I was in Sheldon, IA this past weekend where I snapped some non-digital photos of the joint CMO/MILW depot there in town (still in remarkably good shape). It's an interesting "corner" design with half aligned on the MILW secondary main (now ICE) and half aligned on the CMO main (now UP). Sheldon is now the western terminus of the Iowa, Chicago & Eastern, and hats-off to that community for keeping the depot up.
At breakfast I got to talking with some locals, and we began to speculate on what would've happened with the US rail system had WWII never happened? Suppose one of the several plots to eliminate Hitler actually succeeded prior to 1941 (there were a number of high-ranking German officers who plotted his removal well before the failed attempt in '44). Suppose the Japanese emperor had a change of mind, or perhaps if the German-Italian alliance wouldn't have been in-place, leaving Japan alone to face the US, Britain and the Commonwealth and France combined - perhaps Japan would've backed-down?
How would peace in the 30's and 40's have affected American railroads?
Here's what Carl, Bill, Mary and I came-up with:
1.) The interstate highway system, envisioned originally to facilitate a more rapid overland transportation system in-case of a foreign invasion, may have been delayed in its creation.
2.) Joseph Stalin, and his brutal policies within the USSR, may have been assassinated or driven from power, as his purges made many, many enemies for him inside and outside the party (he was terrified of an internal coup - that was the cause for the purges). This certainly would've delayed the development of the arms race, and that may have allowed more governmental funding for infrastructure improvement/development.
3.) Without the severe wear & tear on the physical plants of the railroads, the railroads would not have emerged from the late 40's in terrible condition (like the PRR, NYC and MSTL to name only a few that I can think of). Perhaps this would've allowed the railroads to better compete with trucks by allowing more investment in equipment upgrades, ROW upkeep and improvements in traffic control/scheduling/routing? Maybe this would've delayed "merger madness"?
4.) Without the war industries, there may not have been as much business for the railroads to serve in that period. There was a huge drain on manpower as the result of hostilities, and had war not occurred, the rail industry wouldn't have lost so much of its workforce. The war effort, and the "war scare" prior to the US entry in 1941, did help pull the US out of the depression by the drive to prepare for war (armaments production and strategic infrastructure developments).
Does anyone have ideas?
....One thought that crossed my mind would be the question you touched on...The Great Depression. I suppose we'll never know and really can't very well project how long it might have taken us to really pull up and out of that terrible time.
WWII changed so much of what every one did that comparrison is almost impossible to say what would have happened if WWII would not have been a reality.
So much change was brought on by really bringing to market products we had to have for the war effort and perhaps would not have been developed nearly as quick.
Wonder if the Televison industry might have been pulled ahead somewhat as it was just beginning to happen before advancement of the war effort was put into effect. Many areas {maybe most} never saw TV develop until well after WWII ended.
As for railroads......They might have been let deteriorate even further since the country was in a terrible down economy and I wonder how they might have afforded to put them back together again for first class running......
Just a few thoughts.
Quentin
We'd all be speaking German -
American Railroads would have been seized by the state as we drifted ever faster towards an all-out socialist government -
Japan, Inc. would have moved into the western US -
All in all, we aren't too far away from those prospects. We may have to speak Spainish instead of German, but that's semantics at that point, really.
solzrules wrote:All in all, we aren't too far away from those prospects. We may have to speak Spainish instead of German, but that's semantics at that point, really.
I respect a man with realistic vision. I was also in Storm Lake, IA on my trip. The old IC depot is covered with gang graffiti, much in spanish. A clothier just down the street from the depot was displaying "Cerrano 13" gang shirts proudly just inside the entrance. Two Mexican flags were seen hanging from front porches. I left and won't return to that town, which is depressing since I'd heard good things from when it was known as a popular resort. As long as you stay upwind from the Tyson chicken plant, maybe it still has some charm, but the waitress I spoke with said they were losing tourist and vacation business every year.
Not sure how we'd all be speaking German, however, if 'Dolf wasn't around to conquer us?
....I was under the assumption {in question posed}, we did not have the axis leaders in place and WWII did not become reality.
What if the Germans and Japanese had won World War II? And the Germans controlled the Eastern, Southern, Midwest and Gt Plains? And the Japanese controlled California, the Pacific Northwest and part of the Intermountain States.
