Spain-Morocco tunnel

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7515125.stm

There are lots of potential technical problems - it would not be as easy to build as Eurotunnel. Also I doubt if there is enough traffic potential. It's like the Central American proposed railway - what would it carry, other than poor migrants? North Africa has no large industries and only agricultural products. Even if a line were built along the southern Mediterranean shore through Algeria (currently closed) and Libya to Egypt, it is hard to see what the line would carry.

More discussion of the difficulties here.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/6442697.stm

I do not see any trafic potential too. Or it must be drugs, since a considerable amount of that garbage gets into Europa by way of ferrys from northern Africa.

Gijs

george matthews wrote:Even if a line were built along the southern Mediterranean shore through Algeria (currently closed) and Libya to Egypt, it is hard to see what the line would carry.

Cargo-wise? Oil, Coal, Iron Ore, food and other raw stuff to Europe ; scrap and finished products to Africa.

There's a huge amount going between there by ship nowadays. It all would depend on good further links, not just along the Maghreb, but perhaps also down the Western Coast down to maybe Senegal or so, either through Algeria or along the coast.

Cargo-wise? Oil, Coal, Iron Ore, food and other raw stuff to Europe ; scrap and finished products to Africa.

There's a huge amount going between there by ship nowadays. It all would depend on good further links, not just along the Maghreb, but perhaps also down the Western Coast down to maybe Senegal or so, either through Algeria or along the coast.

There is a large iron ore traffic in Mauretania, with a dedicated rail line to the coast. Could a rail line from there to Morocco carry that traffic better than by sea? I doubt it. A long rail line would need to be built from the mine to Morocco. BTW Mauretania and Morocco have very bad relations.

I don't see any other traffic to sustain such a rail line. (I have a lot of experience in Africa, both east and west).

The trade between north Africa and Europe is likely to be energy. There are proposals for very large scale solar generation in the Sahara (I could provide a link, but not right now). That would be transported by high voltage cables or pipelines, not by rail.

Most lines in Africa don't use standard gauge, and some nations even don't have railways at all.

A typical African railway is narrow gauge, isolated from the rest of the world, and in a poor state, if not closed.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... _world.png

A train using the Gibraltar tunnel could only go to Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and maybe Mauritania, that's all.

Gotthardbahn wrote:Most lines in Africa don't use standard gauge, and some nations even don't have railways at all.

A typical African railway is narrow gauge, isolated from the rest of the world, and in a poor state, if not closed.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... _world.png

A train using the Gibraltar tunnel could only go to Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and maybe Mauritania, that's all.

Going south from Mauretania the next standard gauge line is in Gabon. After that nothing at all until the new high speed line in Gauteng. In between are metre gauge lines (former French) and Cape gauge lines (mostly former British and Belgian).

I really can't see enough traffic to keep the proposed tunnel going.

And as for cars and lorries, the same is true. Britain is a magnet for lorries from as far east as Bulgaria and Romania and there are enough lorries to keep the tunnel and the ferries busy. Once again there is no such potential in Africa.