China is planning to build a railway to the US, allowing travellers to take a train to the other side of the Pacific Ocean, CNS reports.
The 13,000-kilometer line would go from China's northeast all the way to the US via Russia and Canada, Wang [Mengshu, a tunnel and railway expert at the Chinese Academy of Engineering] told the Beijing Times on Thursday.
With a planned speed of 350 km per hour, the train would take approximately two days for travelers to get from China to the US.
Since the line will cross the Bering Strait, which links the Chukchi Sea of the Arctic Ocean and the Bering Sea of the Pacific Ocean, a 200-kilometer underwater tunnel would be needed.
Wang said China also plans to build an undersea high-speed rail line between Fujian and Taiwan, linking the "renegage province" with the mainland.
Negotiations are underway with countries along the railway line to develop the project, Wang told the Times.
The sheer length of the journey would make it the longest railway line in the world, almost 3,800 kilometers longer than the Trans-Siberian railway.
But the biggest challenge for the proposed railway construction would be crossing Bering Strait. The massive undertaking of engineering would require an undersea tunnel at least 200 kilometers in length in some of the coldest waters on earth, just south of the Arctic Circle.
If constructed, it would be the world's longest undersea tunnel by far, four times the length of current record-holder the Channel Tunnel connecting France and the United Kingdom.
China has experience with undersea tunnels, notably the 8.7-kilometer long traffic tunnel connecting Fujian in mainland China to Xiamen Island, which opened in 2010.
