I'll start off with a localized "what if". In the 1930's, Red River Lumber Company ran a survey for a proposed rail line running from the WP Hiline at Poison Lake westward to the town of Burney. Their initial plans called for this railroad to be electrified, using the equipment from their Westwood-Chester railroad. The depression got in the way, but in the very late 1940's/very early 1950's Fruit Growers Supply Company- who took over Red River in 1944- surveyed most of this line and started stockpiling rails and other equipment to build it. The introduction of the cardboard citrus shipping container and its quick dominance of the fruit shipping market changed the whole equation in the space of about a year, which allowed Fruit Growers to sell the timber around Burney to the McCloud River Lumber Company, and in the end Burney finally got its railroad from the north instead of the long-planned route in from the east.

Vance already mentioned the contemplated Oregon Pacific line across central Oregon, which at one time was to connect with a rumored westward extension of the C&NW. But what if Harriman had been successful in getting this line built when he had both the UP and SP in the early part of the 20th century? If Harriman's death and the Justice Department's breakup of Harriman's system had come a year or two later than it did, then Oregon's rail history might have been written quite a bit differently than it was.

What if Hill had been able to push the GN down through western Oregon and into California that way? That's partially the reason why the Coos Bay line got built where it did...SP already had trestles and bridges in place for the mentioned line from Roseburg, but changed their mind and built in from the north in response to a GN threat to get to Coos Bay that way. In the end, GN agreed to not pursue a line into Coos Bay in exchange for trackage rights over the SP east of Albany so they could reach their trackage in the Sweet Home/Foster area.

I remember a story from a while back that the Milwaukee Road initially planned to reach the Pacific Ocean at Eureka, but instead ended up at Puget Sound.

Back in the 1880's Union Pacific surveyed a route that would have run from the Redding, California, area into Oregon, following what is today Highway 299 at least as far as Alturas. The initial plans called for this line to tie into the OSL/OR&N lines in northern/northeastern Oregon. Harriman dusted at least part of this survey off when he ran things.

I've also read a place or two that the WP's original planned route across Nevada would have turned south at Flowerly Lake Pass in the Pequops, run around the end of the Ruby Mountains, and then more or less followed what is today Highway 50 through to Fallon. Not far beyond Fallon the line would have crossed the SP main and headed northwest for Beckworth Pass. Restrictions on grades placed by construction bond purchasers forced them to use the Humboldt River Route.

Also here in Nevada, the Nevada Consolidated Copper Company at the beginning was under common ownership with the Eureka & Palisade Railroad. When the NCCCo started developing the mines around Ely, their initial plans called for the rebuilding and standard gauging of the existing E&P, with the line then exteded 75 miles east to Ely. In the end the topography proved to be too much, and they elected to build a new railroad- the Nevada Northern- northward to a connection with the SP line at- and then east of- Wells.

When SP built the Fernley & Lassen Railroad in the very early 1910's, they built the Fernley-Susanville-Westwood Junction section to mainline standards, as the company intended to extend their mainline northward from Westwood Junction to Klamath Falls and then up the east side of the Cascades to Willamette Pass. The on-going litigation over UP's attempts to force CP and SP to split up prevented this from happening, and it the end the Modoc Line came into being farther to the east.

That's what comes off the top of my head tonight...

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV