to build his track and his trains. Since they pushed the iron road through the Canadian prairie, he reasoned, surely they were a good choice for Russia? The issue here is that they are far less familiar with the locals than your experts, for all that the British are far far better in terms of technical skill. Your men will learn much from them, but the teething issues are liable to be severe.

[]Influence: You are a noble, more noble than the man who is your nominal superior. That means he resents you, and that means you consider him to be an upjumped peasant. But it also means that you have far more influence at court and can get things done in terms of political support that Witte might have trouble with – the aristocracy are in places opposed to the line, as some of their estates would be split. Some of them are resentful of Witte. You can smooth that over, but it would mean you have to do others favors as well.

Character Details:

[]Name?
[]Gender Identity? I'll allow this without debuffs since the updates are not likely to have much narrative – this is to be short and low-effort mechanics testing with a clear, defined endpoint similar to the finished thread I have on Spacebattles.
 
Factions of Interest
Factions In Imperial Politics
In keeping with the desire to run a short mechanics tester, this is a considerably simplified image through the eyes of a member of the nobility, as the thread has chosen. All information has its biases. Be warned.

As a member of the nobility, you have an excellent grasp of factions in court and factions among the nobility. While you're well able to grasp their motivations and the like in broad strokes, one might call your categorization of them somewhat flawed – well outside your earshot, mind you. Court is home to the aristocracy of the Russian Empire, and they are remarkably good at presenting a pleasant front in person while preparing a knife for one's back – be wary and be on guard here. Especially with regards to your immediate superior.

Sergei Witte and the Council for Siberian Development: Your immediate superiors, and thus deserving of consideration separately from the rest of the court in St. Petersburg. Sergei Witte is the Minister of Finance and heads the Council of Siberian Development primarily as a means of increasing the size and scope of his bureaucratic fiefdom and pursuing the one great thing which promises to make his mark on history – the Trans-Siberian Railway. The Minister has a personal stake in the project and can be relied on, in your eyes, to act to protect the project in a manner well beyond what most bureaucrats would consider necessary. However, should you fall short or be perceived as a threat to the project, be wary of replacement or forced retirement. Minister Witte is already resentful of your status as a member of the high nobility working for him, whose blood is far less rarefied than yours. The Council are his lackeys or otherwise can be relied on to work with him rather than with you, and are also acutely conscious of the gap in aristocratic rank that is present between you and them – expect resentment and demands for 'developmental action' that can conflict with the tactical goals of the Railway.

The Eastern Expansionists: A substantial chunk of the Imperial Court is in the same mold as the great general Mikhail Skobelev, in claiming that the East is the Russian frontier rather than the West. What use has Russia for more Poles or more Finns or Swedes when the vast frontiers of Siberia and Manchuria await colonization once the iron horse is ready to ride? The expansionists are the most significant backers of the Railway and the Tsar is at present among their number, but the Tsar's attentions are fickle and expansion is expensive – this faction needs a victory to keep going, and that victory relies on the railway making fast progress and enabling more settlement of the Siberian interior. Expect them to protest against a fast route to Vladivostok, instead demanding a more winding line that takes the Railway through major cities such as Tomsk, Irkutsk and Chita.

The Panslavists: Shorthand for the group who believe that the greatest threats to Russia lie in the West and that the sacred duty of the Imperial throne is in the aid and succor of its Slavic and Orthodox brethren in Europe, this is a faction you have little truck with and have little knowledge of beyond the usual. The Panslavists oppose the sums allocated to the Railway and are fine with the project in principle, and want the completion date pushed back to allow for more money allocated to European projects. Rail links in Ukraine, Congress Poland and Ruthenia as well as more money into the military to allow a rapid mobilization in the Eastern theater. These are members of the great nobility, many among the Grand Dukes and the Procurator Pobedonostsev, backed by French gold. Expect a difficult time.

The Rural Nobility: These are people you've never met, don't want to meet due to stench and lack of culture, and are generally not that cognizant of beyond the summaries that you glean from court or from the bureaucracy. The rural nobility are split by the railway cutting through their land – some of them view it as a good thing, cash from the throne for land used by the Transsib and cash later from development along the rail lines. Others view it as an eyesore, a means for peasants to flee the land and a noisome irritation. Frankly, you're not sure how to placate them and don't really want to.

Radicals: There are so many radicals in Russia that you don't know where to start. And none of them have any sane ideas at all. Socialists, anarchists, threats to the stability of the throne and the stability of the state, and utterly insane. As a member of the nobility, though, you know that there are those among your ranks who sympathize with them and you know how dangerous the radicals can be – strikes, for instance, can be devastating in Siberia if timed right.

