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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."
Let me know when I can take the train from San Francisco to Tokyo.
catapults
possibly cannons
My other sig is an import.
Should be done by 2073
can you fly a helicopter into said tunnel, and if you can, when it explodes, will tom cruise survive said explosion?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
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.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
You forgot about tourism being the biggest industry.
Much of europe, and of course Spain, are linked with very good railway system. A link to North Africa will boost tourism to both the countries as one has to travel to Spain enroute to Africa.
Lets not forget other possible usage of the link, like transportation of goods, etc.
geek page at KY speaks
Also, does anyone know how the depth of this tunnel would compare to that of the Chunnel?
Tierce
Who sponsors your feelings?
This would solve the long-debated African Swallow migratory problem that has been raging for decades.
I lived in Gibraltar for a while.
There are a lot of ferry rides across between Spain & Morocco on a daily basis. They are usually always packed.
Ferries run from Algeciras to Tangiers and Ceuta
Ferries also run several days a week from Gibraltar to Tangiers (not to Ceuta, I dont' think.. Spain hates Gib)
There is definately money to be had, anyway....
The economic value of such a tunnel would outshine any "spat" over territory...
What are they fighting over, anyway, Ceuta?
(Ceuta is a spanish protectorate/territory/colony/whatever in morocco, basically across the straight from Gibraltar.)
Commercia shipping is probably one of the largest reasons. Right now, the only way to get stuff from North Africa to ship it over the water. That's slow.
This would also give shippers a reason to bring more goods through Spain, as opposed to shipping around Spain (once you have the stuff loaded onto a ship.. might as well use that to your advantage.. why bother with spain at all?)
From Gibraltar or Algeciras to the coast of Morocco is about 15 miles, on a clear day you can see the Rif mountains in Morocco... if you are elevated at all, you can see the beaches and houes of Morocco.
A bridge or tunnel is not THAT rediculous, though given the fact that it's open ocean, and all that implies, it's no easy task.
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.
Because of the curvature of the Earth the shortest path between San Francisco and Tokyo goes as high as 48 N. So going through the Bering strait wouldn't be too much of a detour, and connecting Japan to mainland Asia isn't laughably hard. Check a map, or better yet, a globe.
This is going to be a 39km tunnel and if you have an accident in the middle then you have problems getting emergency services in and other people out. The other people tend not to react all that sensibly either when they see flames and realise thay are 15km from an exit.
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
Well the Aussies should have thought about that before they moved there. And the Antarticans probably wouldn't let the racers have any fuel, so screw them.
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.
...Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.
Churchill
Morocco exports a lot of goods to Europe. Some of them completely native like fruits and vegetables, phosphate, (hashich :p), etc. Others are produced by foreign companies outsourcing to Morocco (though not nearly as much as one would hope for) France, Spain, Germany, Italy and the U.K are some of Morocco's main economic partners.
:) I believe it gets around 2-3 million tourists a year (many of them people of Moroccan extraction residing in europe) which, while by no means comparable to Spain's 50 millions or France's 70 millions are still important to its economy and are a vital source of hard currency. That's some more traffic right there.
:)
It goes without saying That Morocco also imports from those countries quite a bit. Some more traffic right there.
Morocco is also a touristic destination. (And I am shamelessly plugging it when I say: Go visit! I swear you'll like it. Really
And last but not least, It is also a hub between Europe and Africa so part of many african countries' exports and imports also go through Morocco.
Anyways, My point is that there is PLENTY of traffic taking place between Spain and Morocco and that a tunnel or a bridge linking the two countries DOES make plenty of economic sense. As the article pointed out, talks about this have been going on for decades now and it is actually surprising this has not happened sooner (taking into account that The distance between Tangiers and Algeciras is a measly 10 miles).
And for those unfamiliar with the territorial "spats" between Morocco and Spain, it goes something like this:
A few hundred years ago, Spain conquered a couple of northern moroccan cities (sebta and imlilia a.k.a ceuta and melilla). They have been spanish ever since but Morocco still officially wants them returned (The truth is no moroccan I've ever known cares about that.) They are tax-free zones and a LOT of cheap contraband stuff (from eletronics to candy) comes from them. My first playstation most probably came from there
The Western Sahara is a different issue. Spain was ocuppying it during the days of european colonization and it was taken back about 3 decades ago at the end of a "million men" peaceful march. Since then, Spain has been trying to make it an independant country so that they could fish within it's territorial waters for cheap. Now THAT is a very touchy subject for your average moroccan. You know..pride, territorial integrity, yadda yadda. The government has been stalling a referendum supposed to take place there and giving incentives to Moroccans to relocate there in hopes of skewing a future vote.
