At the beginning of this book I said that human civilisation grew up by the building of roads. Now, having passed through the philosophy and the religions and the psychology of travel, and having seen the obstacles and the dangers of the world of today, we come at last to the idea itself — to a road which may well be the greatest road mankind has yet conceived.
The Global Rail Network is an idea simple in the telling and vast in the doing: a continuous and unified rail network which would turn all six continents and more than 195 countries of the world, for the first time in history, into a single body.
A road upon which one could board a train at the southern tip of the Americas and, in one continuous journey, without ever setting foot upon a ship or an aeroplane, pass through the heart of the continents and arrive in Australia or in southern Africa.
I know that today this looks like a dream. But if you look closely, it is the natural continuation of the very path that mankind has travelled from the first rough track, to the Silk Road, to the great transcontinental railways. We wish only to close the last links of that chain.
According to preliminary estimates taken from the map — which in due course will be corrected and finalised by precise engineering design — this network takes in about two hundred and sixteen thousand kilometres of track, and is built of two layers: three “main arteries” of some eighty-six thousand kilometres in length, which are the backbone of the network; and thirty-three “branch lines” of some one hundred and thirty thousand kilometres, which carry those arteries to each individual country and region.
Let us take a look at those three main arteries.
The first artery is the Pacific Rim route, about 36,555 kilometres long. This route curves like a bow around the Pacific Ocean and binds together South America, North America, Asia, South-East Asia and Australia — establishing, for the first time, a permanent land connection between the American continent and Asia and Australia.
The second artery is the Atlantic and Indian Arc, about 30,869 kilometres long. This route separates from the first in eastern Russia, passes through the heart of Europe, reaches Africa by way of the Strait of Gibraltar, traverses west and east Africa, and returns again to Asia and to the first artery by way of the Arabian Peninsula and south-eastern Iran.
And the third artery is the Africa–Asia Spine, about 18,946 kilometres long; a north–south corridor which carries southern Africa by way of Cairo and Iraq and Tehran to Central Asia and Russia and the second artery, and which at several points crosses the other two arteries.
And this “crossing of the routes at several points” is an important matter upon which I want to lay some emphasis. These three arteries together form a net, not several separate lines. What this design means is that if one route should be closed or blocked, there is always another way of getting through — precisely the thing of which the world of today, with its dependence upon a few narrow chokepoints, is deprived. This network is founded by its very nature upon “resilience” and upon “alternative routes”.
A fourth route has also occurred to me, which I leave open here: a Europe–Asia Spine, connecting from the centre of Europe by way of Turkey or Ukraine to Asia and to its middle lines. This route is for the present absent from the plan, and I have not included it in the official list; if the engineers judge it necessary, its place in the network is open.
But the realisation of such a network depends upon four feats of engineering; four water crossings which stitch the continents together: the Bering Strait, about 88 kilometres, which joins America and Asia; the Strait of Gibraltar, about 14 kilometres, joining Europe and Africa; the Strait of Bab al-Mandab, about 30 kilometres, joining Africa and the Arabian Peninsula; and the Strait of Hormuz, about 39 kilometres, joining the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. These four crossings are the physical key to the whole project, and we shall look at their engineering detail at length in the next part.
In point of technology, too, this network does not impose one single solution everywhere; rather it chooses for each land the most suitable technology: proven high-speed and maglev trains as the main column; tunnels and bridges at the water crossings and in the mountains; elevated bridges in the tropical forests, for the least possible harm to nature; and special infrastructure in the frozen regions. And upon the level plains a place will be open for emerging technologies such as the hyperloop, in proportion to the maturity they gradually attain. The detail of these choices we shall likewise open up in the technical part.
But let me say something which I believe is the most important sentence of this chapter.
If this network were only steel and concrete and technology, it would not be worth a book. What distinguishes it from a “great civil engineering project” is the spirit breathed into it. This network is founded upon several principles which turn it into something beyond a railway: the joining of all nations without exception; justice, in the sense that every country — great or small, rich or poor — should have a share and a voice within it; cooperation and mutual respect in place of force; and human dignity in place of domination, as the final aim.
To put it another way, this plan, before it is an engineering drawing, is a moral and humane proposal: an invitation to mankind to build, instead of walls and escape routes, a shared road for the advancement of all.
Now that we know what this idea is, the next question arises of itself: if such a network were built, what shape would the world take? In the next chapter we travel to the year 2100 and see that world together.
A note on the figures: the lengths and routes given in this chapter are preliminary conceptual estimates, calculated from the geographical map, and they show only the general dimensions of the plan. The precise and final figures will be arrived at at the stage of feasibility studies and engineering design.