Canal/Railroad proposals for southern Thailand

[Fortean1]

The Skeptic mailing list had previously discussed improving the existing Panama Canal

and/or digging a new canal through Nicaragua, Guatemala or elsewhere in Central America.

Rick Moen sent the following e-mail re southern Thailand transportation upgrades.

 

Terry

( a few miles south of Hua Hin, Thailand )

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Re: [skeptic] Fw: IUFO: Atomic power projects in the early decade (new subj)

Date: Oct 2, 2017 11:33 AM

Quoting Terry Colvin ([email protected]): [comments about political sensitivity and infrastructure projects] Thank you. And I appreciate the situation. You might be aware that the Kra Isthmus was the site of the _second_ railway Imperial Japan constructed between Thailand and occupied Burma, from Chumphon to Kra Buri, before it was rendered unusable by Allied bombing and replaced with the much more famous railroad through Three Pagodas Pass. (Stop here to whistle the Colonel Bogie March.) The attraction of the Kra Isthmus route lies in the hills being only 75 metres high at that point (cf. 64 metres for the Panama Canal). A few days ago, I found a local account claiming that the route is still traceable, but it's down to just a trail through the forest. All other traces of the railway are gone. I have to wonder, in the short term, if not a 50 km canal (that raises political sensitivities by literally cutting the country in two and possibly further feeding existing religio-ethnic trouble south of the cut), why not a 50 km highway for freight? Costa Rica has one crossing the central American isthmus, and it's very busy and very cost-effective. Or, just rebuild the railway. One mind-boggling variant on _that_ idea got proposed by the Korea Railroad Research Institute: a 'dry canal' -- heavy rails and immense locomotive engines that could carry large (100,000 tonne) ocean-going ships up and over the Kra Isthmus route. http://www.ship-technology.com/features/featurekra-canal-rail-to-the-rescue-4669058/ The Koreans answer skeptics by saying that their shipyards already lauch those same large ships using rail-based traction bogies, and the 'dry canal' engines would be doing the very same thing, except taking the ships overland instead of directly into the water. A different way of doing the canal, without the 'cutting the country in two' problem related to the aforementioned religio-ethnic trouble, is the way Norway is solving the problem of some of the world's most stormy seas just off the Stad Peninsula: the now-famous ship tunnel being blasted through the Peninsula's neck at a cost of US $35M. http://www.cnn.com/style/article/ship-tunnel-norway/ http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-22157079 Of course, the Stad Ship Tunnel only needs to cover 1.8 km and be 36m wide and 45m tall -- to accomodate 16,000 tonne ships only. Making one 50 km long and able to pass oil tankers is orders of magnitude more expensive. (For one thing, you might need two.) Meanwhile, I hear that Japan is putting money and expertise behind the Dawei deep-sea port & special economic zone project in the adjacent part of Burma: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dawei_Port_Project The project was stalled for a while several years ago, and is now resumed (including the work of cheating and disrupting the lives of current Burmese residents). It'll include a highway across the Malay Peninsula to ports on the east (Thai) side, a good bit north of the Kra Isthmus, and I have no doubt also high-capacity oil and gas pipelines.