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Spain, Morocco To Build Undersea Rail Tunnels
DoraLives writes "The BBC reports that Spain and Morocco 'have agreed to build a 39-kilometre rail tunnel beneath the Mediterranean Sea, to link Europe and Africa.' and that 'This plan could be put into action as early as next year...' Fairly daunting technical piece of work should they attempt it, but the prospect of an all-rail trip from Edinburgh to Tangiers is intriguing to say the least."
Now a tunnel across the Mediteranian is not going to work. First off, Tangiers is not exactly what I would call a "business" destination. Nor is Spain. You have to dig pretty deep on the African continent to find anywhere a typical European traveler would be going. Perhaps I am missing a pent up demand for travel from Africa. It didn't RTFA.
The next problem is travel time. Sure a ride from spain to Morroco would be a lot quicker via Train. A trip from France to Morroco a bit less so. From Scottland to Morrocco... well, only for the folks who want to do it because they can.
Finally I would like to note that the 2 countries involved are still involved in a few territorial spats. That is not a recipe for success on a multi-billion dollar project.
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Where did you get that?
I mean I'm no authority on it.. but Morocco is not really one of the "terorrist hotspots" of the muslim world..
The King has been very adamant about keeping muslim fundamentalists out of the country. The chiefly muslim population of Morocco are indeed very muslim, wear traditional garb, etc, but are not fundamentalist weirdos.. they respect others, other religions, and generally don't hate westerners.
Aside from being poor, Morocco was a neat place to visit, and the people were surprisingly well educated about world politics and geography, considering the poverty levels.
The ministry said that a joint Spanish and Moroccan committee of officials had already agreed a preliminary three-year plan of works to start as early as next year, with an estimated initial cost of $30m.
Er, "m" in Europe/Africa is 1e6, right? I can't imagine what sort of "preliminary three-year plan of works" in such an Herculean effort could be done for a mere $30 million.
Look at the big dig in Boston -- a relatively easy task (shorter by far, at least) with initial estimates of $4billion (I think) and 40-50% overruns, I can't imagine much more than breaking ground on either end of this proposed gargantuan tunnel getting done for $30m.
everything in moderation
Why is the parent modded up so highly? The distance between Spain and Morocco is only nine miles (14 kilometers) at the narrowest point. The Chunnel between England and France is 31 miles long, 23 of which are underwater. This doesn't seem so impractical.
Oops!
So man redundant links and not a one has a picture of where the tunnel will be located. :(
Can anyone find one? This is the best detail I could find.
(Does anyone else get the impression that almost the only maps available online are all stolen from the CIA World Factbook? Information Superhighway my ass...)
I suspect this is because neither country has a reputation (deserved or not) for incredible timeliness or efficiency.
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The challenge to this lies not in refugees or economics but in engineering.
The deepest tunnel currently is in Japan and is 100m below a 140m channel. Engineering a tunnel 240m down is seriously non-trivial, and Japan is seriously hooked-in when it comes to engineering. Spain and Morocco, really have no hope of pulling this off without outsourcing the whole deal.
The tunnel would need to be 300m + 100m below sea level (1/4 mile). That depth presents numerous difficulties with removing seep water, air density, and a host of other things. The geology is not nearly as receptive to a tunnel as it was for the chunnel engineers and they'll find that it's much, much more difficult cutting through than the chalk that is present beneath the English Channel.
This is easily an order of magnitude more difficult to build than the chunnel was. I'd be surprised if it's ever built.
The EU keeps Turkey out of the EU, in large part because Turkey is a Muslim country...
Actually, it has much more to do with Turkey's incredibly poor record on human rights. A few years ago during the Danish Presidency, the European Council issued a set of requirements called the Coppenhagen Criteria, which basically made up a laundry list of minor atrocities perpetrated/ignored by the Turkish government that would have to be resolved before the country was considered for EU membership.
It's really easy to make blanket statements about the European community's supposed "intolerance" for the Islamic minority, but the criticism is far from water tight. For example, the mentioned "head scarf" policy, which is being discussed in terms of its enforcement in state-run public schools, also forbids the wearing of "obvious" religious symbols like skull caps and large crucifixes.
Many Africans enter Spain legitimately - jumping through all the necessary hoops. This in itself is not problematic. The trouble starts when their work Visas start to expire and they realize that the EU's uber-flimsy border control allows them to leave Spain and bounce around other countries in continental Europe almost indefinitely. The proposed rail link would have little or no impact on this problem because it deals with a different set of borders.
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There are some trains that can shift gauge, but most railway engineers think that's asking for trouble.
Another issue is loading gauge (essentially how big the cross section of the train can be and not create problems). The UK has a really tight loading gauge and the Chunnel has a HUGE loading gauge.
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According to the Guardian, the sea is shallower along the proposed longer route than along the shorter route. The depth of the tunnel would go from 300m to 900m if the shorter route were taken.
The tunnel will have to be significantly longer than the span of water it crosses, in order to allow for the tunnel to reach relatively non-permeable rock by the time you're under wet stuff and to allow a relatively shallow grade.
The Chunnel's average depth under the seafloor is 40m, dropping that distance at a 2% grade takes 2km of rundown on each end... and that's not counting the 100m or so of ocean you have to dip under.
Trains really don't do well on steep grades-- inefficient as hell compared to nice shallow glides, although this is less of a problem on pure-electric trains that don't have to worry about keeping their diesel generators running in an efficient RPM-range.
So, the shortest crossing point doesn't necessarily correspond to the shortest required tunnel, depending on the contours of the seafloor/coasts and the various rock formations around.
Gibraltar is also a hell of a lot funkier from an engineering perspective. The English Channel averages only about 100m deep, while the Strait of Gibraltar appears to be significantly more irregular, with bits running to about ~300m deep from what I can find on the net.
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It would be a cool project though.