Datacenter Locations Driven by 19th Century Politics | Hacker News Reader

Datacenter Locations Driven by 19th Century Politics

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157 pointstellarin46 comments

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.

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

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.

> 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.

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.

Pardon my ignorance, but what was the GPO network?

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.

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.

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.

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.

Perhaps the younger Chuck felt incentivized, somehow, to provide services of actual value to British subjects?

Or to have a more efficient way to spy on their correspondence.

The GPO was the General Post Office (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Post_Office) which by the 1940s dealt not only with snailmail but also telegraph and telephones. GPO engineers built the Colossus computer at Bletchley.

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.

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.

> 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.

> 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.

I don't know that it was seven miles, but it wasn't a huge distance. And those sites either had to have local water or the water had to be shipped in by train. Often these depots were whistle stops, though of course they were an opportunity for a small community to form.

My grandfather was born (over a century ago) and grew up on one of these stations in the middle of nowhere in the South Australian bush. He ended up working for the SA railway his entire working life. My Uncle showed me some pictures -- even the water was brought in by rail. Nobody would have lived there if the train had not needed an outpost.

I think that 7 mile number is low, I think its more like at least 50 if not 100 miles, by the time the transcon line existed.

Had it not been granted to UP, likely then we wouldn’t have this nice uninterrupted east-west throughway for transport of goods and data.

It’s rather a nice consequence of having granted them right of way in return for developing a railway. It’s better than an alternative patchwork. One just need look at the problem with right of way for the California HSR to see having a right of way is important for progress.

Why could have the government not held on to the right-of-way and allow people to bid/buy or allocate it? Making it so the money went back to the government NOT some 3rd party at a profit?

The government reaped the value the railroad created for all of the other lands it held, beyond that, consider that the government used to give away up to 160 acres of land to anyone who was willing to homestead it, and improve it. As in literally free - the land without the railroad had considerably less value at that time.

Well then today it’d be a hodgepodge as well as we’d have discontinuous sections all owned and governed by multiple entities some of which might not care to share or accommodate fiber, for example.

Because the railroad company would have been far less or simply not interested in building the railroad. The right of ways were a reward for the upfront costs the railroad incurred for building the network.

The transcontinental railroad and other railroads were investments for the future. A lot of short wonky rail networks were the only railroads being built and those weren't going to reach across the country.

duxup thanks!

This makes sense to me. It was more about enticing the railroad to build the thing than anything in the long run. That makes perfect sense to me.

> monopoly of that 200-foot right of way piece of land?

If you think that's bad, look at these squares of land:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_and_California_Railroad...

You can still easy pick out this land in satellite photos:

https://www.google.com/maps/@43.9007308,-123.4338901,37529m/...

It was the reward for building the railroad in the first place.

I guess I sort of assumed that the revenue the railroad would receive from trains traversing its rails would be sufficient income, and wouldn't need any additional land. I mean, these railroads do have a captive customer base, since their customers can't just "choose" another railroad provider. (Hmm, this is beginning to sound like our cable-centric ISPs.) So, is all this (that is, the historically crazy high revenues that railroad companies have brought in) where the term "robber barons" comes from?

Except that you couldn't get the revenue from the railroad until the railroad was built... which would be difficult without land.

Connecting the entire country was probably considered a 'strategic' decision rather than just a commercial venture. See also interstate highway system.

Governments often subsidize early efforts in areas that they deem are maybe important to have a lead in the future. See also ARPAnet / Internet.

Oh, I'm not arguing against the need for land. The greater vision makes sense to me. Certainly, the need for land (for railroads, etc.) is essential, plus a little more land on the sides as a buffer - no argument there. Also, connecting the country - whether via rail or highway systems - is absolutely strategically essential. And, in fact, i happily pay reasonable taxes (yes, happily!) for such useful infrastructure like this (assuming this tax revenue is utilized appropriately without corruption)...Because everyone ideally wins in this kind of revenue. Furthermore, I also agree that government subsidizing efforts like rail, highway, post, and arpanet/internet systems are vital as a foundation for any country - either for gov. services or for businesses/economies to prosper upon...I'm just only nitpicking about that little extra, tiny bit of land that UP railroad company is getting tons of free revenue from (by leasing to datacenters). Oh well, this is all said and done anyway.

> So, is all this (that is, the historically crazy high revenues that railroad companies have brought in) where the term "robber barons" comes from?

In the modern American sense, absolutely yes. Standard Oil and all that lot. Further back there were literal robber barons with castles on the Rhine charging illegal tolls to shipping.

One of billions of examples. The anti-government stance of the US leads naturally to delegating things that in other countries would be public to random private entities.

Sometimes this works well, where the private entity has an incentive to market the asset and make it useful. Sometimes it doesn't. Both can be true of the same asset at different times.

200 feet is tiny in the scope of the American West. If anyone else wanted to build a railroad, telegraph line, etc. somewhere else, they were free to do so, and there were plenty of routes to choose from. Many did: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcontinental_railroad#Subs...

The reason the UP/CP right-of-way was attractive to telegraph lines, fiber, etc. was that they had already done all the hard work of clearing, grading, building infrastructure to make it accessible, etc. It makes sense that they were allowed to charge for others to benefit from the improvements they made.

They could have granted temporary access to the resources never for construction, but they wanted the railways to be incentivized to build stations and the like -- the purpose of the road wasn't only to connect the two terminal points but to provide access to as much of the land inbetween as possible. It was a colonial effort for land that was considered essentially terra nullus (compare to the colonial rail construction in India a lot of which went through settled land).

Plus where the road went through somewhat settled areas, this provided an opportunity for land speculation, which was the plot of many stories both contemporary and later.

by contrast, the great northern railroad was built without land grants.

yes, by that time private capital was interested in funding a rail line, this however was the first one

See also: The relationship from horse to space shuttle. http://www.astrodigital.org/space/stshorse.html

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/

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.

>> 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.

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

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

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

*conquered

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.

Murder, Forced Labor, Indefinite imprisonment. It was what it was. We can become a better society but not if we turn a blind eye to where we came from.

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

I feel the opposite. It distracts from the topic at-hand.

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