"Everyone expects the Rokkenjiman Ambush" the words of the Emperor of Achkaerin ran through Xiaoling's mind, how many times had Rokkenjima banged the Ardian unity drum? Enough for everyone to have known that they should have seen the progression coming. Not that Xiaoling was opposed to the idea of some sort of agreement between the Ardian nations it just depended an awful lot on the terms of any agreement and also on the practicalities of such an agreement the current proposal of the railway was a classic case in point - potentially brilliant but reliant on one thing broad cooperation to an agreed set of rules and regulations by the parties, getting that was going to be the hard part of this especially with so many nations in the room each undoubtedly with their own agenda's. First rule identify the key players, well that was easy - Allied States of Ardia and Ui Cenneslaig, given their geographic position these were the two nations upon whom any idea of the railway hinged, Ardia might have a stronger hand than the Celts and that was just because both potential lines whether north or south of Lake Escarion had to pass through Ardia's territory but that said the odds of Ardia causing trouble were slim as ironically they probably needed this more than most. As she sat there thinking she was scrawling lines on the map of Ardia presented to them.
"The proposal I find severely lacking." Xiaoling said "You explain a sea link to Gowu, I say a land rail link is possible if one looks at this more along the lines or a rail network rather than a single line. We must also be mindful of the viability of routes such viability is determined by a variety of factors including which nations are sat at this table, the practical point should be obvious the route cannot pass through the territory of a state not represented here. Which means at present this is what we potentially have." she pushed her map into the middle of the table
"We start by building various hubs." Xiaoling said "These are the white circles and represent key positions along the route. So one in Himeyama, one in Herrunbucht, one in Revana, one possibly two in Ui Cenneslaig and one in Gowu. Why these places? Because these are the places where we can branch the lines out from the main lines. The black line represents the northern line running from Himeyama through to Rokkenjima by staying as close as possible to the northern Ardia coast, the problem comes when we get to Revana because without Sutherland and Bykrestan agreement we have to run the line direct to Rokkenjima as represented by the blue line. Ideally we'd like to be able to put a hub in Sutherland. The gold route, the southern line splits from the northern line in Herrenbucht and runs south of Escarion, through Ardia and into Ui Cenneslaig it then runs due east out of Ui Cenneslaig, skirts the Viljandi border and runs up the Ardian peninsula to Gowu. Again we'd like to have a different route as indicated by the green line by means of the southern line going through Viljandi with a hub being positioned there. Why am I going on about these hubs? Because these hubs allow greater connectivity within the network, by using Himeyama as a hub we have an opportunity to connect the network to pre-existing networks on the Horn, running to Ui Cenneslaig opens the door to Cantabria and other nations in that area, if we get Viljandi onboard then there's a chance to run a line south to Quintelia and include them, while a hub in Sutherland would allow us to potentially send a line north to the Iwi, Coanchua and Nueva Ardia, Gowu as a hub allows a line to run through Toshikawa and up to Rokkenjima with another line running out to Phuebra. These are roughly indicated by the red lines.
The real challenge however is going to be concerning how the railway operates, how it's regulated and ultimately how it is maintained. Funding the railway is potentially simple we can agree on the respective governments funding the construction and maintenance in each of their respective territories and pool funding for the rest
[1], alternatively we agree a route or routes, we assess the cost of the route and pool funding between us. Regulation will be a more complex issue as this is a multinational venture and each state has their own regulatory laws. I also disagree with anything regarding contracts for those proposing to construct trains because that is the wrong point, it should not be contracts for those who wish to build trains but contracts for those companies that wish to use the line. This isn't about who builds the trains but about which trains use the line. It doesn't matter whether Ui Cenneslaig builds one hundred carriages or who they build them for - that's not something that we as the joint owners of this line are party to that is a private business deal. We are only party to the agreements concerning which companies use the line such as Achkaerin's luxury travel line White Stallion, if they wanted to use the line they would have to have a contract to use it. Now as I see it we need to do some things fairly quickly:
1) Agree a route or routes - approaching other nations if necessary
2) Determine funding costs for each zone of the track in terms of construction and the maintenance costs of the track upon completion
3) Draw up contract terms for companies wishing to use the line.
I propose that we focus our discussion on these initial points and deal with concerns after that point."