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China plans 13,000km rail link with America


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China is hoping to link up the two countries with a land route that would pass beneath the Bering Strait.

The extremely ambitious project would result in an uninterrupted railway line from Beijing all the way to the US via a route that would take it across Russia and underneath the ocean.

Read More: http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/news/283579/china-plans-13000km-rail-link-with-america

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Don't do it. Sounds like the way a nuclear device would arrive on US soil, with no one claiming it.

I must be having a tinfoil hat day.

Edited by MindfieldzX
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In some thousands years away, people will look back at our civilisation and the two greatest things ever done would be the great pyramid and this tunnel.

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A "built in China" tunnel under the ocean? You'll never find me riding this train

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Some contractor and some politician are about to make heaps of money together..

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Hmmm..... a tunnel all the way from Beijing Barracks, into the heart of America.

EXCELLENT idea.

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It would be pretty smart though, I mean think of how much goods travel from China to the US. It can take weeks to get here because it needs to come by boat, or by plane (which is expensive). We depend on China so much for stuff, that linking the countries would be an economic miracle.

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The project have been around since the Czars' days and have been surfacing every now and then since the end of cold war. There was indeed words the Chinese are interested in founding the project since a few years, but we are far from anything concrete, and by far, I mean there are thousands of kilometers of rails to be made in the mountains, both in Siberia and in British Columbia, Yukon plus Alaska, that will probably cost more than the tunnel itself. And without it, they'll have a fancy tunnel from nowhere Siberia to nowhere Alaska. The rail to Tibet look like child play in comparison.

Anyway, the Russian government seem interested to extend its rails in that direction. The first part to Yakutsk was made under Medvedev's presidency and they are project to continue to Magadan and beyond in the coming dacades.

The Rail Transport Development Strategy in the Russian Federation to 2030 provides for the further development of rail infrastructure in Yakutia and the Magadan region by constructing a strategic railway line from Nizhny Bestyakh [Yakutsk] to Magadan.

In the longer term, it is also planned to integrate the Chukotka and Kamchatka regions of Russia’s northeast into the country’s railway network.

http://eng.rzd.ru/newse/public/en?STRUCTURE_ID=15&print=1&refererLayerId=4530&layer_id=5127&id=105816

On the American side, Alaska and Yukon are all for a extension of the railways to their territory and beyonds, but Harper's government is not interested, so nothing will be done until another party win the elections.

Fentie made the connection between sovereignty and projects like the Alaska Highway gas pipeline and the proposed Alaska-Yukon rail link during his opening speech at a dinner in Harper’s honour Wednesday evening.

He also raised it with Harper during their private discussions, he said.

But while Fentie’s efforts fit nicely within Harper’s worldview, benefits for the Yukon do not appear on the immediate horizon.

Following Harper’s visit, both the pipeline and rail link remain lower on Ottawa’s priority list than the Yukon’s.

http://yukon-news.com/news/arctic-sovereignty-equals-yukon-infrastructure-fentie

Meanwhile, Alaska have been pushing its rail towards Canada up to Delta Junction, but at that pace, it will take another century before they make it.

Both railways, the Siberia and the Yukon-Alaska ones could be made within a decade, but there would need political and financial will to back them up.

And we haven't even talked of the gauge break headache. I'm sure the Chinese, if they financing it, would like the tunnel and leading rails to be on standard gauge (which is the gauge used in China, North America, Europe and Middle-East), but Russian will insist on Russian gauge since the rails will be leading to Russian rails West of the tunnel anyway. But China would want a standard gauge line all the way from its own standard network to the North American network, cutting unnecessary delay. It can take another century just to sort the diplomacy over the details. Unless China annex Siberia.

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For the moment, it would be very complicated to send a nuclear bomb or troops using rails. There is the break of gauge, like I explained on my last post, and there's also a conversion problem between the electric locomotive network in Europe/China and the diesel locomotive in North America. Plus, there will be only one railroad up to the Canadian border, as there are only one road... It would probably be easier to send the bomb or troops by boat cargo. At least you get in important cities right away. But let me explain all the hurdles one by one.

