Russia Approves Siberia-Alaska Railway

An anonymous reader writes "In what could easily be one of the boldest infrastructure developments ever announced, the Russian Government has given the go-ahead to build a transcontinental railway linking Siberia with North America. The massive undertaking would traverse the Bering Strait with the world's longest tunnel – a project twice the length of the Chunnel between England and France. The project aims to feed North America with raw goods from the Siberian interior and beyond, but it could also provide a key link to developing a robust renewable energy transmission corridor that feeds wind and tidal power across vast distances while linking a railway network across 3/4 of the Northern Hemisphere."

But what...

[MischaNix]

do I watch instead of Ice Road Truckers?

Re:But what...

[Anonymous Coward]

Anything less gay?

Re:Russia approves?

[Hatta]

Increasing trade grows the economy and increases revenue. You really do have to spend money to make money.

Re:The Palin/Putin Connector

[Penguinisto]

That would be cool as hell, but damn... you'd better be single.

I say this because when you're single, long road trips are liberating, exciting, and just plain damned fun. Marriage and kids turn that idea into a grueling endurance run, complete with large numbers of restroom, tourist-trap, and restaurant stops.

Then again, Siberia would be an excellent place to hide a body, no?

Re:Total Nonstarter in the US.

[Dr. Spork]

I doubt that this would make shipping cheaper than it is now. In fact, I expect it to be far more expensive than the current cargo ships. One big difference is that it will be a lot faster and it will route around the unionized dock workers. Regarding speed and tonnage capacity, a lot depends on the rest of the North American railway net, which would need serious upgrading to accommodate all the new cargo. As it stands now, the idea of building a railroad link between Alaska and Canada is being "studied". (link [alaskacanadarail.com]) So long as that remains, this would be the ultimate tunnel to nowhere.

Re:Total Nonstarter in the US.

[antifoidulus]

#2 it involves rail. Yes, freight-rail primarily, which has some presence in the US. But there's no way that the US will build the kind of rail network that will link a tunnel on the far-western side of Alaska with the rest of the US in order to import Russian goods.

You best be checking your facts there. Freight rail has more than "some" presence in the US, the US probably has the worlds most advanced freight rail system in the WORLD. From 'kipedia [wikipedia.org]

In the 1950s, the U.S. and Europe moved roughly the same percentage of freight by rail; but, by 2000, the share of U.S. rail freight was 38% while in Europe only 8% of freight traveled by rail.

Its because of the US freight rail system that you can buy cheap Chinese goods in New York, shipping them by truck would cost considerably more. Not even worth reading the rest of your post, you obviously have NO idea what you are talking about.

Re:Russia approves?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody in the world is more broke than we are. The USA is deeper in the hole than any country has ever been in history.

In absolute dollars, yes. In debt as a fraction of GDP (so, scaled for size of economy), the US has less debt than the average for the world at large, and is significantly below the average for industrialized countries.