The document proposes building the Siberia Alaska High Speed Rail route connecting North America and Asia. This would allow freight to be shipped quickly between continents via high speed rail and associated pipelines and cables. The project would provide massive employment and faster, cleaner transportation of goods between China, Europe, and North America within days instead of weeks. While expensive at $65 billion, the project is feasible given current traffic volumes and would benefit the economies of countries involved through new jobs and efficient transportation.

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Tindell, Douglas
ENG # 114
January 24, 2015
R. Bridgers
Build the Fast Freight Train
The Siberia Alaska High Speed Rail proposed by Russia should be built. This route
would connect the continent of North America with Asia, and allow freight to be shipped quickly
from almost all continents through a vast network of high speed rail.
The project would be beneficial to the entire world and would give more than one benefit.
These include: massive employment, faster delivery and cleaner more energy efficient
transportation. Also, in addition to the railroad itself, pipelines for oil, natural gas, fiber optic
cables and power transmission lines would also be included. The proposed route is roughly twice
the distance of the existing Chunnel between France and England.
The first reason is obvious, employment. The construction and operation/maintenance of
the connecting line would employ literally thousands of people in both engineering and
construction fields. Our main problem with the economy since the Great Recession is under
employment, the fact that too many of our better educated and skilled workers, managers,
technicians, and engineers are frankly not needed in what has turned into a giant service sector
economy.

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Faster delivery are the next items that make this a worthwhile project. Once constructed
the project will make delivery of goods between China, Europe and elsewhere deliverable to the
United States and vice versa within a days, rather than weeks, like is necessary for ocean freight.
Because the high speed rail is cutting edge technology, the transport model is cleaner
than today’s ocean freightliners. The Daily Mail reports …”just 16 of the world’s largest ships
can produce as much lung-clogging sulfur pollution as all the world’s cars.” The fuel used in
cargo ships in called bunker fuel and is extremely high in particulate pollution, not at all
regulated and refined the way diesel fuel is here in the United States. Though in all fairness there
is a concerted effort to increase fuel efficiency and decrease outputs from cargo ships, mentioned
by the ICCT – “Moving to industry-leading ship efficiency practices could amount to reductions
from business-as-usual efficiency practices of 300 million metric tons of CO2 per year and 2
million barrels of oil per day by 2030”.
The additional benefits of linking both continents with the tunnel would be the ability to
send pipelines for natural gas and oil, both commodities that Canada, the USA and Russia have
and export regularly. This could provide an alternate to the large ships now carrying these fuels
across our oceans, which have caused rare but massive oil spills in the past. The same passage
could also serve as a land line linking the transport of wind energy from the upper reaches of
Canada to Asia, though this is not a benefit touted.
The proposed project has already been approved by the Russian Government and is
estimated to cost around sixty five billion dollars, with the tunnel under the Bering Straight
estimated to be around 12 billion by itself. Although this would be one of the largest
infrastructure projects built to date, it is not necessarily using new or even outlandish technology.
The tunnel itself can be built two ways, either tunnel boing or precast concrete sections lowered

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to the bottom of the straight. Turkey built such a precast tunnel as reported by the Wall Street
Journal... “The Marmaray is the world's deepest immersed rail tunnel, consisting of 8.5 miles of
concrete and steel tubes, with one nearly mile-long portion stretching along the seabed at a depth
of more than 200 feet”. Other than the large scale of the project, the question of feasibility is
would the rail link and its pipelines and transmissions cables be sufficiently used? Consider that
the USA sent 111,792.5 million dollars of freight to China in 2014 (not counting December) and
they sent the USA 426,125 million dollars in the same time period. I believe the traffic volume is
there, also considering the trip would be significantly shorter in time than the 14 days of travel
the average container ship takes to cross the Pacific.
The many advantages to the economies involved – China, Russia, Canada, and the US –
to build, maintain and operate the line are great ones. Americans need these kind of jobs, real
jobs that pay well, from welders to engineers. Then the benefit of quick and efficient moving of
freight around the world makes this a worthwhile project. The Siberian Alaska High Speed Rail
is a great project and would elevate what we humans see ourselves as capable of.

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References
Mitchler, Andrew (8/23/2011). Russia Green Lights $65 Billion Siberia-Alaska Rail and Tunnel
to Bridge the Bering Strait! Inhabitant Design will save the world. Retrieved from
http://inhabitat.com/russia-green-lights-65-billion-siberia-alaska-rail-and-tunnel-to-bridge-the-
bering-strait/
Pearce, Fred (11/21/2009). How 16 ships create as much pollution as all the cars in the world.
Daily Mail.com. Retrieved from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1229857/How-
16-ships-create-pollution-cars-world.html
Wang, Haifeng and Lutsey, Nic (07/23/2013). Long-Term Potential for Increased Shipping
Efficiency. The International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT). Retrieved from
http://www.theicct.org/long-term-potential-increased-shipping-efficiency
Peker, Emre (10/29/2013). Symbol of Turkey’s Ambition Opens Underground. The Wall Street
Journal. Retrieved from
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303471004579165011037419846
Author not stated (2014). Trade in Goods with China. United States Census Bureau. Retrieved
from https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/c5700.html