A Bering Strait Railway, Hurrah

What is it recently w/all these long dead threads coming back to life?

HaLlOwEeN!!!! OOOOOOO!!!!!!! :eek:

As to the festering corpse of the OP, the Wikipedia arty sheds it's ever-accurate light upon things. They claim it's feasible, but exceedingly difficult and costly.

The depth of the waters themselves offer little challenge, as the strait runs no deeper than 180 ft (55 m).[11] The tides and currents in the area are not severe.[9] However, the route would lie just south of the Arctic Circle, subject to long, dark winters and extreme weather (average winter lows −20 °C (−4 °F) with possible lows approaching −50 °C (−58 °F)), and so building activity is restricted to five months out of the year.[11] The weather also poses challenges to exposed steel.[11] In Lin's design, concrete covers all structures, both to simplify maintenance and to offer additional stiffening.[11] Also, while there are no icebergs in the Bering strait, ice floes up to 6 ft (2 m) thick are in constant motion during certain seasons, which would produce forces up to 5000 tons or more on a pier.[9]

A Steampunk Bearring Bridge is really pushing it. Sounds like a White Elephant great for bankrupting the empire.

In the 60's, though, really possible given the accomplishments in the AK pipeline. Assuming a no-Soviet world perhaps we'd see one by 1970.
 
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