Proposed Russian Road That Would Connect Britain to America

[wdcrft63]

What Russia needs, and could build, is a road connecting Irkutsk to Vladivostok along the route of the Trans-Siberian Railroad. They've had a century to build that road, and it's not done.

[cpzilliacus]

What Russia needs, and could build, is a road connecting Irkutsk to Vladivostok along the route of the Trans-Siberian Railroad. They've had a century to build that road, and it's not done.

Highway construction was never much of a priority for the Communists that ruled Russia for most of the 20th Century.

[silverback1065]

this will never happen, due to politics

[vdeane]

What Russia needs, and could build, is a road connecting Irkutsk to Vladivostok along the route of the Trans-Siberian Railroad. They've had a century to build that road, and it's not done.

According to Google Maps, there's already a road connecting those two cities.  They even have street view of it (for example, here).  Or is there more than one of those cities?

[english si]

According to Google Maps, there's already a road connecting those two cities.

Also true in the real world, not just Google Maps.

[Brandon]

According to Google Maps, there's already a road connecting those two cities.

Also true in the real world, not just Google Maps.

I read an article somewhere (forget exactly where) that people bring used Japanese vehicles westward for sale using that road.

[wdcrft63]

What Russia needs, and could build, is a road connecting Irkutsk to Vladivostok along the route of the Trans-Siberian Railroad. They've had a century to build that road, and it's not done.

According to Google Maps, there's already a road connecting those two cities.  They even have street view of it (for example, here).  Or is there more than one of those cities?

Apparently this is correct. The long gap on the M58 highway through eastern Siberia is now reported to be paved.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R297_highway_%28Russia%29

[dzlsabe]

While were waiting or to test viability, why not consider drive on/off car/truck/train ferries? Im sure the Bering Strait is brutal some months, but how brutal and what months?

[oscar]

While were waiting or to test viability, why not consider drive on/off car/truck/train ferries? Im sure the Bering Strait is brutal some months, but how brutal and what months?

That'd be a ferry to nowhere, as things now stand. You'd need to build hundreds or even thousands of miles of approach roads or railroads, through unpopulated areas and hostile environments, for any such ferry to connect to anywhere on the continuous Russian and North American highway or rail networks. Just crossing the Bering Strait might be the easy part.

I'll let others figure out how much of the year sea ice in the Bering area would be a problem. Ice blocks shipping to nearby Nome much of the year. As mentioned elsewhere on this forum, one year a Russian icebreaker had to help clear a path for Nome's last fuel barge of the season when the ocean froze up too soon.

[Plutonic Panda]

Pretty much near zero percent chance this happens but its fun to think about Trump mentioned this project during some talking point he made in the Russia-Ukraine negotiations, which need not to be focused on to prevent this from getting political. I don't see this happening anytime soon but it would be cool if the conflict was solved and this project was a result of that. Just fun to think about.

[NE2]

This goat's got a bump in his trunk!

[Max Rockatansky]

FritzOwl suddenly re-emerges last week and now his famous Bering Strait Interstate gets a bump?  Conspiracy or just "plans?"  I think this is needed...

[Plutonic Panda]

FritzOwl suddenly re-emerges last week and now his famous Bering Strait Interstate gets a bump?  Conspiracy or just "plans?"  I think this is needed...

I've always been a fan of this concept knowing as soon as I saw it how unlikely it is to happen but who's to say it'll never happen? Maybe with sea level rise the project will not be feasible but just like the Darian Gap it remains an infrastructure project people laugh at. Besides NE2's typical replies you want to compare something like this that has been discussed by leaders for decades to Fritzowls intercontinental interstate plans that have things like turning US-50 into a full fledged interstate? Give me a fucking break.

I've always thought it'd be cool to see a highway connecting through the Caribbean from Florida to Venezuela but I don't go around posting it because it's nonsense. This project isn't that. It's unlikely to happen for a myriad of reasons, sure.

[Plutonic Panda]

Also seems like it would as serious enough not to be moved to fictional for as long as this thread has been here for one reason or another but now all the sudden it's Fritzowl territory.

[Max Rockatansky]

Fritz has on/off talked about this Bering Strait Interstate for years.  The last iteration also had a branching route to North Korea.

Either way, probably no real need to dredge this back up from 2015.

[Plutonic Panda]

Fritz has on/off talked about this Bering Strait Interstate for years.  The last iteration also had a branching route to North Korea.

Either way, probably no real need to dredge this back up from 2015.

Haha well I think I'm a little far off from running an interstate to North Korea. Either way what's the big deal about bringing this up?

[Bobby5280]

Some pretty serious advancements would need to be made in highway engineering in order for a bridge across the Bering Strait to be feasible. The bridge itself isn't the only engineering challenge. The land on either side of the strait poses its own problems. The temperature extremes make the soil unstable. Frost heaves can be common. Any paved roads leading to a Bering Strait bridge would have to be able to withstand those extremes as well as withstand whatever amount of vehicle traffic might use the road.

I would think the main point of building such a highway network and bridge would be to facilitate commercial traffic movement through the region. I think traffic demand from people taking road trips in their personal vehicles would be pretty low for a number of pretty obvious reasons (time, vehicle wear and tear, etc). Even if commercial trucks would use this route what kind of time or money would businesses be saving by trucking their shipments on this path versus using ships or cargo jets?

