THE PRICY CHUNNEL IDEA THAT WON’T GO AWAY

Ever since the nineteenth century and America's purchase of Alaska from Russia, there have been people proposing a bridge or tunnel, or a combination of both, through, under, or over the Bering Strait to link North America and Asia via a direct overland rail route. Indeed, it may have formed part of the "hidden background" to the purchase in the first place, and in my opinion, I suspect it did. But whether it did or not, the project has certainly been on the minds of some prominent people through the years. Colorado's governor Gilpin proposed it in the 19th century, and later on in that century and at the beginning of the 20th century, Tsar Nicholas II himself not only proposed the idea but sponsored some preliminary studies. Others have pointed out the difficulties of rail and road construction (not to mention maintenance) that far North. Anyone who has traveled the few highways of Alaska (as this author has) will tell you that it is a constant problem, as roads are never entirely "finished", but in a constant state of repair and upkeep. And then there's the weather...

... In spite of these difficulties, the idea is still being discussed and studied. But one thing seems certain, any such project would be... well... "pricy". For one thing, the mainline rail networks both of America, Canada, and Russia would have to be extended northward, and in Russia's case, that would be several hundreds of miles through very remote and rugged terrain to connect the network to, and extend the length of, its Trans-Siberian railroad. In Alaska, the railroad link would similarly have to traverse some very rugged terrain from the railheads at Fairbanks and/or Anchorage, and a rail connection to the rest of the continent would have to be surveyed and built through equally rugged terrain in the Yukon and Canadian northwest, and that during a period that many are not even sure those provinces and territories will remain a part of Canada at all. And having built such a rail line, trunk lines and maintenance facilities will have to be built and maintained.

On top of all this, would the maintenance problems of such a link hinder its ultimate profitability, or would the whole project simply prove to be a bottomless money pit of a prestige project, returning little on investment? (More on that in a moment.)  One factor to remember here is that the Russian railroad gauge is different than that of Europe and America, being a full foot wider than the standard gauge in America and Europe. This means trains traveling from Europe into Russia or vice versa must stop, and trade the rolling stock out for stock able to travel on these various gauges. (The reason for the difference is a long story, and need not distract us here. Suffice it to say it was done by Russia in the nineteenth century for ultimately national security and military reasons.)

One of this website's regular readers and article spotters, K.M., found this very intriguing estimate of the costs of building such a rail link, and rather than extend my preliminary commentary any further, I'll just throw the reader into the deep end:

InterBering Project Implementation Estimate

After you're done recovering from the sticker shock on that project - an estimated mere $249, 915, 000, 000.00 (and I suspect that's vastly underestimating some costs by underestimating the difficulty of some of the terrain) - it's important to note a few telltale signs that the project may be a bit more than just wishful thinking or a prestige project. The date of the article (2020) is a bit of a clue, but the other clue is the fact that the study is (or at least, was) being sponsored by a small corporation apparently established for the purpose: The InterBering LLC. A little digging online will show that this small corporation is based in Alaska, and at least as of this writing, still has a functioning website, though a few of its links appear to be broken. Further sniffing around the website will reveal a multitude of articles sponsored by both prominent Alaskan politicians and Russians involved in the project (apparently the CEO of the corporation, at least at one time, was a Russian), and some rather thought-provoking maps are provided, showing hypothetical rail links from El Paso and New York City, via the Bering "chunnel", to Yakutsk on the trans-Siberian, and thence all the way to Paris and London.

But there's a final factor that may indicate the project is more serious than simply wishful thinking. Such a project cannot be built nor completed by robots alone. It will take human muscle to do, and to maintain. And for countries already hard-pressed to maintain employment numbers, it might be an employment "godsend."  Indeed, such a prestige project could easily end up being a "never-completed" but "always employed" sort of thing, not intended to be completed, but a constant money-pit for political cronies to show the world that they "care" and are "doing something" for their people; it would be sort of like Looneyfornia's high speed rail project of many years, and several billions of dollars, and relatively few miles of actual track laid, but on a genuinely gargantuan, global scale.

Or of course, conversely, they could be entirely serious...

And if so, watch that price tag grow like Topsy over the years of its implementation...

See you on the flip side...

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