• Zeerooth@lemmy.antemeridiem.xyzEnglish
        1·
        2 years ago

        That’s pretty sweet, I wish I could visit my friend in Finland by just hopping on a train, though I wonder if there’s ever going to be enough demand and possible benefits to justify building such a big undersea tunnel.

    • acargitz@lemmy.caEnglish
      2·
      2 years ago

      Neither are the southeast Balkan countries (GR, BG, RO), or the Mediterannean island ones (MT, CY).

        • acargitz@lemmy.caEnglish
          2·
          2 years ago

          In theory yes, but:

          • Greece is not ready to handle HSR.
          • Bulgarian and Romanian accession to Schengen is still contentious, so what’s the point of HSR if you have to stop for passport checks?
          • Nobody is going to give Orban’s Hungary big infrastructure bucks.

          EU politics is so much fun! :)

          • Zeerooth@lemmy.antemeridiem.xyzEnglish
            1·
            2 years ago

            i mean, there are passport checks before you enter the UK when you travel through the Eurotunnel so that might work alright when you create a special checkpoint in the Budapest, for example? But all in all I think that both Bulgaria and Romania are going to join sooner than later, right now it’s mostly just the case of western politicians gathering support from their right-wing base. And the HSR won’t be built overnight anyhow.

            I don’t know what to do about Hungary though, it’s sad how Orban holds back that beautiful country, and with how the fair election system, independent media and courts have been dismantled I don’t see how opposition can even win.

    • vldnl@feddit.dkEnglish
      1·
      2 years ago

      Maybe not high speed, but you could theoretically run a train line from Helsinki to Talinn and Stockholm. In Southern Denmark you could take the train from Rødby to Puttgarden, across the narrow stretch of water that separates Denmark and Germany. The train would just roll aboard the ferry, and then exit at the other end. As far as I know, that line has been closed down temporarily, and will run through the tunnel they’re building, when it opens up again.

      More realistically, you could work to improve the train-ferry connections. The train should take you all the way down to where you board the ferry, there shouldn’t be long waits when you switch from one mode to the other and it should be seamless to purchase a ticket from Helsinki to Berlin, even if part of the trip is on a ferry.

      Of course not as fast as traveling over land, but it makes more sense considering the geography, and I personally think it should count as a train connection, if the ferry is included in the train ticket.

      Ireland is probably a bit more tricky.

      • Zeerooth@lemmy.antemeridiem.xyzEnglish
        1·
        2 years ago

        Train ferries a bit logistical hassle through and are pretty slow and costly afaik. Another person linked a proposal for an undersea tunnel between Estonia and Finland which would solve that problem, but connecting to Sweden without a ferry is still tough, unless they decide to invest into a similar project or construct a high-speed all the way around the Baltic Sea through northern Scandinavia which is probably not really feasible.

  • median_user@lemmy.oneEnglish
    2·
    2 years ago

    If you’re interested in EU cross-border rail connections, I highly recommend following Jon Worth on Mastodon. He spends a lot of time actually testing the various border routes (and has some pretty strong opinions on them).

  • acargitz@lemmy.caEnglish
    1·
    2 years ago

    I too want to travel from Dublin to La Valletta to Nicosia by high speed rail.