It could link the UK and the US in less than an hour.
What if you could travel under an hour between the USA and the UK—it would seem like a dream, but it could become a reality.
Ambitious proposals to build a Transatlantic Tunnel would connect New York and London in a way that has never been done before.
The quickest way to get between NYC and London right now is by air, which usually takes about eight hours.
Cutting that journey time to a mere 54 minutes is tantalizing, but would be phenomenally expensive.
The proposed Transatlantic Tunnel would span 3,400 miles and would be estimated to cost $19.8 trillion. Because of the project’s massive scale, the sheer amount of work required to build such an extensive tunnel is believed to take decades to complete.
To put that in perspective, the Channel Tunnel, which links England and France, is only 23.5 miles long and took six years to build.
So, how would this work?
A few ideas on the table include having the tunnel built beneath the seabed or floated above the Atlantic Ocean.
In the next case, the tunnel could be held up by cables, thereby bypassing the problem of building directly under the ocean.
But thanks to vacuum technology, it’s thought that trains could travel through this tunnel at speeds of more than 3,000 mph, and the journey time would be less than an hour.
Another suggestion involves jet propulsion, where engine thrust is produced by a high-speed jet of fluid. But this method would take about 18 minutes of deceleration to land safely.
These proposals are interesting, but neither the US nor the UK governments has any plans, right now, to go ahead with such a project.
Technology, though, is advancing, so it’s still a possibility in the future.
But, as many Reddit users have argued, the tunnel would likely be astronomically priced if it were ever built.
“Perhaps more relevant than technical issues, at that cost, the price for a ticket would be astronomical (ironic?) to get any return in a reasonable timescale,” said one user.
Some pointed to the massive financial challenges, one saying, “It would be insane up front.” ‘Enough that would bankrupt every government in the world,’ we’re talking.’
They also said the tunnel would never recoup the costs, with any savings in air or sea transport likely to be outweighed by the annual upkeep. And for many, this would still be a journey too far for a train, and air would still be preferable to many, and sea freight would be cheaper.
