Inter Asia Super Railway? (cost, train, move, travel)

[willister]

Would there be of any benefit to this if there was ever to be one built or joined?
Could it rival planes and ease congestion in the air?
Could it provide the stimulus for Asian countries to develop train tech? Japan and China are trying to build short to medium range planes but seem to be failing.


I'd do something like this:


- Link Hokkaido to Honshu via a bridge or sea tunnel.
- Fukuoka to Busan via a Iki and Tsushima
- Busan to Incheon (may already have VFTs systems already in place).
- Incheon to Weihai via a sea tunnel or bridge (I've seen talks of this somewhere before).
- Weihai to Shanghai
- Shanghai to Guangzhou
- Guangzhou to Hanoi
- Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City
- Ho Chi Minh City to Bangkok
- Bangkok to Kuala Lumpur
- Kuala Lumpur to Singapore
- Singapore to Jakarta (Terminal).


Possible Extension in future:


- Jakarta to Surabaya
- Surabaya to Denpasar
- Denpasar to Kupang (East Timor)
- Kupang to Darwin
- Darwin to Brisbane
- Brisbane to Sydney
- Sydney to Melbourne (Terminal).


Yes it will be costly and political (China vs Japan again) but would it outweigh the benefits? I'd see it as beneficial for smaller towns between larger towns and the new accessibility to move around to larger cities as well as leverage off existing railway networks for travellers.

[theunbrainwashed]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Asian_Railway

Project is already approved. Whether ground has been broken in it since 2009 remains to be seen. I haven't done any in depth research on it, other than the fact that the northern route is already basically complete thanks to the Trans-Siberian Railway

[Davy-040]

Originally Posted by willister

- Link Hokkaido to Honshu via a bridge or sea tunnel.

They already did 30 years ago.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seikan_Tunnel

[Bayesian]

Shanghai to Guangzhou

Already done.