Kaka_
10-06-2007, 13:23
A 'Chunnel' for Spain and Morocco
High-Speed Train Line Below Strait of Gibraltar Gains Traction
By Craig Whitlock
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, January 28, 2007; Page A15
TANGIER, Morocco -- From the bustling waterfront of this African port city, Europe appears tantalizingly close: The coast of Spain shows on the horizon just nine miles away. Despite decades of dreaming, no one has been able to bridge the physical divide that opened between the two continents more than 5 million years ago, forming the geological bottleneck to the Mediterranean Sea.
In recent months, however, the governments of Morocco and Spain have taken significant steps to move forward with plans to bore a railroad under the muddy bottom of the Strait of Gibraltar. If built, the project would rank among the world's most ambitious and complex civil engineering feats, alongside the Panama Canal and the Channel Tunnel between Britain and France.
A Gibraltar transportation link has adorned official drawing boards for a quarter-century. After years of slow-moving studies and geological tests, Spain and Morocco gave the project fresh momentum last fall by hiring a Swiss engineering firm to draft blueprints for an underwater rail route. Numerous obstacles remain, and a final decision on whether to build is still a few years away, but optimistic engineers say the project could be completed by 2025.
Bron ; http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/27/AR2007012701334.html
High-Speed Train Line Below Strait of Gibraltar Gains Traction
By Craig Whitlock
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, January 28, 2007; Page A15
TANGIER, Morocco -- From the bustling waterfront of this African port city, Europe appears tantalizingly close: The coast of Spain shows on the horizon just nine miles away. Despite decades of dreaming, no one has been able to bridge the physical divide that opened between the two continents more than 5 million years ago, forming the geological bottleneck to the Mediterranean Sea.
In recent months, however, the governments of Morocco and Spain have taken significant steps to move forward with plans to bore a railroad under the muddy bottom of the Strait of Gibraltar. If built, the project would rank among the world's most ambitious and complex civil engineering feats, alongside the Panama Canal and the Channel Tunnel between Britain and France.
A Gibraltar transportation link has adorned official drawing boards for a quarter-century. After years of slow-moving studies and geological tests, Spain and Morocco gave the project fresh momentum last fall by hiring a Swiss engineering firm to draft blueprints for an underwater rail route. Numerous obstacles remain, and a final decision on whether to build is still a few years away, but optimistic engineers say the project could be completed by 2025.
Bron ; http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/27/AR2007012701334.html