China-US high speed rail

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As HSR, the idea makes no economic sense at all under the current circumstances while a freight line is a smidgen more rational. NYP to London would be a cool, albeit a very long rail trip.
 
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As soon as we perfect the technology of anchored floating underwater tubes ...... :p the trip time to London could be cut down considerably, specially if it is an evacuated tube. ;)

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Just-Thinking-51 said:
Sorry just one person pipe dream. Not even a government idea.

I love to see it done, but the politics would be a nightmare. Direct link to China.

Also the tunnel a no go in that area, a bridge is possible. (No ready source, but I do recall)
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I don't know who is saying the bridge is possible / tunnel impossible. Seems like it would more likely be the other way around.

The idea of this crossing seems to resurface at multi-year intervals. There was a discussion on a bridge in a Popular Science some 20 to 40 years ago. Sorry, I can't be more precise than that. There have been a couple of discussions on tunnels as well. One was written by a tunnel engineer, so as far as the tunnel itself went it was pretty good. His concept of connecting it up to the rest of the world left a lot to be desired. What was taken away from his article, which I read in an American Railway Engineering Association bulletin, was that the tunnel was quite feasible technically.

When you think sea ice, etc., the tunnel seems to be a much more viable alternative.

A little look at maps at scale should case these 100 mile plus ideas to go away. The distance is roughly 27 miles from Cape Wales, Alaska to the shore of Little Diomede island, about 6 miles from the east shore of Little Diomede Island to the west shore of Big Diomede Island and another roughtly 27 miles from there to the tip of the Siberian Penninsula., totally roughly 60 miles shore to shore. thanks to the mid channel islands, you have only about 30 miles between access points, which is very close to the English Channel tunnel length.

Should the transportation need for this facility develop, it can be built, but I cannot see any reason to get in a hurry to do it. There are many transportation projects that are far higher in priority than this one.

Given the relative economics of ocean shipping I would consider it highly unlikely that there would be much, if any, demand for use of this railroad at a rate that would cover or even come close to covering its operating expense, much less capital costs.
 
George Harris said:
Just-Thinking-51 said:
Sorry just one person pipe dream. Not even a government idea.

I love to see it done, but the politics would be a nightmare. Direct link to China.

Also the tunnel a no go in that area, a bridge is possible. (No ready source, but I do recall)
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I don't know who is saying the bridge is possible / tunnel impossible. Seems like it would more likely be the other way around.
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I think a lot of that comes from the erroneous belief that this line would have to cross a subduction zone. I've had to correct a number of folks on a couple of other discussion boards (as well as inducing my first post on Trains magazine's Newswire comments) by pointing out the locations of the Aleutian Trench and Bering Strait, as well as mentioning that this line would be firmly on the North American Plate long before it left Russia.

---PCJ
 
There was a 6 page paper, 3 of them pictures by G. Koumal, titled the Interhemispheric Bering Strait Tunnel & Railroad publisned in American Railway Engineering Association Bulletin No. 748, December 1994, which became part of the AREA's Proceedings Volume 95 (1994). Mr. Koumal was described as being the President of Engineering Technology International U. S. Inc.

His opening statement is that there have been proposals for a tunnel here to as far back as 1849. Yes, that is eighteen forty-nine.

He gives an underwater distance of 52.2 miles from Alaska to Siberia, that including the distance under the Diomede islands. Among his other point is that the maximum depth of channel is 174 feet and the bottom of competent granite and limestone. He estimated a tunnel cost of $9 billion in 1986 dollars, with another $27 billion for the railroad lines to connect it to the rest of the world. I cannot comment on his tunnel cost estimate, other than to wonder if he considered remote location issues, but his railroad construction costs appear to be more appropriate to Kansas, that is wildly optomistic.

Anyone interested in reading this, send me an email address than can take an email with attachments and I will send a scan of it. the Plan-Profile sheet is so condensed as to be illegible, but otherwise, it can be read OK.
 
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George Harris said:
WOW!! Thanks, CHamilton. This has far more detail that the little article I referenced.

I still tend to regard it as way off into dreamland, but this source at least is doing some coherent dreaming.
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The Channel Tunnel was first proposed in Napoleon's day. It took almost 200 years to become reality.

The daydreams of today may be feasible tomorrow. But if we don't daydream them first, we will never build them.
 

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