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Mooted: An Undersea Link From Finland To Estonia
jones_supa writes A train link between Finland and continental Europe could become a reality 15 or 20 years from now. A study carried out by Sweco Consulting recommends moving ahead with negotiations on building a railway tunnel between the capital cities Helsinki and Tallinn. According to a preliminary report out Wednesday, an undersea link would shorten the travel time between the two capitals from the current minimum 90 minutes by ship to around 30 minutes by rail. Estimated ticket cost is about 40 euros. The study, commissioned by the two cities, estimates that the undersea route could be completed after 2030 and would cost somewhere between 9 and 13 billion euros.
For any large project a good rule of thumb is to double your budget and set aside the extra for inevitable unexpected expenses. If that number isn't available the project will not be finished.
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
At least a thousand years ago, the Vikings had to traverse an extremely unfriendly sea to plunder, rape, and pillage Europe.
"Estimated ticket cost is about 40 euros"
Actual ticket cost will be 200 euros or more.
blindly antisocialist = antisocial
Missing from the summary: this project does not make sense without proper railway connection from Tallinn to central Europe (this is Rail Baltic, about to be started in "near" future and expected to be ready around 2025).
Cut it over to .de or .dk, a real country.
A bridge to Denmark would be a bit too long (and silly), and Finns doesn't want to be any closer to Sweden, so a bridge to Stockholm over Åland is probably out of the question.
I'm still waiting for that train, all graphite and glitter; 90 minutes from New York to Paris.
The party's over
I'm sure the tunnel will be popular, as it seems there is quite busy traffic between these countries - rather surprisingly, it seems a large part of it is Finns shopping for booze in Estonia.
http://yle.fi/uutiset/finnish_...
That's one thing I've always been mystified at --- when the English Channel tunnel was finished the machines were run a bit further and entombed --- why weren't they run up to the surface and put up for use on other projects?
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
The difference between 25 and 40 € isn't that big. Depending on where exactly you are and want to go in Helsinki/Tallinn, it may well be more convenient to take a train.
Heck, people ride the metro for nearly half an hour to get downtown for beers. If I can get to a decent Tallinn pub in less than an hour door-to-door I'd probably go now and then, depending on how late in the evening I can get back home.
For those who don't know, alcohol and restaurant food are around half the price in Tallinn compared to Helsinki.
I had the great pleasure of staying in Helsinki for Dec/Jan - love the Finns. It finally got down to -44 or so and there was much celebration at work as the gulf had frozen over and the booze run to Tallinn could be done by car. I gratefully declined the invite to go along for the ride.
Well, Finland already has a border with Russia and the way things are going, it's entirely possible Estonia and the rest of the Baltics will be returned to Russia's "sphere of influence" by 2030. Promises made by NATO to put a brigade in Poland and create local headquarters in each of the Baltic states have made depressingly little progress and the EU has made it clear that avoiding conflict with Russia is worth the sacrifice of nations on the periphery of Europe.
Finnland has alread trains to continental Europe. In fact, Finnland is a part of continental Europe.
This tunnel would be roughly the same length and complexity as the English Channel Tunnel. The combined metro area of London and Paris is 26 million people; Talinn and Helsinki combined are less than 1/10th the size. If you're thinking more in terms of connecting all of Finland to all of Europe the way the Chunnel connects the whole UK to Europe, the population of Finland is again less than 1/10th the size of the UK.
The Chunnel has been in or on the edge of bankruptcy for most of its existence.
I'm not sure this is gonna work.
Cut it over to .de or .dk, a real country.
Because Finns and Estonians have a shared ancient history. Estonians are descendants of finnic tribes. Their language is very similar to Finnish.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Yes - "Moot Court" is a think in law school where you pretend to have a trial. The headline makes it seem like the tunnel idea was cancelled in USAian English.
Each time we do this, we tunnel (at great cost) under the ocean floor. While the engineering involved is impressive, I can't help but wonder why we don't just build a tunnel on the sea floor (by manufacturing the materials on dry land and then just sinking them to the bottom and sealing them up). Is the problem that we don't have the submersible technology, or robotic technology to do the finishing work, or is there something else I'm missing?
This can't be the best way to build a tunnel through the water.
I am not interested in articles about life extension advancements.
Why would I travel frequently when I can send packets? When looking ahead 50 years should probably worry more about the Singularity than about if people can use transportation in exactly the same fashion they do today.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Most of of the day trips from Helsinki to Tallinn are done to shop more cheaply than at home. I don't know if it's still the case today, but it used to be popular to head to Estonia to get a haircut. So spending an extra 20 euros cuts into the savings.
Right, the closest neighbors are Russia and Estonia, and no one likes Russia.
Haircut: (n) 4 5 liter freeze boxes of Vodka.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
The economy sees socialism as damage and routes around it.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Perhaps climate change is real and we should be traveling by train instead of flying to, y'know, save the planet.
I wonder why the train trip is supposed to take so long, or how the ferry trip is calculated.
It is a no brainer that the train can be up to 10x as fast as the ferry. So what is wrong here?
They use hydrofoils for the ferries? Then it makes sense.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Yes - "Moot Court" is a think in law school where you pretend to have a trial. The headline makes it seem like the tunnel idea was cancelled in USAian English.
The headline made *me* think it was about an undersea "communications" link.
But I did wind up expanding my knowledge of the variations of meaning for the word "moot".
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Because Finns and Estonians have a shared ancient history. Estonians are descendants of finnic tribes. Their language is very similar to Finnish.
Finns are descendants of North-Eastern Estonians, who migrated to North and North-West over the sea. North-Eastern "Coastal" Estonian is one of the three sub-languages besides official written (Northern) Estonian and Southern-Estonian and is a root of today's Finnish language. Finnish is tend to sound like Estonian some 600 - 800 years ago.
It would likely be built by the governments.