Transatlantic tunnel
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This article or section contains information about a planned or expected future tunnel. It may contain information of a speculative nature and the content may change dramatically as the construction and/or completion of the tunnel approaches, and more information becomes available. |
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The Transatlantic Tunnel is a structure proposed by one of the engineers involved in the construction of the Channel Tunnel beneath the English Channel. It would be a tunnel that spans the Atlantic Ocean between New York City and England; the design calls for this tunnel to be raised above the ocean floor (making it a tube—not a tunnel); this is unlike most tunnels (which are dug out from beneath the floor of a water body), but like the Bay Area Rapid Transit system's Transbay Tube in San Francisco. The tunnel would be a 3,100 mile (5,000 km) long vacuum tube with vactrains (maglev trains) that could travel at speeds up to 5,000 mph (8,000 km/h); at this speed, the travel time between New York and London would be less than one hour. At top speed, the train would travel faster than a bullet fired from a gun. The train would be able to reach such a high speed as a result of the lack of friction and air resistance in this vacuum-sealed environment.
An alternative route that was proposed involved the train going (as a tunnel) from Newfoundland and heading north over the ice sheet of Greenland and across Iceland until it reached Scotland. This route is the cheapest but it is considered to be one of the most difficult due to the adverse weather conditions and ice sheet problems in Greenland, and such a tunnel would lose the vast speed of the mag-lev tube.
In a future time, reductions in the cost of fabrication might make a tunnel of this sort more practical than today.
The Transatlantic Tunnel was featured on Extreme Engineering, a television program on the Discovery Channel.
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[edit] Construction
The Transatlantic Tunnel is proposed to use a submerged floating tunnel which uses the same techniques as that of a submarine. The same idea is also being proposed for cars to use in crossing the fjords in Norway. The tunnel would be held in place by using 100,000 large tethering cables. The tunnel would be built using 54,000 prefabricated sections. The sections would consist of a layer of steel surrounding a layer of foam surrounding another layer of steel. If ever built it would be the largest and most expensive construction project in history.
[edit] Transatlantic tunnels in science fiction
The science fiction concept of a transatlantic tunnel is the subject of several works:
- Der Tunnel, a German novel by the author Bernhard Kellermann, published 1913 in Berlin, see also: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Der_Tunnel (in German)
- The Tunnel, also known as Transatlantic Tunnel, a 1935 British film directed by Maurice Elvey. This film starred American Actor Richard Dix. It is of note that an original poster for this film was catalogued with an estimated value of between $ 2000 - $ 3000 by Heritage Auction Galleries in Dallas in the Summer of 2006.
- A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah! (alternative title Tunnel Through the Deeps), a 1972 alternate history novel by Harry Harrison, set in 1973, with the premise that the American Revolution failed. Captain Augustine Washington and Sir Isambard Brassey-Brunel get together to link the heart of the British Empire with its far-flung Atlantic colony in North America. The book describes a vacuum / maglev system but sitting on the floor of the ocean with a mile-long floating section over a major trench.
- A spoof website that purports to describe a tunnel begun in the early years of the Battle of the Atlantic to provide an alternative means of supplying the war effort in Britain.