A genius of a writer named Philip K. Dick took that premise and rode with it in his insightful 1962 novel, THE MAN IN THE HIGH TOWER. I would recommend it to anyone; good, suspenseful reading. But especially to you in this case since you want to read up on alternative pasts.
Good luck!
BTW if the name Philip K. Dick sounds familiar it might be because he wrote the stories that inspired the films BLADE RUNNER and TOTAL RECALL.
al-in-chgo wrote: What if the Germans and Japanese had won World War II? And the Germans controlled the Eastern, Southern, Midwest and Gt Plains? And the Japanese controlled California, the Pacific Northwest and part of the Intermountain States.
If the Germans and Japanese had won World War II, I'd guess Hawaii would be part of Japan, and the Chinese probably would have evicted the Japanese in the 1960s. Germany would have controlled the Ukraine well into the 1950s or 1960s as well. Neither power would have tried to invade the "Lower 48" across wide oceans. The lands they coveted were on their doorsteps.
WIAR wrote:At breakfast I got to talking with some locals, and we began to speculate on what would've happened with the US rail system had WWII never happened? Suppose one of the several plots to eliminate Hitler actually succeeded prior to 1941 (there were a number of high-ranking German officers who plotted his removal well before the failed attempt in '44). Suppose the Japanese emperor had a change of mind, or perhaps if the German-Italian alliance wouldn't have been in-place, leaving Japan alone to face the US, Britain and the Commonwealth and France combined - perhaps Japan would've backed-down? How would peace in the 30's and 40's have affected American railroads?
First off, the best chance for WWII to not have happened is if the Brits & French showed some spine and backed the Czechs in early 1938 - the German military (especially the likes of Canaris) were sending signals that they were prepared to depose Hitler if the Allies were aiming to fight. With European powers not being distracted by the war with Germany, Japan would have likely been a lot more careful and may have kept fighting a war of attrition with China. Instead we got "Peace in our time" and maybe 50 million (or more) preventable fatalities.
As for what would have happened in the US, we would have probably taken several more years to get out of the great depression - recall that US economic output in 1938 was still behind where it was in 1929. One eason being is that the preparation for war was bringing in a huge demand for machine tools as older machines were not adaptable to the recently developed high speed tooling.
Dieselization may have progressed a bit faster, since the builders would have been free to build engines for locomotives instead of the Navy. It's likely that we would have seen more high speed passenger trains in service - who knows, the Pennsy might have been able to get the T1 done right. With lass road and air competition (no interstate highway system and jets would have come maybe a decade later - the Boeing 707 was a direct descendent of the B-47), passenger trains would have likely have remained the dominant form of intercity travel for at least a decade longer.
Most of the interurbans and streetcar lines remaining in 1940 would have been abandoned by perhaps 1945.
The Pullman private car rental fleet may have lasted into the 1950's.
.....I wonder how it would have effected the American Steel Industry....
I suppose much {in industry}, that did happen just would have been in "slow motion" with development. Recovery being very slow out of the Great Depression would have slowed advancement.
I think it would have taken quite a bit more time to actually put the G D to history.
That is a big question, because so much has to be taken into account. "What if" history can be kind of fun, but conjecture can only go so far.
The plots to assasinate Hitler were never really put into action, because the German General Staff was as afraid of itself as it was of Hitler. They were stuck in a very difficult position, and it was pretty much one of their own making. The German General staff was very much stuck in Prussian tradition, and one of those traditions was total subservience to the Head of State. The German generals considered themselves "apolitical" in fact, politics within the general staff was forbidden. Anyway, the long and short of it is, it's hard to say with any certanty what woiuld have happened, had Hitler not come to power, or had been taken out. There were so many dynamics involved in the world at that point. One must remember the position Europe was in as a whole during the Great Depression. Germany was utterly prostrate after WWI, and that is what had led to Hitler's rise in the first place.
However, peace throughout the 30's probably would have led to a longer recovery from the Depression in the first place. Instead of coming out of it during the ramp up to WWII - the defense industries were already beginning to turn out some weapons for the Europeans in 1939, and Roosevelt directed the building of a "Two Ocean Navy" about that time too. It's tough to say what would have happened, and when the economy would have recovered. Would it have been 1941, or later? Perhaps 1942, 1943? Even later? Then, without the war, the "post war boom" would have never happened, and that would resulted in a longer rebuilding of our economy, probably even into the 1960's. As far as the railroads go, I don't know enough about them to speak to what would have/could have happened.
