I asked a UK rail group for information about the railways of the UK. One of our British friends asked me for “Stateside information on the Bering Tunnel”. A quick search and I found a website about a optomistic plan to build a tunnel between Alaska and Siberia and to connect the Eastern Hemisphere with the Western Hemisphere by rail.
So, in the spirit of cooperation with one of our closest allies, does anyone have any information on this project?
I know GWB was thinking about it, but he decide to “REFORM” SSI instead.
Why build one? Intermodal container ships are much cheaper and avoid all the permafrost issues. Because rail guages are not compatible.
dd
http://whynot.net/view_idea.php?id=1695
http://www.arctic.net/~snnr/tunnel/
http://home.att.net/~Berliner-Ultrasonics/strunnel.html
http://www.pressbox.co.uk/Detailed/7777.html
http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2002/2908ibero_ldbge.html
ttp://www.alaskahistoricalsociety.org/Cole%20bridge%20to%20Siberia.htm
These links should give you a start on your little project. As you can see, it is something that has been discussed from time to time, most recently during the 1990s with the fall of Soviet Russia.
Seems like there is a question of traffic. Alaska Air flew from Anchorage into Soviet territory during Yeltson’s time, but there was almost no freight or passengers. They don’t have the route anymore. They used a DC9 and sometimes a 737.
Ships are slow. Manufacturers of high value goods can free up a lot of capital if they can get the products to market quicker.
The incompatibility of gauge is minor compared to the problems of tunnelling across tectonic plate boundaries.
Hugh, I hate to be a “nay-sayer”, but train speeds in that part of the world are slower than a tramp steamer and you are also adding about 4 thousand miles to the trip. The engineering is doable. The economics are not.
That area is prone to severe earthquales. I can’t imagine it is very feasible. You’d build one heck of an expensive tunnel for questionable amounts of traffic only to have it collapse in a few years.
It would be a matter more of railroading prestige. Frits let us connect Alaska for gosh sakes! That at least is doable and should have the traffic to justify it.
I would say this is more fantasy then fact as I would suspect due to the past relationship between Russia & us as well as the weaknesses that now exist in the “new” Russia this project will not come to fruitation.
It only took about 150 years from the first attempt at the Channel Tunnel to get to the project completed. I’m not going to hold my breath on the Bering Strait Tunnel.
dd
Thanks to all, including Topeka Railfan! This is your U.K. correspondent who started the Bering tunnel inquiry, with modern technology, earthquake and change of guage problems should be surmountable…
A rail trip Chinnor (Oxfordshire) to Chicago or Newquay (Cornwall) to New York appeals to me…
Also, talking of new technology, why not re-open Key West, making it storm proof? As to one of your correspondents suggesting old lines be made into truck roads, DONT LET EM DO IT… we lost between a third and half of our railways because of negative thinking in 1965 onwards, now they are regretting it… If Dubya tries anything like that in the States, let all rail staff call a unanimous general strike in protest, like we should have done. The world`s oil reserves are running out… rail is the only mass transport viable for the future!
Why not buod a bridge instead of a tunnel?
There was an idea for a polar route railroad as the long dreamed of Northwest Passage. Thanks to global warming, the Northwest Passage is opening to shipping. Ice breakers are required for some of it but the whole passage is almost ice free.
1979
2003
That’s in the works, but the major problem is the ice flows hitting the pylons, but then again, the guy designing it says he’s overcome that. I saw a show in the history channel about this, the bridge si to be immense, 3 layers, top would be sesonal road traffice (can’t drive cars on it in the harsh winter), second level would be a semi-pressurized railway (4 tracks i believe), third layer would be a natural gas/oil pipeline system. but then who could afford the massive costs to build it?
Who is going to pay for it? Maybe we can take the money from Amtrak?
How about connecting Alaska by rail with the rest of North America first? Might make a better economic case for the thing to be built. (I think a bridge makes for a better solution viewing the geophysical description of the region)
Particularly since it would never make back the money invested in it. You’ll see Gibraltar and the Strait of Messina bridged centuries before the Bering Strait is.
If a link over the Bering Strait cost the same per kilometer as the Øresund Bridge from Denmark to Sweden, it would run a little over $90 billion.
At least the Oresund bridge & Messina bridges are in, road & rail, and are working; all European nations, Asia, as well as Canada & The United States should all pay equally for a Bering tunnel or bridge, as the freight benefits would more than justify it all; let`s go for it!
Thanks also to the correspondent who listed the websites re. all this, the last one with the guage difference overcome by off-set four rail layout is most interesting.
Railfans abroad might also be interested in www.heritagerail.com website, as to the diificulties faced in the U.K. in putting back all the missing rail links; there are now over a 100 companies and growing, not just for enthusiasts, but for social needs. where the road transport is inadequate, or non-existant. Let the U.S. railroads not fall into the same trap!
A Bering Strait tunnel definitely has a Russian flavor to it, the Russians have always dreamed of or attempted projects on a heroic scale. However, it looks good on paper but has absolutely no economic justification since it would be a middle with no ends (apologies to fans of Pacific Great Eastern).