Factions In The Imperial Bureaucracy

The Imperial Russian bureaucracy is a place of warring fiefdoms, and you're far below the level where you have to concern yourself with the great ministries. No, your concern is with the ministries that handle your imports, the ministries that are your superiors (see above, Sergei Witte), and the offices that handle your surveying and auxiliary work. They had best like you, and you had best be able to know their biases well.

Imperial Russian Army: The army is probably the most powerful ministry but also a divided one. A vast bureaucratic empire that manages everything from ammunition factories and arsenals to the troops on the German border, the army is sclerotic and slow to act. It is also the place you'll have to turn to for armed support in Siberia against strikers, for logistical support and explosives requisition, and for a suitably large bureaucratic stick to beat rural nobles with – even they understand the primacy of 'national defense'. The army is, however, resentful of your budget and resentful of your intrusion onto its perquisites – it would dearly like to manage the railway project and its general staff would dearly love to embezzle their share. You've resolved to handle them carefully, and a combination of looking good in front of the tsar, faster troop travel to Manchuria and bribes ought to keep them sweet.

The Council for Siberian Development: See Above.

The Foreign Ministry:
The place where your experts are vetted and your imported goods are examined, since as a government department your project has to go through them for importing anything. The Foreign Ministry is at present looking East and to the Great Game with the British, and importing British or seeming to offer an olive branch when it is not wanted is something to offend. Since you don't know when to do that without schmoozing with the diplomats, best not to use British goods without cause. The railway is something that the diplomats in the East have used as a stick before, and the occasional offer from the Foreign Ministry might well be worth listening to. At present, you think they tentatively back the railway.

The Throne: The Tsar and his closest ministerial allies are at present backing the Railway, or so you have heard. His Majesty is a fickle man and it is best not to rely on Imperial favor for something as large as this.

The Okhrana: Shorthand for the vast internal security apparatus set up in the past century, all of whom are concerned that Siberian exile may not be what it was. With the Railway headed east and colonization being mooted for Siberia, the gentlemen of the secret police are deeply concerned about evasion of exile and the potential for sabotage or subversion via the Trans-Siberian. You're not sure what to do about that and you're damn well not bowing to some twerp from the Okhrana, not when you're a descendant of the great nobility of the empire, but at the same time they can be useful. The labor camps, for instance, are an excellent labor source. A sentence-reduction scheme has already been proposed, to shave a additional year off one's sentence for every year worked.

The Imperial Geographical Society: A collection of nobles and a collection of scientists, it's the former you're more concerned about. They're very happy with the project and its direction, and they want you to know you have their backing – scientific and political. The problem is that their backing puts you in conflict, in places, with the Orthodox Church, who are very against a great deal of what the IGS has already published. The Procurator doesn't like them, but there's not much he can do. Not as if he's in the university leadership, right?

The Orthodox Church: Vast, sclerotic and a faction unto itself in court and in the ministries. The church is often the only real social service in many parts of Russia and thus has influence well out of proportion to the status that many of the high nobility accord it. They are staunchly conservative, staunchly pro-Imperial and extremely reactionary at present. Even you think they're a bit excessive on the radical question.


AN: Remember, as before: Everything is shaded by character bias. You are a member of the high nobility and that comes with its biases and blind spots.
 
Status Sheet
Status: The Trans-Siberian Railway

The Railway Project has begun construction in the Year of the Lord 1895, and aims to reach the Pacific Coast by 1905 – aiming to cover the vast expanse of Russia with a single-track heavy-rail line in ten years. With little to no expertise on construction of rail at such a scale, no real pool of expertise for design of specialized hardware and the need to import bridge designs from abroad – preferably America – this will not be an easy task.
And that doesn't even get into the issues of politics. It's a good thing you know the political side well, and an even better thing that you don't have to build this under threat of war. Right?

There are three major lines in the Transsib, all constructed simultaneously:

1) The Far Eastern Zone of Construction:
Inaugurated by the Tsar four years ago and barely moving as of today, this is one of the hardest projects. The Circum-Baikal Railway around Irkutsk and Lake Baikal, the spur line to Chita and along the Amur, and a mooted alternative route through Manchuria via the treaty concessions of the China Eastern Railway. Labor is short, skilled labor as precious as gold dust, and materials are expensive in the extreme. The only things in ample supply are fur and wood as of now. As far as you're concerned, this is a slog and a slow project that you can only really speed up once the main line from Moscow hits Baikal or at least Western Siberia – the rest of the shipping from then on can be done by river.

2) The Mid-Siberian Zone of Construction: The Mid-Siberian Zone is the keystone of the project, running along the route from Omsk through Barnaul near Kazakhstan to the Tayshet, the southern route through the steppe so recently taken from its heathen khans. This is the place which may be one of the easier sections terrain wise – after all, it's relatively flat, it's already home to a decent sized population and it doesn't have the snow and marshes of northern Siberia. The alternative would have been laying track through Novosibirsk or Krasnoyarsk – you've never been to either and don't want to. At present, there's material stockpiled at Omsk and river barges to take more there, and tracklaying goes on slowly - a shortage of labor and good steel is one issue, and apparently the bridge construction is another.