I do know about the military/political situation in the world at the time, and for Germany to have overcome it's internal troubles without Hitler, or any of the other would be dictators taking over, would have taken a miracle. What you have to do, is untangle WWII from WWI, and that's not easy, because one conflict ultimately set the stage for the other. If Germany had come out of WWI with a negotiated peace, and the Kaiser still in power, and had not been confronted with the Allies who wanted revenge on Germany for starting war, who knows what would have happened. Had Kaiser Wilhelm II remained on his throne at the end of the war, and had gotten better peace terms from the Allies, we would have had a different situation altogether, because the unrest, and political upheaval that followed WWI would have probably not happened, or at the very least, would have been milder, and easier to contain. There is no clear demarc between the end of WWI and the beginning of WWII. Germany was hurt by WWI, and so was Europe. One of the reasons for for the severity of the Versailles Treaty's terms was that France and England were hoping to once and for all to destroy the Krupp empire, who they believed was partially responsible for the hostilities. The severity of the treaty caused the political unrest, and the destruction of the German industries (Krupp, I.G. Farben, Thyssen, etc) as well as the steep war reparations is what fueled the resentment among the population. It was that resentment the Green Shirts, National Socialists, Communists and other political groups were feeding off of.
So, my conclusion is, that for WWII to not have happened would have required a more favorable outcome at the end WWI for Germany. The favorable outcome would probably have been a negotiated peace with the Allies, retention of the Alsace and Lorraine territories, and a much less severe Treaty of Versailles. It was the political unrest that followed the defeat that allowed Hitler to come to power.
For what it's worth, that's my .02.
On the one hand, some technological advances like television and diesel locomotives may have become commonplace quicker than they did, but as has been noted, the problem is how long it might have taken for the Great Depression to end?? In 1941 unemployment was better than the 25% rate of 1933, but it was still hovering around 10% range.
I think the interstate's might have still happened however. Eisenhower was involved in a cross-country movement of military equipment in the 20's as a young officer which convinced him of the need for better roads across the US. Of course without WW2 Ike would have remained an obscure officer and wouldn't have become president, but I'm sure he's not the only one that supported the idea of improved interstate roads. If the big auto makers got behind the idea it might still have been pushed through on the basis of creating so many jobs to help battle the high unemployment rate.
Of course if WW2 hadn't started in 1939, FDR may well have retired and left office in March 1941, so depending on who succeeded him, US policies on many issues could have been very different.
No WWII -all of the following would have been delayed for who knows how long:
1. Atomic energy, atomic research, nuclear weapons
2. Radar - while invented in the late 30's the explosion in its use - microwaves and all the other things associated with them - would have been put off for a long time.
3. Drastically reduced productivity because there would have been no G.I. Bill to provide the educated workforce to fuel an economic boom. A lack of such a work force would have had a large impact on the overall economic well being of the U.S.
4. Advances in medicine - too many to list.
5. Computers and everything releated to their use and development.
6. Solid state electronics.
The few books I've read on the subject of the impact of the war on the U.S. economy suggest, as has been mentioned, a much longer time to recover from the Great Depression and without the things listed above that recovery would most likely have been a shadow of what it was.
How would all of this impact the railroads - well, one of the results of the above - particularly #3 could have been a huge delay in the need for/interest in containers. This in turn, would have resulted in the pre container restrictions on international trade and that would have had a direct impact on the way the railroads are operating today.
It appears to me that some of you are Sci-Fi readers.I am and so is Al-In-Chgo [He addmited it when he named some of Phillip Dicks' work].Ialso like the "what if" stuff.
With out a lot of detail ,I think the depression would have been prolonged,the railroads would have deteriorated faster and consolidation or government takeover/control would have happened sooner.
Volumes have/will/can be written.
If you like this type of fiction try "Bring The Jubilee" by ?[can't find my copy].The SOUTH won the Civil/War of Northern Agression.
Reality TV is to reality, what Professional Wrestling is to Professional Brain Surgery.
.....The massive rebuilding after the war was everywhere. How long would it have taken to equal that with out having been in such a war....?
