Railway Tunnel from Alaska to Siberia

Fantastic idea on SO many levels. North America needs oil and gas from Russia to cut off OPEC at their terrorist knees. The idea of being able to cross over ...to Asia in this way is immensely fascinating and wonderful...in a sense returning to our origins. In essence colonizing and learning to live the north...it's about time...space is more like the polar regions than only other places on Earth. Let's get started!
 
Before a project like this could work, there would need to be a huge amount of infrastructure on both sides. I mean it is not a worthwhile endeavor if there is no logical way to move goods from one hemisphere to an actual destination in the other. Ships and planes are still the best option and probably will be until Alaska, Canada, and Russia have a comprehensive high-speed cargo rail lines.
 
I think the 65 billion would be better spent on keeping the Shuttle's flying.

You could build a WHOLE NEW space station for that mutch.
 
You could also improve shipping or air traffic for 65 million, I can't see why you need rail transport over this strait, if the next bigger city is on both sides far away.
 
Urwumpe said:
Sounds as feasible as damming the Strait of Gibraltar...
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Has anything on this scale ever been attempted? I know about the Afsluitdijk, but there is a large difference between closing the 32km entrance to a shallow (but stormy) sea inlet, and a 85km wide connection between two oceans (Bering Strait), or 14km (Gibraltar).
 
cjp said:
Has anything on this scale ever been attempted? I know about the Afsluitdijk, but there is a large difference between closing the 32km entrance to a shallow (but stormy) sea inlet, and a 85km wide connection between two oceans (Bering Strait), or 14km (Gibraltar).
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No, and the calculations for Gibraltar had been far too optimistic in many aspects, like the number of turbines for producing electricity or the amount and quality of concrete needed to stow the water WITHOUT taking the strong currents in consideration.
 
cjp said:
Has anything on this scale ever been attempted? I know about the Afsluitdijk, but there is a large difference between closing the 32km entrance to a shallow (but stormy) sea inlet, and a 85km wide connection between two oceans (Bering Strait), or 14km (Gibraltar).
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I think better question would be has there been a tunnel or dam built acros unstable tectonic plate boundary where magnitude 9+ earthquakes causing the ground to crack into seperate blocks and shift both horizontally and vertically by multiple meters are reasonably expected.
 
Sky Captain said:
I think better question would be has there been a tunnel or dam built acros unstable tectonic plate boundary where magnitude 9+ earthquakes causing the ground to crack into seperate blocks and shift both horizontally and vertically by multiple meters are reasonably expected.
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There is a tunnel in japan, which does just that - but it is put in rather shallow water, the deepest tunnel ever is about 300m deep.
 
Turbinator said:
I think the 65 billion would be better spent on keeping the Shuttle's flying.
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Heh, it sounds like 'Stop wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, better spent the war money on Soyuz/Progress space program development.':)


Turbinator said:
You could build a WHOLE NEW space station for that mutch.
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The point is that space station, even a whole new one, cannot be used to transfer petroleum and gas.
 
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PeterRoss said:
I seriously doubt that Chukotka region have any decent infrastructure to maintain transport traffic between Alaska and main russian transportation network. There's abolutely no point in such tunnel as far at it leads to nowhere.
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It wouldn't lead anywhere when it was first built, but new cities would spring up to support the transport infrastructure.
 
Building the rail infrastructure on either end would be pocket change compared tot he cost of the overall project. A small city would grow up around each end of the tunnel just to support construction. And the railheads at each end would start off to feed the construction effort.
 
Hm. Let me tell you how I see the whole would-be course of events.

They will not start building the whole thing from the tunnel for starters. They have to build railroad through Yakutia's tundra and Chukotka mountains first. 3500 kilometer 'stretch', as they point it in articles. Single railroad stretch through 3500 km of tundra and mountains, 10-month winter and 2 meter snow coverage, permafrost, coldest of 'inhabited' places on Earth (-68 deg. C., how do you like it?). It's like second BAM, but it would be ten folds troublesome as BAM is/was. There will be no cities in places like that, just small service stations. Noone will want to live there, and still you'll have to maintain 3500 kilometers of snowy/rocky hell. Maintenance cost alone will eat this railroad from inside. There's still no railroad between Kamchatka and mainland. There's no roads on Chukotka at all, save winter roads (wheel-pressed snow). There is an automobile road between Yakutsk and Magadan, the infamous Kolyma highway, it's just a dirt-track, and it's still not connected with main transportation network that is far away at south. Why is it, how do you think? Because it's not worth it. And all these projects about Bering strait tunnel is just some idle talks.
 
I'm wondering how these problems are solved in Alaska and Northern provinces of Canada (if they are solved). Is there a reliable highway (or perhaps, railroad) connection of those regions to Canadian/US mainlands?
 
SiberianTiger said:
I'm wondering how these problems are solved in Alaska and Northern provinces of Canada (if they are solved). Is there a reliable highway (or perhaps, railroad) connection of those regions to Canadian/US mainlands?
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as far as I can see not. The closest US peninsula in the Bering Strait can only be reached by ship.

Building a bigger port at the pacific coast and improving the TransSib might be a better investment for Russia. When that is done, building a tunnel or bridge over the Bering strait would be less unrealistic, since you have a meaningful infrastructure close, at least on one side.

I doubt that you can find enough oil or other resources in this end of the world for making the US build better infrastructure there.

There is a small Airstrip on the US side, but the roads are virtually not existing.
 
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Turbinator said:
I think the 65 billion would be better spent on keeping the Shuttle's flying.

You could build a WHOLE NEW space station for that mutch.
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The money would better be spent on building a sensible replacement for the Shuttle.
 
The money would better be spent on building a sensible replacement for the Shuttle.
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Strike that.

A sensible replacement for the space program... :P
 
Don't they have a bridge to finish before they start talking about tunnels?
 
You mean this one?

BeringStraitBridge01.jpg
 
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