3) The Western Railway: The Western Railway runs from the end of the Nikolayev Line at Moscow to the start of the Mid-Siberian Line at Omsk, passing through such great cities as Chelyabinsk, Ufa and Samara. Great cities, best left over there and unseen as far as you're concerned. This is difficult terrain thanks to forests, noble estates and land tenure, a great deal of legal wrangling and bureaucratic opposition, planning permissions in the cities and from what you're told, a shortage of skilled labor. Again. Everywhere. Honestly, it's enough to make one want to yell at the Foreign Ministry and import a few British, they can't all be terrible. Anyways, it's still in better shape than the other lines even if its completion date is somewhere around twenty or twenty-five years off – it needs acceleration. Skilled labor, bridges, machinery and tooling, and a lot of bureaucratic firepower.

You have ten more years. Each turn is one year.

Project Lead: Alexander Louis Fürst Barclay de Tolly-Weymarn: You were a noble and a noble's son, grandson of a duke and a count, reared on tales of martial glory amid the grim palaces of the Baltic nobility that line the coast of Courland. Your grandfather was General Alexander Barclay de Tolly-Weymarn, leader of soldiers and yet not a soldier himself, for with the title of Prince Barclay de Tolly came rank and position that he, in your mind, was perhaps not fit for. Your father was his son and putative heir, Michael Andreas, all too painfully conscious of the whispers in court and the knife-fighting of politics so near to the terrible, absolute power of the Romanov throne. You...you sought something else. Your ancestors were soldiers, field marshals and leaders on the battlefield. You have seen what war does to men. You do not wish it, for all that you will take up the uniform of a reservist if called. What caught your eye were the great iron rails that spanned Western Europe, the modernity they symbolized, the vast spaces of the New World made small by human genius and gold. That, you decided as you entered the Imperial Technical School in Moscow, would be your mark on history. Now you have your chance. Will you seize it, or will your ambition outfly your reach the same way your grandfather's did?


Regional Coordinators

Western Railway Zone: Nicholas Mezheninov: Scion of an old noble family in the Ryazan governorate, Mezheninov is not the accomplished engineer that Count Mikhailovsky is, merely having a degree from the Imperial Institute of Transportation Engineers and the rank of lieutenant-engineer. However, he has other things that weigh in his favor to counterbalance the greater experience of the Count. For one, he is politically savvy enough to play the game and to leave the major decisions to you – that automatically makes him good for Western Russia. Second, he has a talent, or so you have been vouchsafed by the best of people, for organization and persuasion. If one is working with katorga labor and what few free laborers are there for hire on the railroad line in East Siberia, such talents are very much needed.

Eastern Railway Zone: Count Mikhail Nikolayevich Muravyov: The old Count is in search of an Eastern sinecure to keep him in claret and Georgian champagne while he schemes and plots to lop most of Manchuria off from China. One of the grand old men of the eastern imperialist side of court, Muravyov is a staunch backer of the Trans-Siberian, but at the same time one who views it as the Tsar's eastern blade rather than a means of opening up Siberia. He wants the route to go through the concessions granted for the China Eastern Railway and is willing to head the project in the East to ensure that – while acting as a special envoy to Korea and China in the bargain. The Count is no engineer, but he knows a good many and is willing to lobby for us in St. Petersburg – would a diplomat and administrator be better than an engineer for this? And would one of the great ministerial nobility take up the task? You're quite sure the Count would do very well, but some of the staff are less sanguine. There's really only one way to find out, and it would solve the political support problem for a few years at the least.

Mid-Siberian Zone: Konstantin Yakovlevich Mikhailovsky: A decorated veteran of the Crimean War and a noble – albeit of Ukrainian extraction – Count Mikhailovsky comes highly recommended from the Imperial Technical Society and few other places. The one great thing in his favor as far as his dossier is concerned is his experience – the man is an accomplished, experienced civil engineer and the designer of the famous Alexander Bridge on the Volga, as well as having some experience of mass logistics thanks to the war. The issue? He hasn't worked in the Far East before, although his experience in the steppe areas near the Volga and the Crimea may stand him in good stead for the Mid-Siberian Zone. The second issue that you as a consummate politician can see is his tendency to 'tell it like it is' and leak to the wrong parties – the man can be a liability in that respect. It may be best to keep him far from Moscow.


Progress Tracker
Note that this is progress as tracked by reports that come to the offices of the Council for Siberian Development and the Trans-Siberian Railway Board in St. Petersburg. Note that reports are often outdated and incomplete, for all that there is a telegraph in places.