A rail corridor across the Bering Strait could be a better idea. The same engineering challenges remain though. Another hang-up is the differences in rail gauges between the US and Russia. At least one or more intermediary rail yards would be needed to transfer cargo from American gauge trains to Russian gauge trains. All of that rail infrastructure would cost a great deal of money? Would the finished rail corridor be cost competitive with container ships and cargo planes? Such a rail corridor cannot be built unless it offers some kind of discount of terms of price or shipping time versus the other existing methods.

[Plutonic Panda]

Good points but I would think if they build a road a railroad would be built as well or vice versa. Wouldn't make too much to much sense, IMO, to build one without the other. I am thinking this would need to be an interstate or even four lanes for that matter.

[kphoger]

It wouldn't even need to be paved.  The easternmost 1600+ km of the existing road to Palatka is gravel, as is quite a bit of the road from there to Omsukchan and beyond.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/5oMVccjUbM7NUSbc8
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anadyr_Highway

[1995hoo]

....

A rail corridor across the Bering Strait could be a better idea. The same engineering challenges remain though. Another hang-up is the differences in rail gauges between the US and Russia. At least one or more intermediary rail yards would be needed to transfer cargo from American gauge trains to Russian gauge trains. All of that rail infrastructure would cost a great deal of money? Would the finished rail corridor be cost competitive with container ships and cargo planes? Such a rail corridor cannot be built unless it offers some kind of discount of terms of price or shipping time versus the other existing methods.

Why transfer cargo between trains? Why not just construct a bogie exchange and swap out the bogies on the same railcars? The Russians certainly have experience with that. So do the North Koreans (Kim Jong Un's train has them swapped for trips to Russia, for example).

[Max Rockatansky]

I'm just going to leave this here:

I think my I-96 (Aleutian Islands) and I-98 (Bering Strait Bridge) are needed. The Aleutian Islands route would allow someone to drive to Japan via the Kurile Islands or to Taiwan via the Ryuku Islands.

The Bering Strait route would serve those wanting to drive to China or over to Europe.

[oscar]

A rail corridor across the Bering Strait could be a better idea. The same engineering challenges remain though.

Another complication for a rail line would be permafrost sags, which would undermine the tracks and might be hard to fix (especially in remote areas). With a gravel road, you can just run a grader to smooth the roadbed. Paved roads are scarce in the Arctic for that reason, though thermosiphons (heat pipes) to refrigerate the subsurface are one possible way to minimize permafrost issues.

[Bobby5280]

Why transfer cargo between trains? Why not just construct a bogie exchange and swap out the bogies on the same railcars? The Russians certainly have experience with that. So do the North Koreans (Kim Jong Un's train has them swapped for trips to Russia, for example).

A lot of the cargo would be in intermodal box containers -the same metal boxes that get stacked on container ships, arrive in Long Beach and then get double-stacked onto freight train "well cars." The well cars are often in articulated groups of 3 or 5. If a rail line were to be built across the Bering Strait it would almost certainly need to have at least two separate tracks to maximize the number of trains that could use the crossing. I would imagine Russian freight trains have the ability to handle the same kinds of intermodal shipping containers. It's just a matter of having a rail yard that can transfer the containers between the two different gauges of trains.

Of course lots of other things get hauled by rail. So there are various other kinds of rail cars. Some of that stuff isn't so easy to switch from one train over to another.

Another complication for a rail line would be permafrost sags, which would undermine the tracks and might be hard to fix (especially in remote areas). With a gravel road, you can just run a grader to smooth the roadbed. Paved roads are scarce in the Arctic for that reason, though thermosiphons (heat pipes) to refrigerate the subsurface are one possible way to minimize permafrost issues.

Hence my earlier statement about the need for serious technological advances to make any of this fantasy stuff feasible. I don't think a gravel road will be an acceptable connection to reach an intercontinental bridge. Vehicles can travel only so fast on a gravel road. Such roads can handle only so much traffic volume. And those kinds of roads can inflict a lot of wear and tear on vehicles, especially any passenger vehicles.

If a Bering Strait bridge were ever to be built the engineers would have to "go big or go home." Paved super highways are needed on both sides. A double-tracked rail line would give the bridge multiple uses (and make it more profitable).

[kphoger]

I must say, the fact that the Russians have been slowly plugging away at a road to Anadyr does make the idea of a road all the way to the Bering Strait less hair-brained than I originally thought.  If they ever get around to completing it, Anadyr will be linked to the rest of Russia by road.

The total length of the road from Magadan to Anadyr is expected to be roughly 1430 miles.  As the crow flies, it's about 925 miles between the two.  By comparison, it's only 380 miles as the crow flies from Anadyr to the easternmost point in mainland Russia.

There is also a branch planned to Egvekinot, which would cut that remaining distance down to about 265 miles as the crow flies to mainland Russia's easternmost point, with no big bodies of water between the two.

As it is currently, Google Maps can already route you along the completed 160 miles from the Kolyma Highway (Р504) to Omsukchan:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/1EHm3omexYnwr1xg9

[mgk920]

I'll be paying a bit more attention to this (if/when) I-15 is extended to and beyond Edmonton and Grande prairie, AB.

Mike