Back to the topic. I'm a bit disappointed that the tunnel is going to be trains only. I was actually hoping for something that allows cars and trucks to travel through. I guess the ferry businesses lobbied against it to avoid certain bankruptcy.
How on Earth could it ever be profitable to connect Spain and Morocco? It's impossible. Madrid is the only city in Spain that could rival London, Paris or Brussels. And it already takes 6 hours to get from Madrid to the proposed tunnel! And then, there is no large business city on the other side. No business traveler will be taking the train. The plane will always be preferred on such distances.
Am I making sense? Had to work throughout the night.
To any of you that don't work on transportation networks...
Do you have the slightest idea how much shorter the trip from Europe to Africa will be? Imagine Holland for example, which exports wheat to African countries in many situations. Their cheapest way to travel is of course by road, but too time consuming and it needs a trip through Continental Europe, bosphorus (Turkey, which they don't like at all), then Syria, Libanon, Israel, Egypt, etc. Now we get a direct link from Spain to Marocco.
Here is my prediction on how things will go, if this actually is successful.
1. Marocco and Spain will get rich from customs and the rest of the two continents will depend heavily on them for trade routes.
2. The English shipping industry will loose considerable amounts of money (they already did with the England/France tunnel).
3. Marocco will once again gain political influence in Africa, and will of course probably win over Western Sahara (there's been a disbute there for a long time, in case you didn't know).
4. Someone will figure out a way to involve Linux in this, eventhough Microsoft advertisements will fill the tunnel.
In case anyone wants to know more about the geography of transportation, a good intro is located at: http://people.hofstra.edu/geotrans/
Full disclosure ahead: I am a Spaniard, I lived for 2 years in Morocco (Casablanca) and I work in the railway business (software engineering, not civil engineering, but you can't have it all, can you?)
/ guadarrama/), which will connect Madrid to the northern cities of Segovia and Valladolid. And last, but not least, the longest metro line in Europe, currently under construction, is the Line 9 in Barcelona, which will also feature fully automated trains (http://www.finanzas.com/id.5214701/noticias/notic ia.htm, in Spanish).
Believe it or not, but this is actually possible. Spain might not be any more the country many of you thought it was. Civil engineering in Spain and the rest of Europe is pretty advanced these days, as far as huge tunnels are concerned. Just look at Madrid's Metro and its spectacular growth here: http://www.metropla.net/eu/mad/metrosur.htm. The Line 12 was put in service in just 3+ years, and spans 40+ kilometres of underground tracks and stations. Look at the 27 kilometre high speed rail double tunnel currently being built beneath the Sierra de Guadarrama, a granitic mountain range 2500 metres high (http://www.geodata.it/english/progetti/gallunghe
However, having said this, I don't believe we will actually see this happen in our lifetimes. First of all, 27e6 euros (30e6 $) aren't enough even for preliminary studies of such a complex undertaking. The current Spanish government is extremely interested in infrastructure and development work if and only if two or more of the following apply: a) political gains are to be obtained, b) civil engineering firms tycoons line up their pockets even more and c) the european union foots a significant percentage of the bills.
And then comes Morocco, a developing country en route to democracy. Morocco has comparatively few transportation infrastructures deployed: around 1000 km of electrified, standard gauge railways. You simply don't build a tunnel to nowhere, unless Spain and the EU are strongly commited to finance development works there (and they currently aren't, and most likely won't be in a foreseeable future, even though it might be a hell of a good idea to even out differences and further good neighbour relationships in the Mediterranean area).
Lastly, governments of Spain and Morocco are at odds over several issues, the least important of which are the ones that got more attention in previous comments: territorial disputes and terrorism. The main troubles between Morocco and Spain (and the rest of EU) are immigration and commerce, and both of them receive a harsh treatment by the Spanish government. No compromises will be agreed upon unless forced by a third party, just because such an attitude improves the outlook of Aznar and his cabinet among the population right wing.
So, unfortunately, I believe this tunnel is just vapor, and will dissipate sooner or later depending on the result of the ongoing UN-sponsored Western Sahara negotiations...
Ivan
An eye for an eye anD%$"%R:=\D\q[NO SIG]