
Datacenter Locations Driven by 19th Century Politics - tellarin
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/21st-century-datacenter-locations-driven-19th-politics-george-moore
======
gumby
Prior example is what is now the SPRINT phone company, started as the Southern
Pacific Railroad Internal Network Telecommunications, which someone at the SP
had the bright idea to monetize after the telephone long distance monopoly was
broken up.

~~~
MS90
What do you think came first, the name or the acronym?

~~~
gumby
Like GNU, why shouldn't it be deliberate creation of an acronym that spelled a
word?

Or if I'm misunderstanding your question: the network already existed due to
that name because they already had all the right of way for the same reason UP
did.

IIRC (it was a while ago) MCI came first and some VP at the SP was inspired by
that to try to provide external service over their existing resource. After
all they were in the transport business with a big infrastructure setup, so
transporting bits was pretty natural.

------
alexhutcheson
> In 1859 the US Secretary of War, Jefferson Davis, strongly favored the
> southerly railroad route from New Orleans to San Diego: it was shorter, had
> no major mountains to traverse, and had lower operational costs due to lack
> of snowfall to clear from the tracks. However, in the 1850s no Congressman
> from a northern state would have voted for a southerly railroad route to aid
> the Confederacy's slave-based economy, and no Congressman from the south
> would have voted for a northerly route.

I feel like this overlooks the other main reason to prefer a northern route -
the north was where most of the people and industry were. The midwest and
northeast were much denser than the southeast, and it was important for
railroads to serve industrial hubs like St. Louis and Chicago, which had
onward connections to the northeast. A San Diego-New Orleans Route is
"shorter" only if you overlook the extra 850+ miles to get from New Orleans to
Chicago, plus the additional travel within California (probably by ship).
There are good reasons to prefer the northern alignment that was chosen, and
Jefferson Davis' motivation was just as political as the northern Congressmen
who opposed the southern alignment.

------
C1sc0cat
Interesting , one of the reasons GCHQ moved to Bletchley Park in WW2 was it
was very conveniently placed in terms of the GPO network at the time.

~~~
unixhero
Pardon my ignorance, but what was the GPO network?

~~~
NeedMoreTea
The General Post Office phone and telegraph network.

Formed in 1660 as a government department to provide postal services - by
Charles II, the one who got rudely interrupted by Cromwell's republic. Took on
telegraph, telephone and radio transmission as they were developed. As a
government department until the 50s or 60s when they became a state owned
company, they always had a distinctly "comfortable" relationship with the
intelligence services right back to their inception. Opening post, intercept
stations at cable landfalls, etc. Phone and post have since been privatised.

Tommy Flowers, creator of Colossus, worked at GPO Research Station Dollis
Hill. Pre-war in the 30s he'd been working to create all electronic phone
exchanges.

~~~
gumby
BTW it was Charles I who lost his head thanks to Cromwell — Charles II was the
restored monarch. Interesting that the post office was important enough to be
chartered almost right away after he assumed office, despite all the other
things going on at that point.

~~~
NeedMoreTea
Of course it was, and I knew that, or at least used to. Not quite sure what
brain was thinking. :)

Royal Mail goes back to Henry VIII or Elizabeth's time, perhaps further, but
it was _royal_ mail only then, not for the mere public yet. I think that might
have come before the Civil War, and before post offices. Don't know what
happened to Royal Mail during Cromwell's time. Given the start date of the
GPO, post might simply be one of the many things that had legislation between
Civil War and restoration. All those were thrown out and re-legislated or
forgotten.

~~~
gumby
Yeah, I got the feeling it was a brain fart, so I hope starting with "BTW"
made it come off as a friendly note.

I know, I know, this is the internet so I should have coughed up a bolus of
lava, skewering your entire claim based on a trivial misstatement, and
claiming that your motivation was to support that political party I detest.. I
apologise for letting society down.

------
mxuribe
This was such an interesting article!

The only nitpick item I'd mention: isn't kind of crappy that the U.S. gov.
gave the Union Pacific railroad pretty much a monopoly of that 200-foot right
of way piece of land? I mean, i could understand if the railroad used it for
their own uses, which from a functional perspective, i understand and
agree...But for this railroad to turn around and authorize others - and I'm
sure they charge everyone for this! - to then use that land, just seems sort
of unfair. I understand that it's "convenient" for other entities to only work
with that single entity; but that still seems a monopoly to me. So,
forevermore, the Union Pacific railroad will get money for use of this land,
that they were given so many years ago; well, that sucks.