Western Railway Zone: Track to be laid from Moscow to Chelyabinsk, this is a stretch that already has disjointed railway lines and requires merging, rationalization and construction of modern support infrastructure for the rail lines. The reports are adamant that the rail links to Tyumen and from Samara to its immediate surroundings are good, and also state that much of the intensively farmed, noble-owned farmland near Moscow is highly unsuitable for track. Several more proposals from the Orthodox Church include surveys that claim to have an easier path that curves south into the Tatar steppe and towards the Volga, and a side benefit for the throne is this route permitting settlement of said steppe and its Russification. The Imperial Technical Society has disputed these surveys, but they acknowledge that swinging south would allow us to develop the iron, coal and pitch of the Volga River basin, aiding the railroads of the Empire in the long term.

Mid-Siberian Zone: Track laying has begun from Chelyabinsk and is planned to continue through Omsk to the River Ob. Track laying progress is slow and it would be at a minimum another twenty years by official estimates to finish the line, not counting bridging time, but now that more resources are available and the leadership has been reshuffled perhaps things may change. Funding is scarce for this section, and there are numerous issues. At the moment the most pressing is that of labor – there are serious plans to use penal labor in the absence of a proper corvee or paid workers.

Eastern Zone: Progress in the Far East has been limited to setting up base camps and material stockpiles for laying track around Vladivostok and along the Amur River, as the imperial throne planned a decade ago. The situation, however, has changed. The negotiation of the China Eastern Railway concession – extraterritoriality for a strip of rail line and its facilities through Manchuria to Vladivostok – has forced the state's hand. The appointment of Prince Muravyov to the command of the Eastern Division has made the China Eastern Railway yet more likely to be chosen over the Amur Railway – why bother going along the Amur past Khabarovsk when one can take a straight path through Harbin and Mukden on the way to the Pacific? And after that…Manchuria awaits the double eagle. A choice has to be made now, before more track is laid and while preliminary construction goes on near the Pacific Coast.


A Rough Map
Please note that this is not a complete route map, and your surveys are not as accurate as this map.
AN: The last bit of thread infrastructure. is now done
 
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Year Zero: 1895
Year Zero: 1895

St. Petersburg,
1895


Ah, St. Petersburg. The city on the Baltic most suited for civilized life. More refined than Germany, more elegant than Copenhagen or Stockholm, and certainly wealthier than anything else in the Empire on this cold ocean. And in January, you're cold as balls here in the capital – science has done wonderful things but for some godforsaken reason it can't make the heating work properly in these lovely old buildings. Ornate carved curlicues on the fireplace that won't heat your damn room properly. What a place indeed.

Yet there are other things that grab your attention now. Yesterday was the day you were first briefed on this undertaking, Sergei Witte himself looking you in the eye and telling you Do Not Fail. The Railway to link Russia together, to make the empire a truly Asian power as well as a European one. And you, Alexander, are the one to do it. Should you fail, the consequences...well, probably no more than political irrelevance, honestly. Unless you embezzle. And a Barclay de Tolly is no embezzler, you're too wealthy for that sort of piffle. So what's left? Ego. The Railway is to be your mark on history and the empire, your great thing to leave behind, the one thing that will get you out from under your family's shadow and turn you into more than just a Barclay de Tolly.
If you succeed, of course.

And that is the issue here. Personnel management, and in particular who to promote from the morass that the previous administration under the Minister of Transport had left behind. Lots of names, most of whom ran base camps for the railway's construction and have done some engineering before – some names who have not, and have other things to recommend them. The Railway has three major zones of construction, as far as you recall – Western (Civilized) Russia, Mid-Siberia and the Far East where you would rather not go. And that means three big directors to handle the bulk of the administration, a rationalization made necessary by the fact that Sergei Witte wants results fast and is willing to prioritize areas based on performance. If a Director knows which districts to prioritize, he can send rail there first.

So, then, who to hire? A dozen black and white photographs stare out at you, and a single miniature portrait from the oldest of the candidates. All of them have come highly recommended, and this is a decision you'll make only once. Who will it be, Alexander?
You swallow for a moment, sweat beading the back of your neck. This will take some time.

Choose Coordinators for East, Mid-Sib and West from the below. Please specify who is slotted where in your plan, and vote by plan.

