The Largest Infrastructure Project in History: Chinese High-Speed Rail to Europe

Once it's done I'll travel that thing, what a unique perspective on the world it must be to see the landscape and the culture change like that.<p>It's a perspective that no airplane ride will ever give you.

The largest PROPOSED infrastructure project in history would be the Transatlantic Tunnel.<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transatlantic_tunnel" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transatlantic_tunnel</a><p><a href="http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2004-04/trans-atlantic-maglev" rel="nofollow">http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2004-04/trans-atlantic...</a>

This is not a big deal as an engineering project. It's a lot of expensive track-laying, but the obstacles are not as bad as some already conquered elsewhere.<p>Politically, it's basically impossible.

Wow, didn't expect such interest from HN. Seems everyone loves trains. :)<p>Tangentially, what is it about trains anyway? Seems to me they hit the natural sweet-spot of "comprehensible speed" or speed at a near-human scale: not so fast and distant as to be alien like jets, but fast enough to be interesting. Oh, and stress-free compared to driving.

Any map so far ? They have to go through Iran, Russia or a myriad of ex-ussr countries, I can't see how that's gonna work out ...

"Its main connection to Europe would likely go through India, Pakistan and the Middle East. Although, exact routes are not yet determined."<p>Can anyone say "IED derailment at 200kph+"?

Hm, this doesn't really seems to be an attempt to divert passenger traffic from using the planes to some cross-continental HSR. On the other hand, it'd allow China to export much much more goods and much much faster than nowadays with ships [1]. And of course, it would also very much strengthen China's influence in the Middle east and around, as in this area, HSR travel times would be very interesting and provide (in comparison) wonderful connection with China.<p>You wouldn't travel from China to Europe by train even with this, of course. I wonder what would the Russian response be, as they are quite expected to maintain their strong influence in this region, and this isn't exactly going to support that.<p>[1] This is already being done, in a rather small scale.

Hard to make it happen politically. India tried something similar, to get gas from Iran in a pipeline. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Pakistan%E2%80%93India_gas_pipeline" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Pakistan%E2%80%93I...</a> The project has been gestating for the last 20 years with no real movement in the progress meter. And similar to what happened with the pipeline, I expect the US to spring roadblocks all over the place. Even if it cannot convince every country, it will convince enough to ensure gaps in the rail line undermining its usefulness.

With China's minimum wage being around US 60c an hour (<a href="http://bit.ly/6mDBYz" rel="nofollow">http://bit.ly/6mDBYz</a>) they are in a much better position to undertake such a labour intensive job as the West.<p>It is a smart move to receive payment in the form of natural resources as some of the countries involved in the network are economically poor but resource rich. It is likely the countries participating will end up paying a lot more in resources than they would have in cash.<p>It's my opinion that people are mistaken when viewing the proposal in terms of personal transport. It's not. It's a system designed to fuel China's growing demand for resources, which cannot be transported via air. In the other direction will come a high speed flow of manufactured goods.

A trans-North America high speed rail route would be pretty cool. This seems analogous to the way sputnik ignited the space race.

With all the flack airlines and air transport is getting now because of climate change, maybe China can try and sell this is action on that front? Trains are more efficient than airplanes, are they not? (not a rhetorical question)<p>Even so, I doubt this will happen in 10 years.

Any mention of what the route would be? And what's the anticipated travel time from London to China?