Let's start with the track gauge. Back in the days of early rails, country rulers have foreseen the possible invasion from not always friendly neighbors and therefore, chose the strategy to make there own country rails' tracks larger or narrower than the next, so they will have to take a break and change car or lorry before they cross the border (which should leave enough time for the other nation to get what's going on and close the border). With the tunnel, Russian will need to change from their gauge to the standard one to be able to use the Alaskan rails. Chinese will need to change from Standard gauge at home, to Russian gauge when they cross the border, then standard again in Alaska. You don't normally use the same wagons and loco to jump from one gauge to another. There are gadget to do that, but they are costy and often faulty, the industry don't use then normally and you'll be suspicious by just using them. And of course, since most train will need a change of lorry, there will have a break of gauge station and if Americans are careful enough there should be one at the American end of the tunnel. If the security protocols are right, that's as far as the nuclear bomb or troops will get.

The, locos. Europe, Russia, China and many others use electric locos which need tramcar cables over the rails. On the other hand, North America works with diesel locos. The advantage of the first is you ca go high speed, the advantage of the second is you can stack two containers on each lorry. If Americans are wise, they will change the loco at a station at their end the tunnel, making impossible to just make a dual loco and go on, unnoticed and unsuspicious.

Then even if they clear the check point, there will be a single rail from nowhere, Alaska, to the Canadian border and probably further than that. It's very easy to cut, block or air strike the tracks before the bombs or troops get anywhere sensible. And since it's a train, if there's no rails, there's no way. And even if they had a dual loco, which can turn into a road truck, there is a grand total of ONE road which lead from Alaska to Canada, once again easy to cut, block or air strike.

Then on a top of it, the tunnel will be from Siberia to Alaska. Even on summer the night temperature easily get bellow freezing point. Well bellow the freezing point. And we are not even talking of winter nights. The send troops discretely will be hard, unless you dress them as tourists in a tourist train. But you can just do the same in airports with the average passenger plane, with the added bonus of being some where useful when the Americans will get that they are not tourists. A combination of cargo boat with a tourist airplane will get you further than the train up in the North.

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Plus, once you cross the Canadian border, you are still days away from any worthwhile target. Unless you plan to nuke Vancouver or the tar sand deposits, you are still far from your potential goal (which are mainly on East Coast). There are still so many ways to catch the doomtrain and so many places to make it explode far into the countryside, to temper the damages.

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Don't do it. Sounds like the way a nuclear device would arrive on US soil, with no one claiming it.

I must be having a tinfoil hat day.

I wonder who will send the first nuke on the train.

China have ICBM's and SLBM's if they ever seriously wanted to attack the US.

Can anyone come up with a scenario where China would benefit from nuking the US, with a nuke on a train ?

In any event this is unlikely to happen anytime soon and I can't really see how the enourmous costs of building a railway through some of the most difficult terrain imaginable is ever going to be cost-effective ?

Then of course there is the less than friendly relationship between the US and Russia to consider aswell.

Sorry, its not going to happen.

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For the cost effectiveness, there are quite a few valuable minerals to dig, both in Siberia and in Alaska, that would pay for a part of the expense. Plus, the line would be in the exact axis of the shortest distance between United States and China (map are misleading, check out with a globe or google map on satellite version). The Bering train would be a faster than boat cheaper than plane mean of transportation, which would be perfect for a large categories of goods. I have no doubt that it will be made some day, but it could well only happen in the 22nd century.

As for transporting people, I don't think this kind of long distance trip will ever become trendy. Planes are more efficient. Unless they start a kind of "land cruise", but that will probably be a lot more expensive than the average sea cruise.

Anyway, right now, the main problems are political. From USA and Canada who doesn't seem interested in developing the rail in their northern territories, to Russia antagonizing foreign policy and China's lack of power over what's going on North (even though their are involved in expansion of rails in almost every continent).

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