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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.
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.
It isn't a captive market, competition from the ferries should keep it down. A return ferry ticket is about €50. While you could charge a premium for business class seats, they alone won't fill a train. The Eurostar London-Paris service is a reasonable comparison. Booking in advance, you can usually get a return ticket for that for £100 in off-peak hours. The Dover-Calais ferry is cheaper, but way more inconvenient.
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.
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.
Brussels-London, via France, is a 2 hour train-ride, and costs 80 EUR.
What in this specific setup of trains going between Helsinki and Tallinn makes you think it would 2.5x more expensive than that?
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.
Average temperature Dec-Feb for Helsinki was 32F and the minimum low was -5F.
I wouldn't drive over that much sea water unless the average high was -5F for at least a month. It gets a lot colder than Helsinki around here in MN and cars go through the fresh water lakes every year, loads recently despite having a week of subzero F highs.
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.
Though to be fair, Russia is doing its best to write itself out of Europe... well probably there are trains to Sweden as well.
What's interesting is how Europe is such a hodge-podge of countries, with almost as many sets of countries as the number of countries:
There is Europe as a continent - but many countries, esp. Russia really behave in un-European ways; some countries have minority land in Europe (Russia, Turkey).
The EU seems to be the biggest ensemble - but curiously, Switzerland, one of the richest countries, is not in the EU and does not appear to bear any of the costs of solidarity and convergence (e.g. helping East Europe catch up); also is absent Norway (also one of the richest countries, and a great oil power); and the UK is on the brink of exiting the EU (and the UK now has a weird anti-Eastern European immigrant stance while it happily accepted immigrants of more radically different cultures and London, like Paris, is becoming a Muslim city). Some countries, like Turkey and probably Ukraine will spend an eternity in the waiting room before being able to join. Iceland just suspended joining talks.
The UK deserves its own section as they are an oddball in many other regards: driving on the left side of the road, using incompatible power plugs, often using imperial units etc. etc. - but more importantly they use terms like "We visited Europe last Summer" as if the UK wasn't even part of Europe. So one of the strongest military powers in Europe is also one of the least integrated (similar in that regard to the Swiss). Germany also deserves special mention due to their strong economy, yet no military power or participation, and the weird stance on nuclear power plants (despite the fact that they are densely surrounded by nuclear power plants). However, Germany is the most important integrating force of Europe, mainly responsible for its Eastern opening.
Then there is NATO; interestingly Norway is in, but Sweden and (more understandably and regrettably) Finland isn't; Switzerland is again, absent (despite having a strong military; again there seems to be a lack of solidarity while they unilaterally benefitted from being a safe haven and from the tax evasion of the rest of the World)
Within the EU, there is the Euro currency; while theoretically mandatory for all countries, this further fragments Europe, along multiple fracture lines:
- Some developed countries (UK, Denmark, Sweden) opted out from the beginning (special treatment)
- Some countries which caught up introduced the Euro (Slovakia, Slovenia, Estonia), but some opted not to (Czech R., Poland)
- Some countries have been unable to meet Euro introduction criteria, e.g. due to irresponsible borrowing of the Socialists in Hungary till 2008
A special place is occupied by Greece - they lied and cheated so they gain admission into the Euro zone. Europe has lavishly rewarded their morals by pouring EUR200Bn into Greece over a year or two. (In comparison, Hungary, which has the same population size but much lower GDP/head and welfare, only got EUR20Bn, i.e. one tenth of that, from EU cohesion funds over around 10 years.) and the Greeks will want more money for their irresponsible behavior. So some of the European fault lines are growing and the Euro zone is about to shrink. But of course Europe doesn't try to offset the loss of Greece by more ambitiously integrating Eastern Europe like Poland, the Chech Republic and Hungary. In fact, Bulgaria, Hungary and Slovakia has been left by the EU to predominantly depend on Russia for energy sources, a BIG mistake with the reversion to Russian imperialism.
Minor redemption is the SEPA (Single Euro Payment Area), which, despite its name, includes a lot of non-Euro, non-EU countries. SEPA's spirit (removing financial friction inside Europe) and existence however doesn't stop a UK bank like Barclays to shamelessly charge a whopping GBP25 fixed fee on each and every transfer (despite electronic, STP) into another SEPA country. Maybe royal remnants like H.M. Beefeate
It may be people at work were kidding me: However, apparently it is common to drive into the sea at Talinn.
http://www.topgear.com/uk/phot...
http://www.bencoombs.net/page7...
As for temp:
Helsinki Airport recorded a temperature of 34.0 C (93.2 F) on 29 July 2010 and a low of 35.9 C (33 F) on 9 January 1987. - so maybe I'm thinking with wind chill.
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
Same with Sweden heading to Denmark for booze. I took the ferry from DK to SE the day before Midsommer, and everyone but me was coming back hauling lots of booze bought at a cheaper tax rate.
The EUSSR is a bit of a mess. Gigantic in theory but in practice it is worth less than the sum of its parts.
A lot of the faults in what is happening in Europe right now are due to a lack of political direction and lack of stomach to do important strategic investments. Read about Nabucco and North Stream to get an idea. The Germans claim they can do everything and try to cultivate an aura of invincibility but in practice they don't want to pay for anything with large upfront costs. Once Nord Stream came online Putin felt safe that he could invade Ukraine just fine while he kept selling natural gas to Germany at the same time. This is because he knows how important these kinds of strategic investments are. He is doing it again by funding large natural oil and gas pipelines in the Far East. So he can just switch the direction he's pumping the gas if he wants to continue pushing his strategic interests further West. At the same time France and Germany this week basically handed him a chunk of Eastern Ukraine on a platter. He's not going to stop at just that. He'll probably only stop once he cleaves Ukraine neatly in half taking their heavy industry with it including Antonov and Morozov. Next he might try to vassalize the Baltic states.
As for the Euro whoever had the stupid idea of making a single currency area, with free currency transfers, without a banking union was a moron. Had we a banking union then Ireland, Spain, Portugal wouldn't be in the dire straits they are right now. Greece has a lot of structural issues which cannot be easily solved in a generation. They were part of the Ottoman Empire until 1822 and had a lot of dictatorships, civil wars, and WWII in between. And structural reforms, to me at least, are about deeper changes than slashing pensions or salaries which is nothing more than shock therapy and does nothing to solve the real problems they have.
The problems of Greece happen elsewhere as well. The US has plenty of bankrupt states but they don't threaten to kick them out of the Union for it. Comparing Greece with Hungary in that way makes little sense. Of those EUR 200 billion loans over 90% of it went straight to cover French and German private bank loans. Hungary got structural funds which will be invested into the local economy. Considering that Hungary is not on the Eurozone and has different PPP those EUR 20 billion will do more in Hungary than they would in Greece. I agree that more funding should have been provided to Eastern Europe but part of the problem was the the EU grew way too fast for its own good.