Jess Battison
Going to New York is often a bit of a ‘once in a lifetime’ trip for Brits, after saving up their wages to splash out on flights and travel.
That’s not to even mention the costs of all the things they’ll want to do and buy once they’ve got to the Big Apple.
But for some, it’s one of many places they’ll never get to because they can’t face the flight. Perhaps they’ve got a fear of flying or maybe just dread the thought of sitting on an aircraft for about eight hours.
And while the ‘Son of Concorde’ might be promising to get from the England capital to New York in less than half that time, there might even be a quicker way.
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That’s because the planned London to Manhattan tunnel said to cost roughly £19 trillion would take 54 minutes to do the journey.
Yeah, super-fast without having to go up in the air.
The proposed Transatlantic Tunnel is backed by Elon Musk and claims it could complete the whopping 3,400-mile journey in less time than it takes some Brits to commute to work in the morning.
The Tesla boss even reckons his tunnel-digging company, The Boring Company, could get the job for ‘1000-times less money’.
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Essentially, the tunnel would use vacuum tubes and magnetically levitating trains which would wipe out most friction and enable zoomy speeds surpassing 3,000mph.
In comparison, as of last year, the fastest train in the world travels at up to 186mph, having been reduced from 268mph in 2021 – that’s China’s Shanghai Maglev.
However, while this tunnel might sound pretty exciting (and very appealing – less than an hour to New York? Sign me up), it’s been debated over whether it could actually happen.
One engineer took to expert community forum Stack Exchange, where they pointed out that the Atlantic's depths pose some major issues from the off.
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Getting down to 5,500 metres below sea level, scientists would need to examine the seabed’s geological structure and identify any issues before construction can even be considered.
So, it could simply be ruled that the seabed is just too soft for the tunnel. Plus, water pressure at such a depth could cause issues throughout.
"Additionally, such deep water will increase the ground stresses in the rock in the seabed, which will be problematic for an excavated tunnel," they said.
Another hurdle would be the whopping volcanic Mid-Atlantic Ridge.
So, while the idea of zipping from London to New York in less than an hour seems pretty great, there’s truly no guarantee it could happen just yet.