Four ways to speed up trains on the New Silk Road (2020)

Re:Four ways to speed up trains on the New Silk Road (2020) by OldHand2018 on Monday April 05, 2021 @04:41PM (#26704419)

French explorers recognized the strategic importance of the area in the 1600s. For sure, a large city would eventually sprout in the area where Chicago is.

When France ceded the lands of the Illinois Country (east of the Mississippi) to Great Britain in the 1700s, all the French had to GTFO. St Louis was the highest land along the Mississippi anywhere close to the confluences of the Missouri, Ohio and Illinois rivers. Since the Mississippi flooded almost every spring, this was the best place to put a city and it allowed the French to maintain more control over the area than they were supposed to have.

The railroads were built by men, however, and could have gone anywhere. The negotiations and influencing that got them all built through Chicago has had a huge ROI for the last 150+ years.

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Re:Four ways to speed up trains on the New Silk Road (2020) by hinkley on Tuesday April 06, 2021 @02:42PM (#26715674)

> St Louis was the highest land

That explains it. I kept thinking there must be better spots to put it. It does appear though that it’s surrounded by wide flood plains on several sides and certain spots would be harder to ford than the narrows that bracket the city on two sides.

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