As I think back.....My thought is there was a society and culture before and then a different one after the war that kind of took us on out to a new era. And it's been evolving ever since.
al-in-chgo wrote: What if the Germans and Japanese had won World War II? And the Germans controlled the Eastern, Southern, Midwest and Gt Plains? And the Japanese controlled California, the Pacific Northwest and part of the Intermountain States....................
What if the Germans and Japanese had won World War II? And the Germans controlled the Eastern, Southern, Midwest and Gt Plains? And the Japanese controlled California, the Pacific Northwest and part of the Intermountain States....................
This is my "favorite" WWII alternative scenario. From the standpoint of the world situation on the eve of WWII, it is not possible that the Japanese could have won. It would have taken a total capitulation of the U.S for the Japanese to win. As far as invading the United States, that is strictly science fiction. For starters, the Japanese simply did not have the industrial base to sustain any kind of protracted, long range war effort. If the Japanese had managed a victory during the Battle of Midway, they simply would have been unable to extend their influence beyond that island. In fact, had they invaded Midway, and taken it, they would have had one tough time supplying such an isolated and remote outpost. As far as using it as a staging base for an invasion of Hawaii and California, that is also non-starter. By June of 1942, the time when Midway occurred, the Hawaiian Islands were garrisoned by no less that 100,000+ fighting men. In addition to that, there were several hundred Navy, Army, and Marine combat aircraft available as well as the ships of the Pacific Fleet. Midway, and Hawaii would have been at the end of a very, very long logistical string that would have been all too easy to inderdict and disrupt. Midway is at least 1,000 miles from Hawaii, and Hawaii is at least that distance from the West Coast. Any kind of invasion would have been doomed to failure.
If we had lost at Midway, it would not have doomed us to defeat. It would have just delayed the end of the war until 1946, or even as some suggest, 1947. If we had lost Midway, it's possible that we would have "closed down" the Pacific theater until 1943, or so, and launched a counteroffensive through out the Pacific. You have to remember that here in the U.S. we had a very large industrial infrastructure, and the capability to mass produce. If we had to wait until 1943 to take back the Pacific, the Japanese would have been met with overwhelming numbers of ships, planes, and soldiers. The Japanese would not have been able to match any U.S. buildup, by any means, because they did not have the resources. Even with all of the islands they had taken, and the resources the did acquire (iron ore, oil, rubber, etc) from their conquests, it still had to be brought to Japan via ship, and we still had submarine bases in Australia. Our submarines would have made life very difficult for the Japanese convoys and etc. The Japanese defeat was pre-ordained. They bit off more than they could chew, and simply did not have the ability, in the long run, to defeat us. For example, between 1942 and 1945 the Japanese built only 2 new aircraft carriers, we built close to 30 in that time frame. By 1945 we had nearly 20 full size Essex-class carriers in commision, the Japanese had none.
Germany on the other hand, is a little different. But, again, the problem of not having enough resources plagued the Germans as well. Hitler's armed forces were designed around quick, "lightning" campaings if you will. The German Luftwaffe was not designed to have a long range offensive punch, which is what would have been needed to strike at our shores. Four engined bombers, aircraft carriers, and other offensive weapons were simply not in the German inventory. They did have the Fw-200, a large 4 engined bomber, but it did not have the range to reach the U.S. and they did not build many of them, preferring to concentrate on the production of smaller, faster, twin engined aircraft (Ju-88, He-111, Do-17, etc.) The Germans would have needed to conquer Great Britain as well as take over Iceland in order to have any hope of reaching the U.S. That would also be assuming that Hitler decided not to invade Russia. The destruction of not only the Jews, but the Slavic people as well is what drove Hitler's desire to invade the Soviet Union. Once again, resources, logistics and planning are what undermined Hitler's goals. If Great Britain had gone down to defeat, it is possible that we then would have concentrated on defeating Japan, and then taking a different tack with a German-occupied Europe. But, one must remember that, whether or not Hitler had invaded Russia, he would have had to deal with Russia in one way or another, and that would have had an effect on how he dealt with us, and the rest of Europe. Germany at the time had limited manpower and limited industrial resources, while the our country, as well as Russia were in possession of large resources of raw materials, man power, and the ability to turn those resources into tools of war. The Soviet had more political will than we did, simply because Stalin did not answer to his people. That being said, I don't think we would have sat around as a nation, and let Hitler conquer the entire continent. Even the isolationists, and appeasers in the U.S. government would have had to see that an unfriendly Europe was bad for American interests.