Available Staff:
  • Konstantin Yakovlevich Mikhailovsky: A decorated veteran of the Crimean War and a noble – albeit of Ukrainian extraction – Count Mikhailovsky comes highly recommended from the Imperial Technical Society and few other places. The one great thing in his favor as far as his dossier is concerned is his experience – the man is an accomplished, experienced civil engineer and the designer of the famous Alexander Bridge on the Volga, as well as having some experience of mass logistics thanks to the war. The issue? He hasn't worked in the Far East before, although his experience in the steppe areas near the Volga and the Crimea may stand him in good stead for the Mid-Siberian Zone. The second issue that you as a consummate politician can see is his tendency to 'tell it like it is' and leak to the wrong parties – the man can be a liability in that respect. It may be best to keep him far from Moscow.
  • Nicholas Mezheninov: Scion of an old noble family in the Ryazan governorate, Mezheninov is not the accomplished engineer that Count Mikhailovsky is, merely having a degree from the Imperial Institute of Transportation Engineers and the rank of lieutenant-engineer. However, he has other things that weigh in his favor to counterbalance the greater experience of the Count. For one, he is politically savvy enough to play the game and to leave the major decisions to you – that automatically makes him good for Western Russia. Second, he has a talent, or so you have been vouchsafed by the best of people, for organization and persuasion. If one is working with katorga labor and what few free laborers are there for hire on the railroad line in East Siberia, such talents are very much needed.
  • Orest Vyazemsky: An engineer from Moscow who has already spent time in the Far East and was responsible for setting up and running the base camps from which track is currently being laid in the Maritime Provinces around Vladivostok, Vyazemsky is the logical choice. A decent engineer and someone with very good organizational skills, but also someone about whom there are rumors of corruption. Orest Vyazemsky also does not have any real political protection beyond what you can hand to him, and is working in an area where the arch-imperialists of Russia wish to dictate the route for optimally browbeating the Chinese, Koreans and Japanese. Vyazemsky might be able to handle the engineering, but you're not sure at all about the politics. Add to that his tendency to rely on potentially corrupt subcontractors on the frontier – again, you're not at all sure.
  • Alexander Pushechnikov: Chief Engineer Pushechnikov has contacts at the highest levels who have already recommended him for the project, and if he isn't made a chief of division he'll be slotted somewhere in Siberia as a subordinate chief – such is the power of having letters of introduction from Prince Mikhail Khilkov, Minister of Transport. The problem is that this makes Pushechnikov listen to voices outside his chain of command and gives another ministry an in with the Railway – all for an engineer who while competent is no Konstantin Mikhailovsky. It might be good to hire him, though, for such backchannels can work both ways. And we're reliant on water transport in the East, which is Khilkov's department.
  • Count Mikhail Nikolayevich Muravyov: The old Count is in search of an Eastern sinecure to keep him in claret and Georgian champagne while he schemes and plots to lop most of Manchuria off from China. One of the grand old men of the eastern imperialist side of court, Muravyov is a staunch backer of the Trans-Siberian, but at the same time one who views it as the Tsar's eastern blade rather than a means of opening up Siberia. He wants the route to go through the concessions granted for the China Eastern Railway and is willing to head the project in the East to ensure that – while acting as a special envoy to Korea and China in the bargain. The Count is no engineer, but he knows a good many and is willing to lobby for us in St. Petersburg – would a diplomat and administrator be better than an engineer for this? And would one of the great ministerial nobility take up the task? You're quite sure the Count would do very well, but some of the staff are less sanguine. There's really only one way to find out, and it would solve the political support problem for a few years at the least.
  • Yugovich and Kerbedz: Alexander Yugovich and his assistant Stanislav Kerbedz are experienced engineers who have a long career in the railways of Russia, having cut their teeth on the horrifically murderous Nikolayev Line from Moscow to St. Petersburg. They have laid track in bad terrain with the most unskilled workers of all – serfs – and are probably solid candidates for the Eastern or Middle sections of the Railway. Especially in dealing with the Chinese laborers and prisoners from the katorga. Not to mention Kerbedz has interesting ideas about how to cut corners and polish the work later on once track has been laid – something that's vital to keeping political influence.
Choose three as follows:
[]Plan plan
-[EAST]Person 1
-[MIDSIB]Person 2
-[WEST]Person 3
 
Year One: 1895-96
Year One: 1895-96

St. Petersburg,
1895


Letters on your desk show that you've been preempted. That's never a good feeling. You have a letter from the good Count Muravyov talking about the state of the Far Eastern Railway and telling you that he's had to take a few 'executive decisions' about 'accelerating progress'. The big one, though, that gets you to yell at the window for a good two minutes because this fucker preempted you, is that he has unilaterally made the decision to take the China Eastern Railway route through Manchuria rather than use the Amur Line. The St. Petersburg skyline from your window doesn't really take offense at the swearing in three languages, and your secretary is discreet.
And now, having vented, you can think about it more rationally than yelling at someone who has more clout than you do in court.

The Count has taken the chance you offered him, at least in his eyes, to further Russian imperial interests in Manchuria. The rail line has already been advertised in court as an outpost of the Empire on Chinese soil and an avenue to integrating Manchuria – that means Count Muravyov will be working to get the army on board while trying to build the China Eastern Railway. At least in future – right now he's still working to get the hinterland near Vladivostok built up.
It's enough to give you a headache. If this is what passes for section leadership discretion, why even have a Director? You're the one who had to make the decisions at that level.

