How Railroad History Shaped Internet History
December 2, 2015 10:33 AM Subscribe
It’s no accident that Iowa, where the first transcontinental railroad began, is now home to a huge data-center industry.
It'd be nice if all these datacenters improved the tech jobs market, but all they seem to be doing so far is improving the construction and manual labor job markets. Google employs something like 70 people here, currently.
posted by Xyanthilous P. Harrierstick at 10:55 AM on December 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by Xyanthilous P. Harrierstick at 10:55 AM on December 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
Council Bluffs is basically seen by Omaha as their own personal Tijuana, with riverboat gambling, later drinking hours, and strip clubs. But it's a great town with a fascinating history, and there would not be an Omaha had CB not agitated for the transcontinental railroad.
By the way, there is a prehistory to this, briefly touched upon. The trains largely ran alongside the transcontinental telegraph lines, which were laid earlier. Access to communication and rails also made Omaha a central point for the Army's Quartermasters and the Army's Office of the Platte, which oversaw and protected the railroads, the telegraph lines, and the pioneers headed northwest. Later there was the Strategic Air Command, and later still call centers, all encouraged by Omaha and Council Bluff's position as a communications hub.
It all starts with the singing wires, boys. Send that message on down the line -- we're still doing fine, we're still doing fine.
posted by maxsparber at 11:03 AM on December 2, 2015 [8 favorites]
By the way, there is a prehistory to this, briefly touched upon. The trains largely ran alongside the transcontinental telegraph lines, which were laid earlier. Access to communication and rails also made Omaha a central point for the Army's Quartermasters and the Army's Office of the Platte, which oversaw and protected the railroads, the telegraph lines, and the pioneers headed northwest. Later there was the Strategic Air Command, and later still call centers, all encouraged by Omaha and Council Bluff's position as a communications hub.
It all starts with the singing wires, boys. Send that message on down the line -- we're still doing fine, we're still doing fine.
posted by maxsparber at 11:03 AM on December 2, 2015 [8 favorites]
I still think that going from needing to use guys carrying messages to telegraph is the biggest communications revolution.
posted by thelonius at 11:09 AM on December 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by thelonius at 11:09 AM on December 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
Same reason that the Bluffdale NSA facility is in Utah. It's where the railroads came through that the internet backbones followed, and now they camp atop it to siphon it all.
posted by msbutah at 11:15 AM on December 2, 2015
posted by msbutah at 11:15 AM on December 2, 2015
It'd be nice if all these datacenters improved the tech jobs market, but all they seem to be doing so far is improving the construction and manual labor job markets. Google employs something like 70 people here, currently.
The best places for data centers are often places where no one wants to actually live. See Also: Quincy, WA.
I've been out of the systems engineer game since 2010, but even back then were had almost moved away from racking/stacking hundred of 1U pizza boxes, and into giant 16 blade chassis running with a single VMware container across all 16 machines. All the magic happened back at the home office, and all we needed onsite was a few people to replace burned out power supplies and whatnot.
posted by sideshow at 11:16 AM on December 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
The best places for data centers are often places where no one wants to actually live. See Also: Quincy, WA.
I've been out of the systems engineer game since 2010, but even back then were had almost moved away from racking/stacking hundred of 1U pizza boxes, and into giant 16 blade chassis running with a single VMware container across all 16 machines. All the magic happened back at the home office, and all we needed onsite was a few people to replace burned out power supplies and whatnot.
posted by sideshow at 11:16 AM on December 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
The only thing Iowa really has is real estate pricing. Connectivity is better and closer to the mean center of the US in St Louis while if you're looking for Canada as well you're probably better off somewhere in the outer Chicago metropolitan area.
posted by Talez at 11:18 AM on December 2, 2015
posted by Talez at 11:18 AM on December 2, 2015
The only thing Iowa really has is real estate pricing.
And riverboat casinos!
posted by maxsparber at 11:22 AM on December 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
And riverboat casinos!
posted by maxsparber at 11:22 AM on December 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
to save anyone else the effort, the article is basically: running cables alongside railways makes financial sense (single land owner all down the line, easy access etc) and so internet backbones tend to follow railway routes.
posted by andrewcooke at 11:26 AM on December 2, 2015 [5 favorites]
posted by andrewcooke at 11:26 AM on December 2, 2015 [5 favorites]
The only thing Iowa really has is real estate pricing.
