Undersea tunnels and high speed rail will bring people and freight to mostly 8 hours trips or less from Beijing within China

Construction of an extraordinary underwater high-speed rail tunnel in China’s Bohai Strait is likely to start some time after 2016, Chinese media report.

The proposed undersea link would stretch more than 100km under Bohai Bay to become the world’s longest undersea tunnel, connecting the cities of Dalian and Yantai.

Experts say it will put the two cities within a 40-minute train ride of each other, where now a ferry-ride takes eight hours, while driving around Bohai Bay is a 1,400km road trip.

Wang Mengshu, the rail expert, said all provincial capitals will be linked to Beijing via high-speed rail, and that travelling times will be reduced to eight hours, except on routes between Beijing, Urumqi and Lhasa.

Any two of these provincial capitals will also be linked by high speed rail, he added.

Wang pointed out the coastal railway stretching from northeast China via 11 provincial regions to south China’s Hainan province, covering a length of 5700 kilometres, as a crown achievement.

The coastal railway will traverse Bohai and Qiongzhou straits via an underwater channel. Once complete, it will become a main route for energy transportation, he added.

China is also mulling a railway that stretches from China to Singapore via Thailand and Malaysia

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