Dubious tunnel project under the Gulf of Finland

Ideas for grandiose infrastructure projects have a habit of refusing to die. One such is for a 50 kilometre tunnel under the Gulf of Finland between Helsinki in Finland and Tallinn in Estonia, priced at £15 billion, including substantial EU funding. It would give a 20 minute crossing time between the two cities, compared to the present ferry crossing times of two to three hours. Also, in the longer term, the idea is to provide Finland with a direct rail connection to the rest of Europe via the proposed Rail Baltica. For this reason, the EU is insisting that the railway is built to standard gauge (1435 mm) despite the fact that both the Finnish and Estonian railways are built to the wider Russian gauge (1520 mm).

Rail Baltica itself is a €6 billion scheme for a conventional speed standard gauge passenger and freight railway from Warsaw to Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, connecting the three capital cities of Vilnius, Riga and Tallinn. The problem with the route is that the three Baltic countries and Finland are sparsely populated, with a total population of about 12 million in the four countries, with the traffic potential limited accordingly. The same applies to the traffic potential on the route between Tallinn (population approximately half a million, and Helsinki (population about 1.5 million). It is difficult to see how so few people can generate enough travel demand to make it worth building a tunnel between the two cities.

The problem for this part of Europe is that its natural trade hinterland is to the east, outside the EU, but the EU Single Market is constructed so as to discourage such trade.

Back again

I have not added to this website for a year and a half, but there seems to be an epidemic of new vanity projects at the moment, and some of long-running major infrastructure projects have come up against major difficulties resulting in delays and added costs.

In Britain, CROSSRAIL, due to have opened at the end of 2018, is now not expected to start running until the end of 2021; difficulties with completion of some of the stations, and of running trains over a route where three different signalling systems, have been well documented. Estimated costs for HS2, the high speed line to the north, are now several times the original figure which was given as the basis for allowing the scheme to proceed.

In Sweden, the Västlänk tunnel in Gothenburg is now far behind schedule, with an estimated opening in 2030, four years after the 2026 date advertised on the hoardings around the construction sites; construction costs will rise accordingly. This promises to be a repeat performance of the Hallandsås tunnel which took 23 years to build. When complete, it will result in a worse service than is currently provided – a remarkable achievement.

However, looking through back numbers of Modern Railways, I came across an even more dubious project in the May 2019 issue: a 50 kilometre underwater tunnel across the Gulf of Finland between Tallinn and Helsinki.