This may be the single nerdiest post to ever appear on this blog. Kudos!
Having not read tIC, I don't have much to add. But it does remind me of the fantastic Lord of the Rings Risk board game, a terrific improvement on the original Risk which profited, among other things, from having a team of designers who'd clearly been thinking about how to adapt LotR into the Risk system since they were 12.
Don't tell you are not a game designer. Nobody really is and nobody will notice anyway.
As for your game - I think it might me missing something. Some kind of an interaction between the players.
A famous board game called Settlers of Catan might be a clue on how that could work. In this game, players need to collect different combinations of resource cards to construct buildings. Of course, you will rarely have the cards you need so the game relies heavily on players exchanging resource cards. It creates this very lively relationship between the players. Sometimes players will team up, sometimes a player will be dissed by other because he is already too far ahead. Maybe a similar mechanic could be implemented to bring more attention to the political struggles between the characters.
In fact, your game already reminds me of another great board game called Carcassone. In this game, players also need to lay down pieces of a common landscape to pursue conflicting goal.
Just noticed your comment today. Thanks for your kind words, and for the interesting comparisons. I haven't played a lot of Carcassone, but it was actually something I thought about (in very vague terms) while writing this.
Comments on The Perpetual Train
King Rat, however, I was not so fond of.
Kudos for imagining The Iron Council as a board game. Very intriguing.