But you hired the Count comes the treacherous whisper from your mind, and your eyes turn down to face yet more official paperwork waiting for your signature. You hired the Count, yes. But you hired him hoping for an in with the Foreign Ministry and with the expansionists. You didn't expect them to take their pound of flesh first, and leave you to beg them for favors later. You'll have to live with it. There's a lot more to deal with, even if this means you have the Foreign Ministry owing you a favor or two – there are enough Asian expansionists there, and the Great Game extends to China these days.

You have a 100 Funds. You will replenish to 100 every turn. You may choose up to five, and you must rank these in order of priority – those at the highest priority are those which will complete fastest. Bear in mind that 100 Funds per turn are in all likelihood not sufficient to finish on time. Note that all options are not dependent solely on you – some of them may be affected, partially solved or preempted by subordinates, superiors or other parties.

Your Political Capital is High:
You have the complete backing of the Minister of Finance for now – you have no major mistakes and are freshly appointed. To not support you would be beyond stupid. Your opposition is at present quiescent, with Count Muravyov having whispered good things to many of the expansionists and the Panslavists at present occupied with attempting to assert some semblance of ascendancy in the army. You also have the backing of the throne and several of the more notable members of the Baltic German nobility. You are, therefore, inclined to make a splash to start with even if it costs you in favors and goodwill. You need to reinforce your position and to produce enough to make things easier later on, and a strong initial push ought to do that. With the foundation stones for the Eastern Line laid in the early 1890s and progress marginal since then, there is pressure from St. Petersburg.

The estimated costs are Problematic: You are no accountant or leader of public works, and are working from estimates produced by state economists and Sergei Witte, who himself has not handled anything of this scale before. Perhaps there has been nothing of this scale before. Either way, you must be prepared for cost overruns and demands for further funding from your future budget. By how much you cannot say, but Minister Witte notes that a worst-case heavens-falling scenario would top out at a fifty percent surcharge for such corruption and tomfoolery. Not even God Himself descending to earth could convince an enterprising Russian to attempt to cheat the throne by more than that, they're too damn scared of the taxman and the army. Hopefully.

Progress Reporting is Accurate: There is too little done to cheat the bureaucracy, and you made sure to get a great deal of information before starting to work on this. That, and the army has been attempting its own inspections during the prior China tensions – you have a good grasp of things for now. As construction progresses, expect that to reduce a great deal.

[][France]Financing the Railway: Future components of the Railway are liable to be more expensive than the present set of initial tracks, having to deal with multiple major rivers and mountain ranges just to start with. And that's before you wind up at the swamps and frost of Siberia, the marshes around Tomsk, the vast muddy half-mountain stretches of Siberia near Baikal, and the general lack of anything east of the Urals. Shit, you're pretty sure that it'd be hard to find a semi literate priest east of the Urals, if one doesn't count the insane political exiles (that madman Kropotkin, for instance) or the saner criminals on katorga. That is why, then, you need to act as an arm of the State and sip at the French loan trough courtesy of Baron Henri Hottinguer, who thinks that the eastern railway is a wonderful chance to profit. This will engage you in a speaking tour of Paris and a meeting with the Baron, who may release funds to increase the replenishment amount every turn. Your estimate, based on conversations with the army staff about the Polish railways and the French state loans directed westwards, would be an additional 20 Funds each turn for the duration of the project.

[]Materials Procurement: The Russian state has plenty of iron, grain, wood, coal and all sorts of minerals. And labor. The problem is procuring that and shipping it off to the pimples on the world's behind, which is where construction is ongoing. Iron from western Russia where it's cheap, labor from Ukraine and the penal colonies in Siberia, wood from fucking everywhere (how hard is it to chop wood anyways?) and coal from Rostov on the Don. All that has to be moved, in the case of the iron and so on processed and also paid for. Which, of course, will have the state in a fit. Because while you have cashflow to pay for existing tracklaying, you'd prefer to have more material and therefore complete the railway sometime before 1950. Will increase speed of track laying in all regions and unlock further options.

-[]Contracting: There is a burgeoning business class in Russia, driven by supping at the trough of state contracts and good friends. This is something that is ostensibly less moribund than the Russian bureaucracy and also far less slow to respond, but also something that would cost a great deal of money. Setting up state companies would, however, make a lot of people very happy (barring the Orthodox Church, the insane dissidents, the rabid traditionalists like Pobedonostsev and some elements in the army). You've also heard that they're excellent for the long-term health of the nation. Estimated cost for contracting out materials supply to state companies and contractors: 40 Funds. This has no major political capital cost that you are aware of.