I live, literally, 7 miles from Google's fancy pants new datacenter. More than just cheap real estate, this DC is less than a mile (just across I-29, actually) from the MidAmerican Energy power plant. They get cheap and bountiful electric power from this site. That and *possibly* the rail line that runs across the property, were very likely factors in why they chose it; even with it's other obvious drawbacks.
For about two years, it's been DIRT FOR THE DIRT GOD as they've been strip-mining the countryside for dirt to build that site up above the flood plain; a never-ending stream of semi-trailer dump trucks up and down our crappy rural 'Scenic Byway', 10 hours a day, 7 days a week.
... and then they lit the empty parking lot up with more lights than would be necessary in an urban shopping mall, for no apparent purpose but to further ruin our dark sky.
... but did they offer to set up any of that sweet Google Fiber for local communities? Pshaw.
The best places for data centers are often places where no one wants to actually live.
I think you may slightly underestimate the number of generally competent engineers that could give exactly zero fucks for the Urban Experience and do, or would prefer to, live somewhere far away from the San Francisco/Boston/NYC bro-villes.
posted by Xyanthilous P. Harrierstick at 11:43 AM on December 2, 2015 [8 favorites]
I live, literally, 7 miles from Google's fancy pants new datacenter. More than just cheap real estate, this DC is less than a mile (just across I-29, actually) from the MidAmerican Energy power plant. They get cheap and bountiful electric power from this site. That and *possibly* the rail line that runs across the property, were very likely factors in why they chose it; even with it's other obvious drawbacks.
For about two years, it's been DIRT FOR THE DIRT GOD as they've been strip-mining the countryside for dirt to build that site up above the flood plain; a never-ending stream of semi-trailer dump trucks up and down our crappy rural 'Scenic Byway', 10 hours a day, 7 days a week.
... and then they lit the empty parking lot up with more lights than would be necessary in an urban shopping mall, for no apparent purpose but to further ruin our dark sky.
... but did they offer to set up any of that sweet Google Fiber for local communities? Pshaw.
The best places for data centers are often places where no one wants to actually live.
I think you may slightly underestimate the number of generally competent engineers that could give exactly zero fucks for the Urban Experience and do, or would prefer to, live somewhere far away from the San Francisco/Boston/NYC bro-villes.
posted by Xyanthilous P. Harrierstick at 11:43 AM on December 2, 2015 [8 favorites]
Council Bluffs has a squirrel cage prison. Match that, you myopic big city nabobs.
posted by maxsparber at 11:48 AM on December 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by maxsparber at 11:48 AM on December 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
andrewcooke: "to save anyone else the effort, the article is basically: running cables alongside railways makes financial sense (single land owner all down the line, easy access etc) and so internet backbones tend to follow railway routes."
I guess I found that interesting.
posted by Chrysostom at 12:02 PM on December 2, 2015 [5 favorites]
I guess I found that interesting.
posted by Chrysostom at 12:02 PM on December 2, 2015 [5 favorites]
It is interesting. Take that away and a huge portion of American history just vanishes.
posted by maxsparber at 12:33 PM on December 2, 2015
posted by maxsparber at 12:33 PM on December 2, 2015
previously from this author, Ingrid Burrington: What does the Internet look like?
posted by fitnr at 12:49 PM on December 2, 2015
posted by fitnr at 12:49 PM on December 2, 2015
Another example of this sort of infrastructure building was the takeover of the old Baby Bell US West by Qwest in the 2000s. The Qwest CEO was Joe Nacchio (later convicted of fraud and insider trading) and it was bankrolled partly by local entrepreneur Phil Anschutz, who owned various railways; and the plan was to run Qwest fiber along Anschutz's rights of way. At the time it felt like a classic case of an old school Bell telco being 'disrupted' by a tech boom upstart takeover, including a lot of layoffs (streamlining etc.). Plenty of the US West people were very upset.
posted by carter at 1:22 PM on December 2, 2015
posted by carter at 1:22 PM on December 2, 2015
It's not just fiber. Sprint was built on using the southern pacific right of ways for microwave routes. That you could later come back and run fiber along the railroad was a fortunate coincidence for them. AT&T's microwave routes didn't really get reused for fiber (we know because they sold off almost all the towers), but some of the L4/L5 coaxial routes did. Those were probably not numerous enough to make up a significant amount of AT&T's fiber network mileage today, but it does mean that they're still maintaining right of ways that originated in the 40's and 50's.
posted by kiltedtaco at 1:24 PM on December 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by kiltedtaco at 1:24 PM on December 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
cheers, kiltedtaco.
