Rail Speed

[CSennet]

Hi all,

Starting again with this game after some time away. I have a question on rail speeds.

1861 scenario playing as CSA. Turn 2 (Late April 61). Some leaders have just poppd up and I decieded to send one down from Richmond to Charleston for the assualt on Ft Sumter. ACW tells me he is going to take 18 days to get there.

18 Days to go 370 miles

Works out at 21 miles per day on the train

At 12 hours per day on trains (allows for changes, delays etc) works out at 1.75 MPH

Does this sound right ?

The rail routes all show up on the map so he is not using alternative travel elswhere.

Just seems really slow even for the 1860's

I stand to be corrected however as I have worked this out while sipping a nice merlot.

Chris

[Le Ricain]

Which version are you playing?

[Gray_Lensman]

deleted

[Chris0827]

In late 1861 General Lee traveled from Richmond to Charleston and it took less than 48 hours.

[Coffee Sergeant]

Yes, rail speed is unrealistically slow. This may be somewhat justified for large formations, as you have delays, etc. where the whole unit can't jump ship like a individual or small group could. The teleport feature was the compromise to offset the slowness of the rail system.

[CSennet]

v1.09 - I have been away for a while. I'll have to look into this teleport feature but must say for such an accurate game I am somewhat surprised rail travel was not given more love.

Chris

[Bertram]

Rail speed is the average for the average formation size ove the averge distance. That means it is slow for individuals or small units, especially over long distances, but zipping fast for large units especially over short distances.

A general traveling from east to west will take two to three months to get there... that is very slow.
But you can transport a division or even a complete corps 1 region in a day, without any warning and without prepariation time. Moving up to 100k men, without preparation, over 20 miles, in one day - zipping fast...

It usually works out though, because you usually transort regiments or brigades over 4 to 10 regions.

[Jabberwock]

The PC (Pocusly Correct) term for teleport is redeploy.

[CSennet]

Okay I understand the redeploy thing but if it is to overcome the limitations of the rail system why limit it to 3 units ?

Sorry if this has been hashed over before but it is bugging me.

[Jabberwock]

Up until the Civil War, many towns and cities with rail connections refused to give railroads a right-of-way through the city. This was especially prevalent in the South. The theory was that if passengers had to de-train and cross town to catch a connecting train, they might stay for a while and spend some money.

It was easier to overcome this for VIPs with a serious reason to get somewhere fast. If it was arranged in advance, the railroads would adjust schedules slightly, and cross-town transportation would be waiting at the transfers. It still took some doing.

Troops, on the other hand, generally had to de-train, form up, march across town, someone had to make sure equipment made the transfer, police up stragglers, wait while the previous brigade took the only available train on the the next line, etc. every fifty miles or so.

IIRC, Petersburg was one of the major chokepoints.

[lodilefty]

Additionally, the southern RR net suffered from a major issue: 3 different track gauges!

• Standard gauge [4'8", the width of 2 Roman Chhariot horses arses] was actually in the minority.
• The 5'0" was widely used, but not always interconnected. {The majr trunk line running through Tenessee from Virginia to the Mississippi was mostly 5'0"}
• There were small pockets of 5' {something}

This was done to 'stimulate business' by forcing the detrain-retrain foolishness at the terminals of different railroads.

Since the south never had Hermann Haupt, they never fixed this. Took the 'degenerate race of pasty-faced mechanics' to do it after the war.