Wartime Chinese Railroad Building

[el cid again]

Two significant rail lines might be upgraded during the war.

The major one is the Hunan-Kwangsi Railroad.

It involves seven hexes - of which 3 are coded as RR by Andrew (we use his map system) - 3 should be upgraded from road - and 1 should remain as is because of the RHS requirement for inefficiency at gage change points (in this case, Metric lines from Indochina meet Standard lines from China - at 38/37). The route includes 41/37, 32/37 and 43/37 - which would start as road vice RR - and 41/38, 40/38 and 39/37 - which are presently road. All would upgrade in 1943 on our RR infrastructure change date (17 October).

The minor one is the Kweichow-Kwangsi Railroad.

It involves one hex that should be downgraded to road at start (41/35) and two hexes that would remain road (41/34 and 42/34) - until all upgraded in 1943.

Adding these rail lines would do two things: they would move supplies slightly closer to Chunking ( from the South )
and they would nearly connect the main lines of Central China with Indochina - only one hex of gage change. IRL Japan DID manage to line a full rail connection from Singapore to Shanghai and Peking/Tientsin/Manchukuo - in a late war offensive. Long a goal, it was by that time no longer a meaningful achievement - there being too little to move along it that matters. Also - while WITP moves unlimited things vast distances by rail - the gage change - and the forced change to ships at Fusan (we don't allow adjacent ports to link to Japan automatically - you must use real ships to move things) -
means it would not be a completely efficient connection. But it would be a very useful connection - moving modest amounts of supplies and resources across the gage change - and nearly teleporting them from either side as required to points North or South of it (albiet not in sufficient quantity). It would be useful enough Japan might try to do it - and probably should - and this being the case - it would give the ROC and other Allies something to try to prevent. That might give a strategic meaning to certain campaigns/battles.

That said I must say I am unconvinced we should do this. Andrew's choices - which split the difference of both lines -
produce a situation that isn't bad on the average. Construction might not occured if campaigns had waged across this part of South China sooner. All our other RR upgrades are in areas that were uncontested, so the assumption we know when they complete is more reasonable. I expected to want to do rail lines in China - I thought there were lines to the West under ROC control - but it appears not on any scale.