In the nearly two centuries of evolution in the field of tunnel construction and engineers constantly challenging ideas previously believed to be impossible, there has always been one idea that has been as captivating as it is impossible to execute.
The transatlantic crossing was in the 19th century one of the most popular and most dangerous regular seafaring routes, given the chopping waters, strong winds, extreme weather conditions and rapid temperature changes seen in the Atlantic Ocean.
Somewhat ominously, an attempt to lay a telegraph cable lasted just three weeks, highlighting the scale of the issue for engineers if they wanted to create a faster, most permanent route across the Atlantic Ocean.
Whilst many tunnels believed to be impossible, such as the Channel Tunnel and Gotthard Base Tunnel through the Alps were eventually completed with the help of updated technology and conveyor rollers, is the transatlantic tunnel proposal simply a bridge too far?
An Express Of The Future
The first written concept of a transatlantic tunnel is often attributed to the wrong person.
Jules Verne’s son Michel was also an imaginative science-fiction writer, and in 1895 penned Un Express de L’Avenir, a proposal for a vacuum tube train running across the Atlantic that can travel so quickly that a person can arrive in the United States before their departure time in England, a feat later achieved with Concorde.
Vacuum trains have remained a hypothetical proposal ever since, although as of 2023 no full-scale working vactrains have ever been created, which makes such a system more difficult to create.
However, it did start to foster interest in a potential transatlantic tunnel and inspired a 1913 German novel and several subsequent adaptations by the names of The Transatlantic Tunnel or simply The Tunnel.
A highly popular and somewhat controversial book of its time, The Tunnel is the story of Allan, an engineer who tries to build a tunnel between the USA and Europe, encountering several disasters during its very expensive 26-year development.
By the end of the story, all of his work is in vain as transatlantic flight made his invention outdated before he even finished it.
This ending was naturally changed for the 1935 British film version with a message of hope and unity in the face of a Second World War the novel assumed would never happen.
Finally, the 1975 Harry Harrison novel Tunnel Through The Deeps described an ocean-floor maglev tunnel system.
Is It Actually Plausible?
Fiction may be a catalyst for technological evolution, but it doesn’t answer the question of whether the transatlantic tunnel could be made, particularly given the huge strides tunnel engineering has taken since those novels and short stories were written.
There are several publications, most notably a 2003 episode of Extreme Engineering and a 2004 issue of Popular Science that suggest that the issue may not necessarily be as unfeasible as it may initially appear from an engineering and materials science standpoint.
However, what is an inescapable problem is the cost. Because a transatlantic tunnel would be over 3000 miles long, 100 times larger than the Channel Tunnel, the proposed cost ranges from $88m to $20t, and even the 26-year timescale given in Transatlantic Tunnel might be optimistic.