~~~
kilo_bravo_3
It isn't crappy, it was necessary.

The 200-foot right of way was so that construction materials could be gathered
from either side of the route of the track, to build the track itself.

In 1862, the midwest was practically empty and most of the land was federal
land. The construction crews may have been hundreds, if not thousands, of
miles from the nearest quarry or gravel pit.

>SEC. 2 . And be it further enacted, {Right of way granted.} That the right of
way through the public lands be, and the same is hereby, granted to said
company for the construction of said railroad and telegraph line; and the
right, power, and authority is hereby given to said company to take from the
public lands adjacent to the line of said road, {See Sec. 3, 1864 .} earth,
stone, timber, and other materials for the construction thereof; said right of
way is granted to said railroad to the extent of’ two hundred feet in width on
each side of said railroad, where it may pass over the public lands, including
all necessary grounds for stations, buildings, workshops and depots, machine
shops, switches, side tracks, turn-tables, and water stations. {U. S. to
extinguish Indian titles. sec. 18, 1864 .} The United States shall extinguish
as rapidly as may be, the Indian titles to all lands falling under the
operation of this act, and required for the said right of way and grants
hereinafter made.

Also, in the early days of steam locomotives a train had to stop every seven
miles for water. That meant that every seven miles a water tower and the
equipment to fill the water tower had to be built.

If right of way, and all of that free land hadn't been granted, there would
have been no transcontinental railroad.

One of the first "real" railroads, the B&O railroad, was created by the
governments of Maryland, Virginia, and Ohio and had a very similar legislative
deal (though that didn't prevent years of litigation by canal companies to
stop the railroad) to deal given to the companies covered by the 1862 Act the
because it is impossible to build a railroad unless the land is given to the
constructor for free.

Looking forward, if the government gets behind the colonization of Mars or
some other place, the deals will be the same "Hey Company X, build all of this
crap on Mars and we'll give you the entire northern hemisphere" and then 200
years later people will be upset about the fact that Company X was given half
of Mars.

~~~
ska
> It isn't crappy, it was necessary.

You've explained why it was necessary to give access and rights to build. It
doesn't explain why that included secondary rights (i.e. the ability to
monetize other uses of the land) exclusively, or perpetually, Which is what I
think the poster you replied to was trying to say.

It may be true that the deals couldn't be made another way, but it certainly
isn't obviously true.

------
zwerdlds
See also: The relationship from horse to space shuttle.
[http://www.astrodigital.org/space/stshorse.html](http://www.astrodigital.org/space/stshorse.html)

~~~
shezi
Please note that, while amusing, this is mostly false. Especially the space
shuttle part of the story: [https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/railroad-gauge-
chariots/](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/railroad-gauge-chariots/)

~~~
zwerdlds
Interesting.

The article says the standard is 4' 8", and the South mostly used 5' 6". 8"
variation seems like not that much when you're dealing with something as
imprecise as a wagon wheel.

I don't know though. Thanks for the link.

------
blue_devil
>> This same river water is now used for the adiabatic cooling of the modern
datacenters along this route.

This sounds like a major climate change related vulnerability.

~~~
blue_devil
What triggers people on this comment? Water is a scarce resource, about to get
scarcer at that latitude; data centres need cooling; ergo, vulnerability.

------
barking
I feel like all these discussions should make some mention of how the US
government felt this was their land to give

~~~
Aloha
I mean, it legally was. The fact that we effectively stole it from the
natives, is immaterial to that.

~~~
homonculus1
*conquered

~~~
CydeWeys
No, a lot of it was just outright treaties and contracts that were then later
ignored.

And there is/was legal theories of war, which weren't applied to the "savages"
back then.

