Part of this proposal may be attributed to the Russian psyche. Ever since the time of Peter the Great and quite possibly even earlier, Russians have proposed engineering projects of all sorts on a heroic scale. Many of them are quite impractical and never get beyond the proposal, but Russians have long dared to dream BIG!
Isn’t this like the 5th time this subject has been posted here?
I distinctly remember replying this very same topic being posted at least 3 time before in as many years. Each time its get shot down for all the obvoius reasons, safety, cost, building in an active volcano zone, yet it seams this crazy idea gets resurrected every year by some magazine over and over again.
I think the only thing that will ever happen is anyone stupid enough to invest in this scheme will lose their shirt, pants and socks doing so.
Did anyone bother to mention theirs not a railroad within a 1000 miles of the Bering Sea on EITHER side of it???
Deatils, details…Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.[:o)]
The geology of the specific region is relatively stable and wouldn’t make such an undertaking prohibitive.
Different gauges would not be a factor because there would certainly be customs/transfer ports on both ends. It would not be seamless service.
The remoteness of the region is certainly a huge prohibitive factor.
http://www.alaskajournal.com/stories/082602/foc_bering_dream.shtml
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bering_Strait_bridge
My take is that the costs wouldn’t justify such an undertaking for a couple hundred years. (Still beating the Cubs to the World Series.) [(-D] But by then, we may have mastered teleportation technology. This would effectively render such a connection obsolete, as it would most current means of transportation.
http://discovermagazine.com/2008/mar/teleportation-very-possible-next-up-time-travel
Lets see:
Phase 1 Billionaire proposes mega project offers to fund part
Phase 2 Governments jump on board and add Billions
Phase 3 Impraciticality is uncovered and project cancelled
Phase 4 Billionaire pockets vast sums of government mo ey and donates some to politicians war chests
Phase 5 Taxpayers get screwed yet again
Since the total cost of such an undertaking would probably be 10-20 times what this guy is worth, it does raise the question as to what his angle might be. He wouldn’t be doing this to lose money, and he certainly would be throwing away his money by actually funding it.
As for taxpayers getting screwed, that’s nothing new. The government has already wasted enough money in recent years to fund this project many times over.
Well just remember the public dismay and outcry over the much smaller “bridge to nowhere” fiasco recently, now imagine it 1000 fold for any politician stupid enough to try to champion this in congress today.[:O]
The amount of traffic would require double and triple track. Locating facilities on the route and getting people to work there is interesting. Anyone know if the old PGE route that was never laid with track could handle multiple tracks?
Of course this guy is Russian(and close to Putin?) and given that US-Russian relations are at about the lowest point they’ve been since the height of the cold war I don’t think the American taxpayer has much to worry about…In addition you know that the green lobby will scream about the proposal…it’s stillborn from the US end.