Bob Redman
Re: Railroad Failures
Fri Oct 27 03:31:02 2000


George,

>Could it be the poor economy? Unlike today there were
>quite a few privately owned railroads in the overall
>rail system in Alabama. Most simply went broke.

The Southern economy permitted enormous investments in other directions. I play chess. Most good players don't go for the slash and burn stuff, but rather work to restrict the opponents mobility. At high level competetion, the slightest such error by someone at the beginning of the game is enough to decide the outcome. If a society gets involved in a war which is to be won, there are certain absolute priorities. The internal transportation system is one of them.