-[]The Army: The army and the internal security apparatus run and supply penal labor camps in Siberia and the army moreover runs supplies to garrisons in far off Central Asia. The great city of Orenburg is the staging ground for the Great Game and an invaluable position...if we are allowed to use it. The same goes for the steel and foundry equipment in the Tula Arsenal, the Putilov Works and other areas operating to fulfill army contracts for now. We'd have to prod them a very great deal, but getting the army involved in this would give us bureaucratic weight later on – as long as we succeed. This would have to be a high priority to get it through reasonably well. And if not – there's always contracting. Estimated cost: 20 Funds. Political capital cost: High – we will owe favors to a great many generals and nobles. But isn't that what court and mega-projects are all about?

[]Colonization: Anatoly Kulomzin is the head of the Colonization Section of the Committee of Siberian Development, and wants to 'surge' a few tens of thousands of migrants into Siberia through the rail lines to establish new cities in Siberia or build up older ones to something approximating civilisation. That takes preparation, involving everything from setting up hostels en route to ensuring that the literature we hand out is more accurate than the American leaflets talking about a Promised Land on the Pacific Coast of all places. Can't be hard to be more honest than the Americans, but the preparation for this colonization surge will take time, patience and money – although the Tsar will approve of it. There is a chance to gain some political capital or at the least imperial favor here once we start sending migrants. Estimated cost: 20 Funds for setup and funding of infrastructure, infrastructure will progress independently of you from here on out. Further options once railway construction is more advanced.

[]Imported Machinery: Importing railway machinery is something that Russia has to do. In this case that means everything from rail-forging equipment to tracklaying gear to the little pilot engines that run near the end of the line to convey equipment and men to the front. Boilers, steam valves, pumps and electric switchgears for the water- and coaling stations on the line. Telegraph equipment in limited amounts because the fucking army is still clogging up domestic production and the telegraph to Central Asia keeps breaking down and needing replacement parts. Bridge components, imported separately and per specification from Russian engineers. Everything seems to come in through the ports, costing a throne's ransom. Enough, as your father once put it to you when he came for a visit, to pay for another Central Asian campaign. This is needed to speed up tracklaying and continue to lay track past natural obstacles within the next two years. Line progress will remain heavily slowed without this equipment.

-[]From Britain: The British and the businessmen who have worked with them prefer this option. A lot of the Russian industrial base has been built by British engineers. Scotsmen, specifically. They seem to be better with steam than the English, much like how Baltic Germans are better at warfare than the Ukrainians. You're not biased at all, of course not. The British are cheaper, having just come off a massive series of orders for heavy engines and gear for the Canadian Pacific and looking for markets to sell – they don't want to stop lines and retool. They're also closer and some factions of the Foreign Ministry want us to order British so that we have a bargaining chip to lobby their government with. The issues, though, are manifold. British engines are good, but not as efficient for long-distance work as American. British engineers are hard to recruit, having attractive postings in their own Empire. And a lot of the Foreign Ministry and Army are against us buying British. Estimated cost 20 Funds. Easier to expand purchase orders. Potential political capital cost, potential for making political rivals. Low chance to gain political capital. Rapid order fulfillment.

-[]From America: America is always willing to sell, especially as it goes through some sort of economic recession. Russian gold spends as well as anyone's, although they won't be as willing as the British to ship immediately. They have their own orders to fill and they don't have as large a railway export sector, or so you're given to understand. The demands of the Trans-Siberian are not something they will be able to fulfill without buildup. That, and they are also very very far from Russia. They can ship to Vladivostok, but again, that takes time. And harbor pilots. And sobriety for the cargo handlers in Vladivostok. These orders aren't that likely to be fulfilled on time, at least initially, and are probably going to hit us with cost overruns. Even you can see that. On the other hand, they aren't anywhere nearly as bad as the British are in the Foreign Ministry's eyes. Or the army's. That is worth some gold. Estimated cost 40 funds. Bottlenecks will delay expansion of purchase orders. Fulfillment takes time. No political cost.

-[]From France: France is an ally of Russia and is always willing to aid in Russia's industrialization, especially when as in this case it aids in diverting Britain. Colonial rivalries are bitter in Asia, and the French are nervous about the Anglo-Japanese Alliance. What you're nervous about is the French railway industry. You've been told a great many convincing, glowing things about it at the French Embassy and the army is happy with the advice they had for the western railway network, but the French rail sector is smaller than Britain or America and you don't have near as much leverage since the French Government holds so much Russian debt. Not to mention that the French have never done long-distance cold weather work like this, who knows how their engines will hold up? You'll get some goodwill in the pro-French circles in court with this, though, and the French government may extend credit for the order so you won't be as much in hock to the imperial fisc. Estimated cost: 15 Funds, this estimate is accurate and provided by the French Embassy. Severe bottlenecking may occur. Fulfillment will take time. Uncertainty about quality and suitability for the Russian environment. High chance of political goodwill.