And this article was worth it just for the link to the CIA document 'Intelligence in the Civil War.'
posted by carter at 1:29 PM on December 2, 2015
And this article was worth it just for the link to the CIA document 'Intelligence in the Civil War.'
posted by carter at 1:29 PM on December 2, 2015
I still think that going from needing to use guys carrying messages to telegraph is the biggest communications revolution.
This is pretty much the thesis of The Victorian Internet, which I just read and strongly recommend.
posted by MrBadExample at 3:05 PM on December 2, 2015
This is pretty much the thesis of The Victorian Internet, which I just read and strongly recommend.
posted by MrBadExample at 3:05 PM on December 2, 2015
This guy saw it coming, 145 years ago...
---------------------------------
"Passage to India!
Lo, soul! Seest thou not God’s purpose from the first?
The earth to be spann’d, connected by net-work,
The people to become brothers and sisters,
The races, neighbors, to marry and be given in marriage,
The oceans to be cross’d, the distant brought near,
The lands to be welded together.
. . .
All these hearts, as of fretted children, shall be sooth’d,
All affection shall be fully responded to—the secret shall be told;
All these separations and gaps shall be taken up, and hook’d and link’d together;
The whole Earth—this cold, impassive, voiceless Earth, shall be completely justified."
. . .
Passage to more than India!
O secret of the earth and sky! . . .
O sun and moon, and all you stars! Sirius and Jupiter!
Passage to you!
Passage—immediate passage! the blood burns in my veins!
Away, O soul! hoist instantly the anchor!
Cut the hawsers—haul out—shake out every sail!
Have we not stood here like trees in the ground long enough?
Have we not grovell’d here long enough, eating and drinking like mere brutes?
Have we not darken’d and dazed ourselves with books long enough?
Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only!
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me;
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.
O my brave soul!
O farther, farther sail!
O daring joy, but safe! Are they not all the seas of God?
O farther, farther, farther sail!"
"Passage to India"
- Walt Whitman, 1870
posted by markkraft at 5:56 PM on December 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
---------------------------------
"Passage to India!
Lo, soul! Seest thou not God’s purpose from the first?
The earth to be spann’d, connected by net-work,
The people to become brothers and sisters,
The races, neighbors, to marry and be given in marriage,
The oceans to be cross’d, the distant brought near,
The lands to be welded together.
. . .
All these hearts, as of fretted children, shall be sooth’d,
All affection shall be fully responded to—the secret shall be told;
All these separations and gaps shall be taken up, and hook’d and link’d together;
The whole Earth—this cold, impassive, voiceless Earth, shall be completely justified."
. . .
Passage to more than India!
O secret of the earth and sky! . . .
O sun and moon, and all you stars! Sirius and Jupiter!
Passage to you!
Passage—immediate passage! the blood burns in my veins!
Away, O soul! hoist instantly the anchor!
Cut the hawsers—haul out—shake out every sail!
Have we not stood here like trees in the ground long enough?
Have we not grovell’d here long enough, eating and drinking like mere brutes?
Have we not darken’d and dazed ourselves with books long enough?
Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only!
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me;
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.
O my brave soul!
O farther, farther sail!
O daring joy, but safe! Are they not all the seas of God?
O farther, farther, farther sail!"
"Passage to India"
- Walt Whitman, 1870
posted by markkraft at 5:56 PM on December 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
The article mentions Sprint emerging from the Southern Pacific Railroad’s internal-communications network, but doesn't mention that SPRINT is an acronym for this.
posted by eye of newt at 8:40 PM on December 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by eye of newt at 8:40 PM on December 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
The Greenbrier, which was a CSX railroad resort back in the day, was the site of the Congressional fallout shelter. Those facilites are now a CSX data center.
posted by evoque at 7:24 AM on December 3, 2015
posted by evoque at 7:24 AM on December 3, 2015
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posted by splicer at 10:43 AM on December 2, 2015 [6 favorites]