Train Question

[ffutures]

For the adventure I'm writing I want to give the name of a (preferably non-existent) American railway company of the late 19th century, to be owned by a Tom Swift style engineer. Basically I want somewhere where there would be long straight stretches of track, running E-W, which could be used for running high speed trains bearing catapults used to launch primitive spacecraft.

I did a quick web search and can't find the one I came up with, which was the Great Arkansas Railway Company. Can someone who knows something about trains check this for me and make sure I'm okay? Or suggest a more suitable area if Arkansas seems silly for some reason?

Comments

[captboulanger.livejournal.com]

Actually, if you need flat track and the east end high, the best place for that I can think of is southwestern Arizona, near Fort Yuma. It would have the advantage, in that time frame, of being very remote. Tuson, Phoenix, Flagstaff are all in rough terrain, but the southwestern corner of the state is desert and rather flat, there's only one river and it runs E-W (so you could parallel it) and the eastern end would be higher, as the Colorado River valley would be on the west end....

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Okay - that sounds like a good option. Just need a name for it now. Or given that the guy doing this is supposed to be VERY rich, have him build the tracks specially.

Was there already a railway there circa 1895? Anyone got any idea if there was, or who owned it?

[captboulanger.livejournal.com]

If there was, it would have been the Southern Pacific (which was owned by the Central Pacific, based in Sacramento), the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe, or the San Diego and Arizona Eastern. ;) I think the SP followed a more northerly line though (L.A. to Phoenix to Tucson, probably)...

I'm not sure about 1895 though. The Southern Pacific (which started southward from Sacramento) only got to Los Angeles in 1886.

[captboulanger.livejournal.com]

As for a name... as far as I'm aware there was never a California Pacific, or you could go with a city-based name like the San Diego and Tucson...