A rail tunnel linking Russia and the USA?

[kpete]

Could a Russia-US rail tunnel be built?

21 October 2011 Last updated at 19:33 ET Help
Russian officials have backed the idea of a rail tunnel linking Russia and the US.

It would run under the Bering Strait for 105km (65 miles) - twice the length of the UK-France Channel Tunnel.

The tunnel itself has been estimated to cost $10-12bn and to take 10-15 years to build.

But an additional 4,000km (2,485 miles) of new track would be needed to link it to Russia's rail network, plus another 2,000km (1,243 miles) to connect to existing services on the US side.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-15387714

(i think it would be cool, but what would sarah think?)

[formercia]

1. Why would we want a Tunnel to Russia?

Sounds like a White Elephant.

[stevedeshazer]

2. I love it.

I wanna take the train from Portland to Moscow.

But, the new Russo-US Chunnel would go from nowhere to nowhere, roughly Nome to the Diomede Islands to a remote part of Siberia.

That's a tall order.

[Posteritatis]

8. Maine-to-Scotland road trip! (nt)

[stevedeshazer]

11. Why not?

+1

:)

[Maine-ah]

15. sign me up!!

[cloudbase]

3. That kind of money would

build a fleet of ships to take any cargo port to port without having to build another 6,000 km of rail.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

6. That kind of money could bring about renewables and end the peak oil insanity

once and for all.

[begin_within]

4. Who would use it?

[taterguy]

7. People who wanted to go from the US to Russia

And vice versa.

[petronius]

10. Perhaps more likely, people who want to go to/from China

The tunnel itself would be an awesome engineering achievement, but the 1000s of miles of track in hostile environments at both ends would be pretty impressive as well...

[Brother Buzz]

12. Freight and ideas would travel on those rail, too

Hard to measure the value of ides, but I'd like to see them move around just the same.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

5. Ya know, they say the reason some New Yorkers are so depressed is that the light at

the other end of their tunnel is New Jersey.

[Turbineguy]

9. It would run under

Sarah Palin's outhouse!

[NoGOPZone]

13. Can Palin see it from her house? nt

[Fuddnik]

14. This was a brain fart blown by Rev. Sun Myung Moon a few years ago.

It's worse than the bridge to nowhere.