International Railroad Discussion > Bering Strait Tunnel - Capacity calculations

While not possible with the present international situations, with a long term (say  2045 or later) optimistic view of history it is interesting to consider the possibility of a connection between the railways of North America and Asia via a tunnel under the Bering Strait, say between Edmonton in Canada, far eastern Siberia, and Harbin in China, a distance of about 5400 miles. The Bering Strait is near a straight great circle line between these points..  Initial studies were made for such a line in 1992 (American Railway Engineering Asssociation Bulletin Volume 93, No. 736, May 1992). My understanding is that about 10 or 15 years ago the cost of such a double-track railroad and the tunnel was roughly estimated at 130 billion US dollars.  Depending on Russian preferences, various technologies could be possible for handling the difference between the Russian track gauge of 5 feet and the standard gauge (4' 8 1/2") used in North America and China.  While the length of the tunnel would be about 63 miles, there are two islands in the Strait such that the longest continuous underwater distance would be no greater than the English Channel Tunnel.

Just to give an idea of the capacity of such a railroad, present container traffic coming into US ports from all foreign origins has been averaging around 74,000 TEU's per day.  A TEU is a Twenty foot Equivalent Unit.  A 40-ft container is 2 TEU's.  Two 53  foot containers would be 5.3 TEU's. How does this compare with the traffic that can be handled daily in one direction on a double track railroad?  A double-stack container train with 250 platforms could carry 1325 TEU's, which would be 56 trains/day, or about one every 25 minutes, well within the single-direction capabilities of a dedicated double-track rail line.

Interesting to consider, or just an idle dream?

Pretty active earthquake fault area that the tunnel would have to cross.

I did a paper / study on this about 20 years ago when I was with Alaska RR. In those days there was still lots of talk and even activity related to connection of the AKRR to the lower 48.

I thought maybe I still had a copy of the paper, but if I do, I can't find it. Even at that time the period of glasnost or whatever had passed, so politically it was not possible. 

Beyond that, the big problem was that it didn't work out logistically as related to traffic flows and cost-wise was far too expensive of a transport mode compared to direct port to port via marine service. It would be many miles from the industrialized regions of Russia to even get to the Bering Sea, then many miles of hard to operate and maintain railroad to even get through Alaska and to the Canadian border, then to get Canada to build a line to connect with their existing network. Factor in some other Asian trade, Japan, China, Korea to enhance the capacity and it still didn't work out economically. A cool idea for sure, but an economic deadend. Then too the many technical issues, some of which have been studied for years; related to cold, earthquakes and permafrost. 

The idea was far from new in 2006 - 2007 and I had the benefit of many studies, economically, commerically and engineering. 

Even the dream of connecting the Alaska RR to the lower 48 has died off. I think we spent a bizillion dollars with NEPA and environmental stuff and finally built a bridge out in nowhere land outside Fairbanks somewhere, I don't recall. I was in several meetings related to it, that was all. If natural resources in the Yukon, Northwest Territory and British Columbia were substantially to be developed , it might make more sense. Otherwise, traffic flow into Alaska is very light and it it would take too many miles of unproductive railroad to bring those goods in as opposed to the barges for a Alaska - Canada - Lower 48 link.

Some studies have combined a railroad with a highway ... "someday drive to Moscow or Paris or Berlin" .... I doubt that "someday" will ever come.

 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/02/25 16:59 by train1275.

PHall Wrote:
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> Pretty active earthquake fault area that the
> tunnel would have to cross.

The Bering Strait is not as active a seismic zone in comparison to other areas such as parts of Japan, Alaska and the Kamchatka Penninsula in Russia.  The Strait is also no deeper at the tunnel site than the English Channel.at that tunnel.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/02/25 18:57 by LTCerny.

It might change if China reclaims a big chunk of
western Russia. The only thing holding them back
is Russia's nukes. But if Russia cicles the drain
further and collapses, economically and then 
politically, then that would change everything. 

train1275 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I did a paper / study on this about 20 years ago
> when I was with Alaska RR.
>
> Even at that time
> the period of glasnost or whatever had passed, so
> politically it was not possible. 
>
> Beyond that, the big problem was that it didn't
> work out logistically as related to traffic flows
> and cost-wise was far too expensive of a transport
> mode compared to direct port to port via marine
> service. It would be many miles from the
> industrialized regions of Russia to even get to
> the Bering Sea, then many miles of hard to operate
> and maintain railroad to even get through Alaska
> and to the Canadian border, then to get Canada to
> build a line to connect with their existing
> network. Factor in some other Asian trade, Japan,
> China, Korea to enhance the capacity and it still
> didn't work out economically. A cool idea for
> sure, but an economic deadend. Then too the many
> technical issues, some of which have been studied
> for years; related to cold, earthquakes and
> permafrost. 
>
Thanks to train1275 for informative input to this issue.  Three elements of an all-rail Bering Strait routing from interior points in Russia or China to Interior points in the US (for example Beijing-Chicago) include that it would save two land-water transfers. Because of the Great Circle route the distance would be shorter and, thirdly, rail speeds can be much higher than those of large container ships.  Regarding the advantages of a great circle routing via a Bering Strait tunnel, I was astounded to find, for example, that the shortest overland distance between Acapulco, Mexico and Mumbai, India (assuming the tunnel and other land infrastructure existed) was shorter than the shortest all-water route even though those two end points are so far south.

Beyond an economic justification, if the world political situation woud ever become harmonious, the project might be thought of as justified as a symbol of that harmony.  The tunnel and adjacent rail infrastructure could carry highway traffic similar to what is done under the English Channel.  My understanding is that the present combined annual military expenditures of The US, China, Russia, and Canada (the four nations that would be directly involved with the project) are about 1200 billion (1.2 trillion) US dollars.  Even if we assume the previous estimate of 130 billion has doubled to 260 billion US dollars and that the project would take 12 years to build, 260 billion would be less than 2 per cent of  present military expenditures during 12 years.

Anyway, it's something for grandchildren of us old guys to think about.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/05/25 08:45 by LTCerny.