Hitler stressed the development of "super weapons" if you will (V1 and V2 rockets, 100 ton tanks, guns that could shoot eighty miles, etc. etc.) but all that did was drain resources, away from more vital areas of war production. In addition the German economy at the time was still producing consumer goods as well. Hitler wanted "guns and butter". It was not until, I believe, 1943 or so, when his armaments minister, Albert Speer started to change over to total war production, and by then it was too late. The American industry was ramping up to full tilt, and there was almost nothing to stop it. By 1944, we were producing tanks, aircraft, artillery, and ships at a rate of six to seven times (or more) greater than any of the Axis powers (Germany, Italy, Japan) Our aircraft production for one month in 1944 was greater than the Japanese output for one year. Simply put, it was a numbers game that the Axis was destined to lose.
In order for WWII to have resulted in a win for the Axis, would have required our country to sit on it's hands, and allow the Germans and Japanese whatever they wanted. And that simply was not going to happen. The mistake that many people make, in these "Axis wins the war" scenarios, is that they imbue the Germans and Japanese with near superhuman traits, and super weapons that were unheard of. The Japanese especially did not have the ability to build enough ships and aircraft to sustain and make good their losses, let alone "super weapons" such as jet fighters, and long range 4 engine bombers.
World War II turned out the way it did, because the strategies that the agressor nations had adopted were flawed, and based on the assumption that everyone would capitulate before them. Their confidence was boosted by easy victories over unprepared opponents early in the war, and when it came down to a toe-to-toe slugging match, neither the Japanese nor the Germans were able to stand for very long against the U.S. and the British. (and Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders, French,....etc...)
The only (albeit minor) disagreement I have with that excellent write-up, is that Hitler wasn't actually interested in the complete destruction of the slavs. He wanted "living space" for the Germanic peoples which Byelorussia and the Ukraine offered. His vision was to drive the slavs from that region and establish essentially an armoured frontier to contain any attempts by the Soviets to reclaim their western territories. The complete destruction of the slavic peoples was something even Hitler didn't dream was possible. He simply wanted them removed (killed, enslaved, or driven east) to enable the German people to populate the cleared areas and be able to produce the kind of population needed to dominate, without necessarily conquering, the rest of the world.
WIAR wrote: The only (albeit minor) disagreement I have with that excellent write-up, is that Hitler wasn't actually interested in the complete destruction of the slavs. He wanted "living space" for the Germanic peoples which Byelorussia and the Ukraine offered. His vision was to drive the slavs from that region and establish essentially an armoured frontier to contain any attempts by the Soviets to reclaim their western territories. The complete destruction of the slavic peoples was something even Hitler didn't dream was possible. He simply wanted them removed (killed, enslaved, or driven east) to enable the German people to populate the cleared areas and be able to produce the kind of population needed to dominate, without necessarily conquering, the rest of the world.
You're right about that, thanks for picking up the point that I missed. Lebensraum is what Hitler was after, and that indeed was the reason for his drive east, in addition to the acquisition of more resources and raw materials.
Trivia:
The US army brass was worried about both Great Brittain and Hawaii falling to our foes and they started designing the boeing B-36 bomber. It eventually had a 36 hour endurance and could have bombed Germany from Nova Scotia and guam from the US and Japan from Hawii. If the war had gone on to 1947 the Enola gay would have probably been a B-36 we'll never know.
Sticking to the railroads....
If WWII never happened, the last generation of steam locomotives would have been a lot smaller. There would have been no B&O EM1 2-8-8-4, Milwaukee Road S3 4-8-4, or Union Pacific FEF3 4-8-4.
Alco would have developed a competitor to the EMD FT, which would have sold in reasonable numbers. The RS1 would also have been upgraded to 1500 HP, and the resulting "RS2" would have sold quite well - especially since EMD would have no competing product.
The airlines would have taken away a good deal of the first class passenger trade. "Big" planes (DC4, Constellation) were coming into service that could make the Chicago - West Coast flight nonstop. Passenger traffic would have declined faster than it actually did.
The "losers" and "winners" among railroads would not have changed. There would have been no wartime traffic boom to pull railroads out of bankruptcy.
In Chicago, the North Shore and South Shore interurbans would not have had the traffic growth to bring them out of bankruptcy. They might have "muddled through" to be bought out in the late 1950s (as C&O actually bought out South Shore).