[][Urgent]Releasing Resources: There is a choice to be made in the West before track is laid any further, and that involves which route to take from Moscow/Tula to Chelyabinsk. One can sweep south through Samara and lay a spur line along the Volga to make the shipment of coal and iron from the Donbass Basin even easier, or one can go north and take the line through Nizhny Novgorod, Kazan and Ekaterinburg, which would mean that those already-extant industrial centers see more traffic. The first would please the Orthodox Church and be somewhat easier to lay track for, and the second would please the industrialists and potentially make supply and logistics easier in the long run. Both of these directions require that we give the Western Railway a boost in resourcing, though, and release more machinery and funding to keep them going. They're working on volunteer labor and Chief Engineer Mezheninov is dealing with the tangle of land disputes and noble titles that surround a great deal of Western Russian cities. Money will be needed not just for track but for bribes and bureaucracy. And occasionally, lawyers.

-[]North: Take the iron road north, through the onion domes of Nizhny Novgorod and to Kazan, the Tatar City on the steppe where Ivan the Terrible once trod, where the mosques call the muezzin openly and proudly while the Orthodox Church fumes on the sidelines. Ekaterinburg, once the gateway to the east and now a prosperous, confident city, beckons. And you'll have plaudits from the more modern faction in court. Always more pleasant than dealing with the Orthodox Church. You're a Protestant, you don't really hew to that heresy. Estimated Cost: 30 Funds. This is likely to extend construction time somewhat. Potential for goodwill with the army and the industrialists. This will cost goodwill with the Church and some of the church-aligned traditionalists.

-[]South: Take the iron road along the Volga and past Samara, on the warm steppe where the Mongols came all those centuries ago. Dusty and dry in places, speckled with towns and cities and church steeples by the centuries of paranoid settlement fostered by the Romanov throne, and a bastion of the Orthodox Church. A place that they want the rails to go, to make the Christianization and Russification of the areas adjacent to the Volga somewhat easier. They promise much – the black coal of the Donbass and workers from Ukraine, taking ship up the Volga and rail from its headwaters to your railroad. Whether they deliver is the question – they certainly can. The Church has wealth. A very great deal of it. Estimated cost: 10 Funds. This will gain goodwill with the Orthodox Church and lose it with industrialists and potentially the army.

[]Labor Procurement: There are plenty of sources of labor to tap in Russia. The problem is twofold: Sobering them up, and also making sure they get to where they're supposed to be. And then, of course, comes the problem of feeding them. And watering them. And making sure they don't die on the job. The Nikolayev Line from Moscow to St Petersburg was infamous for its casualty rate, one that you can't afford. You're not working with serfs anymore. You're working with volunteers. Yet from what you can see in the reports on your table…you might not have to work with volunteers. This is needed to continue progress on the railway by the end of next turn. This is needed immediately to speed the construction of the railway.

-[]Katorga: The prison camps have labor, a great deal of it. And you need that labor, since it's already where you need it – Mid-Siberia and the Far East. There are already logistical arrangements in place to feed them and water them, and guards in place to make sure they don't run. All you need to do is incentivize them and avoid the sort of slapdash work-to-rule that ruled in the serf-built railroads of yore. Which means a mix of better food, better living conditions, relaxation of discipline and a reduction in sentencing based on time worked. The current proposal is two years off sentence for every year worked, and that may be raised to three for particularly dangerous areas of the line. Like Baikal, which might be bad enough to need a separate directorate if the surveys are correct. Costs moderate political capital with the Okhrana, convict labor is used in the Mid-Siberian and Far Eastern zone. Estimated cost: 25 Funds. This estimate is accurate as the Okhrana is responsible for cost overruns.

-[]Volunteer Labor: Recruitment of volunteer labor is difficult and unlikely to succeed until the rail lines east are built up enough to make work on them less arduous and make logistical support easier. Right now, Siberia is far, far away and getting a peasant to move there is hard. Convincing volunteers to work in Siberia means allowing concessions. For instance, draft exemption. Or getting the Church to endorse you and advertise. Or getting a great deal of money. Preferably, though, all three and more will be needed. Land grants after completion, for a certainty. And temporary work contracts. No peasant wants to spend a decade on the Transsib. Costs minor political capital, costs 40 Funds, uses volunteer labor in all zones. Will greatly benefit Western Railway, minor benefit on others until completion of the Western section.

AN: You may want to closely read the options. This quest is, after all, based on incomplete and biased information.
Please note that plans are to be formatted as follows:
[]Plan Name
-[1]Priority One
-[2]Priority Two
-[3]Priority Three
-[4]Priority Four
-[5]Priority Five
 
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