The Chicago Aurora and Elgin would have prospered due to the growth in Chicago's western suburbs. When the Congress Street Expressway was built service wouldn't have been cut back to Forest Park. Instead, CA&E trains would run around the Loop over what is now the CTA pink line.
Finally, CNS&M 300 (wood coach adopted by CERA before WWII) would be one of the prize exhibits of the Illinois Railway Museum.
WIAR wrote: I was in Sheldon, IA this past weekend where I snapped some non-digital photos of the joint CMO/MILW depot there in town (still in remarkably good shape). It's an interesting "corner" design with half aligned on the MILW secondary main (now ICE) and half aligned on the CMO main (now UP). Sheldon is now the western terminus of the Iowa, Chicago & Eastern, and hats-off to that community for keeping the depot up.At breakfast I got to talking with some locals, and we began to speculate on what would've happened with the US rail system had WWII never happened? Suppose one of the several plots to eliminate Hitler actually succeeded prior to 1941 (there were a number of high-ranking German officers who plotted his removal well before the failed attempt in '44). Suppose the Japanese emperor had a change of mind, or perhaps if the German-Italian alliance wouldn't have been in-place, leaving Japan alone to face the US, Britain and the Commonwealth and France combined - perhaps Japan would've backed-down? How would peace in the 30's and 40's have affected American railroads? Here's what Carl, Bill, Mary and I came-up with:1.) The interstate highway system, envisioned originally to facilitate a more rapid overland transportation system in-case of a foreign invasion, may have been delayed in its creation.2.) Joseph Stalin, and his brutal policies within the USSR, may have been assassinated or driven from power, as his purges made many, many enemies for him inside and outside the party (he was terrified of an internal coup - that was the cause for the purges). This certainly would've delayed the development of the arms race, and that may have allowed more governmental funding for infrastructure improvement/development.3.) Without the severe wear & tear on the physical plants of the railroads, the railroads would not have emerged from the late 40's in terrible condition (like the PRR, NYC and MSTL to name only a few that I can think of). Perhaps this would've allowed the railroads to better compete with trucks by allowing more investment in equipment upgrades, ROW upkeep and improvements in traffic control/scheduling/routing? Maybe this would've delayed "merger madness"?4.) Without the war industries, there may not have been as much business for the railroads to serve in that period. There was a huge drain on manpower as the result of hostilities, and had war not occurred, the rail industry wouldn't have lost so much of its workforce. The war effort, and the "war scare" prior to the US entry in 1941, did help pull the US out of the depression by the drive to prepare for war (armaments production and strategic infrastructure developments).Does anyone have ideas?
1.) For all the hatred directed at Hitler, one thing he accomplished was that his regime killed more communists in armed battle than anyone on the face of the earth before or since. So, we'd likely have a much harder go of the Russians.. my bet is that the 40 year long drama we call "the cold war" would likely have been a more heated, conventional type war, with who knows what the outcome might have been? It's conceivable that we could have been the ones making the forlorn winter retreat from Moscow.
2.) We emerged from that war with recognition as a front running world power...politically, economically, and militarily... in contrast we were recognized as leader in none of these categories prior to the war.
3.) As others have said, no nukes would have been developed, so we'd not have the opportunity to flaunt our power, playing world policeman/bully as we have grown so accustomed to doing
4.) No Israel...take it for what it's worth ...but look where that has led us. The entire political geography of the middle east would be different.
5.) Growth of widespread commercial aviation delayed by 20-30 years
6.) We'd probably be a lot more like Canada than we are now..having never made the great leap forward in manufacturing that we did to fuel the war machine
7.) The Great Depression lasts 15-20 years longer
8.) The entity we refer to as "suburbia" would have evolved differently, for better or for worse. My bet is that we'd have fewer really large cities, and many more mid sized ones.
9.) No President Eisenhower, so there probably would never have been a President Nixon. Meaning Barry Goldwater would probably have been president in the late 1950's
"I Often Dream of Trains"-From the Album of the Same Name by Robyn Hitchcock
I think we'd still be in the steam to diesel transistion. Think for a moment. The modern steam power being developed would have had a long life instead of "run hard and put away wet" too many times. The railroads would have no economic incentive to invest heavily in diesels because their steam locomotives were still viable. EMD would not have been able to point out "you have to replace them anyway,...." Railroad employment would still drop, but with many backshops still in operation, not the way it did.
Without WWII driving up the demand for fast transportation, the airline industry would have developed much more slowly. Railroads might still be operating their own passenger trains as the interstate highway system would not exist to siphon traffic away. Life would be lived slower, because boys couldn't say "if you loved me, you'd do it before I ship out." The frantic pace of life today really sped up during/after WWII. If the public eventually demanded quicker coast-to-coast travel (and why would they), we would have the successor to GG1s on a high-speed rail network.
OK, back to reality.
First of all the Japanese made a terrible blunder in attacking Pearl Harbor. It cost them the war. Pearl Harbor galvanized America to destroy the Japanese war machine; and destroy it we did. Japan wanted a negotiated peace. Japan would have been smarter to have attacked only the Phillipines and forced the US Navy to come to them. The distance from Guam to Pearl Harbor is the distance from New York to Southhampton England, Just how the US Navy planned to fight Japan with those World War I battleships is anyone's guess. We had no bases between Pearl Harbor and Manila except for Guam and Wake Island. The US Navy would have had an extremely difficult time going on offense.The Pacific is one pretty big ocean. The Imperial Japanese Navy was close to its bases and the US Navy would have been a long way from home.
As to the Question, I think that things would be remarkably similair to what we have today. Remember that the first stretch of the Pennsylvania turnpike opened in 1940. There would have been a push for more limited access highways and the trucking industry would have grown rapidly. Railroads were already overbuilt in the east and midwest and you would have seen abandonments, mergers, and the decline of the Passenger train.
Another questions to ask.
What if the Railroads had been given as great of importance in being technologically improved as all the military branches? If the railroads had been thought of as an important branch of the Military they would have modernized quickly. Instead they were practically used up and discarded. The policy toward the railroads appeared to be exhausted depression era thinking, but by the people in power who were least affected by the shortages. The railroads were the main transportation for the big stuff, but the lowest of priorities for improvements.
Andrew
Watch my videos on-line at https://www.youtube.com/user/AndrewNeilFalconer
Andrew Falconer wrote: Another questions to ask.What if the Railroads had been given as great of importance in being technologically improved as all the military branches? If the railroads had been thought of as an important branch of the Military they would have modernized quickly. Instead they were practically used up and discarded. The policy toward the railroads appeared to be exhausted depression era thinking, but by the people in power who were least affected by the shortages. The railroads were the main transportation for the big stuff, but the lowest of priorities for improvements. Andrew
Where did you read this?
The approval process for what railroads could build during WWII seemed a bit backwards looking. What on earth were they thinking approving old Steam Locomotives for the railroads while pushing Jet Aircraft for the military. It seems like they wanted the railroads to stay stuck in the past to break their power on the transportation of the nations people and products.
Andrew Falconer wrote: The approval process for what railroads could build during WWII seemed a bit backwards looking. What on earth were they thinking approving old Steam Locomotives for the railroads while pushing Jet Aircraft for the military.
The approval process for what railroads could build during WWII seemed a bit backwards looking. What on earth were they thinking approving old Steam Locomotives for the railroads while pushing Jet Aircraft for the military.
And how did the jet aircraft fare?
Andrew Falconer wrote: The approval process for what railroads could build during WWII seemed a bit backwards looking. What on earth were they thinking approving old Steam Locomotives for the railroads while pushing Jet Aircraft for the military. It seems like they wanted the railroads to stay stuck in the past to break their power on the transportation of the nations people and products.Andrew
Please remember that during World War 2 a great proportion of domestically produced heavy liquid hydrocarbons, gasoline, and aviation fuel were committed to the war effort. America did not have much on an interstate pipeline network for moving these liquid fuels. Unit trains of tank cars hauling crude oil and finished petroleum products from Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas to east coast refineries and ports were the order of the day. And most of those trains were pulled by locomotives that did not require liquid fuels, specifically coal-fired steam engines, which meant that more of those liquid resources were available to power naval ships, the mechanized army, plus bomber and fighter aircraft. Powering those trains with diesel locomotives probably would have put quite a strain on America's fuel supply.
By the end of 1945 half of the world's economic output came from the United States. 1945 or 1946 was the last year that U.S. crude oil production met the entire needs of the American economy.
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